Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix

Anger, he smiles, towering in
Shiny metallic purple armor
Queen jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready
But wonder why the fight is on

But they're all
Bold as love
Yes, they're all bold as love
Yeah
They're all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident, he flashes trophies of war
And ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go-round
My yellow, in this case, is not so mellow
In fact, I'm trying to say, it's frightened like me
And all these emotions of mine
Keeps holding me from, eh
Giving my life to a rainbow like you

But, I'm, eh
Yeah, I'm bold as love
Yeah, yeah
Well, I'm bold
Bold as love
Hear me talking, girl
I'm bold as love
Just ask the axis
He knows everything
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah

Sirens
Angels & Airwaves

There's a weakness
In the window
Place my footprints
In the dark room
There's lonely voices
Like a scarecrow
In the hallway
Like a lost ghost
In the bedroom
I see a shadow
From the moon
With light from a candle
On a bedframe
Lies a girl
Her reflection
In the mirror

Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
I like your eyes wide
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
I've been knocking at your backdoor
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
Nervous like a knife fight
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
Be careful what you ask for

I do this from time to time
Where I can never wake from a bad dream
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I can never say the things I mean
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to watch you as you sleep
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to think of you with me

It's a dark night
On the West Coast
Then a soft breeze
As the sun rose
Then the phone rang
Like a gunshot
Like a siren
On the beach rock
There's a message
At the river
A certain package
Here to deliver
When the day breaks
After nightfall
I will be there
You know I will

Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
I like your eyes wide
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
I've been knocking at your backdoor
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
Nervous like a knife fight
Ladada, dadada, dadada, dadala, dada
Be careful what you ask for

I do this from time to time
Where I can never wake from a bad dream
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I can never say the things I mean
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to watch you as you sleep
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to think of you with me
(From time to time)

I can hear you breathe
I'm feeling the shake
And the sound of my heartbeat
Can't let go
Do you know
I'm feeling the pain
Of my first love
I won't let it go
Can't let go

I do this from time to time
Where I can never wake from a bad dream
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I can never say the things I mean
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to watch you as you sleep
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I want to taste you as you breathe
(From time to time)

I do this from time to time
Where I can never wake from a bad dream
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I can never say the things I mean
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to watch you as you sleep
(From time to time)
I do this from time to time
Where I like to think of you with me
(From time to time)

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
       And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
       "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
       No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
       To tell the laity of our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
       Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
       Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
       - Whose soul is sense - cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
       The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
       That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
       Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
       Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
       Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
       As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
       To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
       Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
       And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
       Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
       And makes me end where I begun.

The Guitar Man
Bread

Who draws the crowd?
Who plays so loud?
Baby, it's the guitar man
Who's gonna steal the show?
You know
Baby, it's the guitar man

He can make you laugh
He can make you cry
He will bring you down
Then he'll get you high
Somethin' keeps him going
Miles and miles a day
To find another place
To play

Night after night
Who treats you right?
Baby, it's the guitar man
Who's on the radio?
You go listen
To the guitar man

Then he comes to town
And you see his face
And you think you might
Like to take his place
Somethin' keeps him drifting
Miles and miles away
Ooo, searchin' for the songs
To play

Then you listen to the music and you like to sing along
You want to get the meaning out of each and ev'ry song
Then you find yourself a message and some words to call your own
And take 'em home

He can make you love
He can get you high
He will bring you down
Then he'll make, make you cry
Somethin' keeps him moving
But no one seems to know
What it is that makes
Him go

Then the lights begin to flicker and the sound is getting dim
But he never seems to notice
He's just got to find another place to play

Fade away
Got to play
Fade away
Got to play

The Time Around Scars
Michael Ondaatje

A girl whom I’ve not spoken to
or shared coffee with for several years
writes of an old scar.
On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white,
the size of a leech.
I gave it to her
Brandishing a new Italian penknife.
Look, I said turning,
and blood spat onto her shirt.

My wife has scars like spread raindrops
on knees and ankles,
she talks of broken greenhouse panes
and yet, apart from imaging red feet,
(a nymph out of Chagall)
I bring little to that scene.
We remember the time around scars,
they freeze irrelevant emotions
and divide us from present friends.
I remember this girl’s face,
the widening rise of surprise.

And would she
moving with lover or husband
conceal or flaunt it,
or keep it at her wrist
a mysterious watch.
And this scar I then remember
is a medallion of no emotion.

I would meet you now
and I would wish this scar
to have been given with
all the love
that never occurred between us.

Sometimes you look outside and all you see is grey, sometimes you wonder if you’re sick inside, if all that trash on the side of the road is seeping into you and making your head hurt. Migraines are just a symptom, just veins constricting and making the edges of your vision blur. Taking pills doesn’t help. Sometimes it helps just to stare into the sun for a while, maybe it hurts but its a different sort of pain, your corneas can take it.

Blow warm air into your cold red fingers, knowing this is the same air that’s been breathed for thousands of years, only it keeps getting dirtier. We’ve all got roots somewhere though and as long as you keep them wet they’ll keep growing, reaching down into the earth past all the lead and hydrocarbons and finding some sustenance down there somewhere.

Even when it seems like we keep making the earth smaller with all our advances, with all our technology that just gives people an excuse to stay further and further away. They’ll keep laying down that pavement but it’s more corruptible than our hearts, if you keep pushing it’ll give way. Sometimes pushing makes your head hurt too, but don’t ever stop. Keep reaching for the sunlight and counting the stars you can still see.

Maybe if you scream loud enough someone somewhere will hear you, and join in. All the tunnels under the earth will ring with it and we’ll wake up the worms, and they’ll scream too.

If you sit in the woods at night you can hear the trees groaning. Press your lips to the bark and say “I’m sorry, tree, everything is going to be ok”, even if everything’s not, and just let your forehead rest there for a while. Try counting the stars again “one, two, three, four… five? six?”, just don’t give up.

Falling in love is rebellion so you should just love everything as hard as you can.

-written by flo isoceles.

I wish we were old friends. Sitting in midnight. I would tell you how wonderfully ridiculous you are. As is. Off the rack with the imperfect seams and irregular weave. The comfiest of clothes. Define, deconstruct, destroy (all evidence). The laughs that hide in folds of fleece and pillow creases. Corduroy pressings all down your cheek. Secrets flipped between our fingers, masters of prestidigitation for the words we’ll wish we’d left cupped against our wrists. Tonight (for one night only) a stunning display of illusions left behind the curtain. Show me the tricks in your magic jacket. The layers of invisibility: masks, cloaks, springs, switches, hinges and alternate dimensions. The manifestations of ill-defined self.

Never mind if I see through; glamours never work on your own kind. You should know. The rough edges will never be smooth on the bottom. Looking up from where I sit. Cross-legged and waiting. Folded hands, laced fingers, pressed against my mouth. I am smiling at me at you. The intimacy of never locking eyes/lips/arms. We are our own. Full-possession, full-stop: I am everything you think. You will not be afraid of my thoughts and neither will I. We will speak our opinions when no one wants to hear them. We will be gloriously wrong and hilariously right. After the humour fades into darkness over daylight, and the tangents spiral in Mobius strips. Pick a thread. Any thread. To unravel the stories, re-weave that shirt.

-written by Jessica N. Coles

       Music connects people. People from all over, people who would otherwise never be connected.
       Music can touch them all.
       Music connects us.

Bright Lights
Matchbox Twenty

She got out of town
On the railway, New York bound
Took all except my name
Another alien on Broadway
Well, some things in this world
You just can't change
Some things you can't see
Until it gets too late

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone
Who will save me
From all I'm up against
Out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough
To keep you
But if the bright lights
Don't receive you
You should turn yourself around
And come on home

I got a hole in me now
I got a scar I can talk about
She keeps a picture of me
In her apartment in the city
But some things in this world
Man, they don't make sense
Some things you don't leave
Unitl they leave you
And then the things that you miss, you say

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone
Who will save me
From all I'm up against
Out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough
To keep you
But if the bright lights
Don't receive you
You should turn yourself around
And come on home

Let that city take you in
(Come on home)
Let that city spit you out
(Come on home)
Let that city take you down
Yeah
For Godsakes, turn around

Baby, baby, baby
When all your love is gone
Who will save me
From all I'm up against
Out in this world
Well, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough
To keep you
But if the bright lights
Don't receive you
Well, you should turn yourself around
And come on home

Yeah, come on home
Baby, baby, baby, baby
Come on home
Yeah, come on home
Yeah, come on home
Yeah, come on home
Baby, baby, baby, baby
Come on home

A Case Of You
Joni Mitchell

Just before our love got lost, you said
"I am as constant as a northern star."
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me, I'll be in the bar."

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh, Canada
With your face sketched on it twice

Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter
And so sweet, oh
I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh, I would still be on my feet

Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't
Afraid
I remember that time you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter
And so sweet, oh
I could drink a case of you
Oh, darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
"Go to him,
Stay with him if you can,
But be prepared to bleed."

Oh, but you are in my blood
You're my holy wine
You're so bitter
Bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you
Oh, darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

Hallelujah
Jeff Buckley

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby, I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
You know, I used to live alone before I knew you
But I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the Holy Dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, maybe there's a god above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Consummate Mask of Rock
Bruce Nauman

1. This is my mask of fidelity to truth and life.
2. This is to cover to mask of pain and desire.
3. This is to mask the cover of need for human companionship.
4. This is to mask the cover.
5. This is to cover the mask.
6. This is the need of cover.
7. This is the need of a mask.
8. This is the mask of cover of need.
9. Nothing and no
9. No thing and no mask can cover the lack, alas.
10. Lack after nothing before cover revoked.
11. Lack before cover
    paper covers rock
    rock breaks mask
    alas, alack.
12. Nothing to cover
13. This is the
13. This is the mask to cover my infidelity to truth.
14.
13. This is the mask to cover my infidelity to truth.
    (This is my cover.)
14. This is the need for pain that contorts my mask conveying the message of truth and fidelity to life.
15. This is the truth that distorts my need for human companionship.
16. This is the distortion of truth masked by my painful need.
17. This is the mask of my painful need distressed by truth and human companionship.
18. This is my painless mask that fails to touch my face but floats before the surface of my skin my eyes my
teeth my tongue.
19. Desire is my mask.
    (Musk of desire)
20. Rescind desire
    cover revoked
    desire revoked
    cover rescinded.
21. PEOPLE DIE OF EXPOSURE.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

     -Proverb

If You Forget Me
Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

The Adventure
Angels & Airwaves

I want to have the same last dream again
The one where I wake up and I'm alive
Just as the four walls close me within
My eyes are opened up with pure sunlight

I'm the first to know, my dearest friends
Even if your hope has burned with time
Anything that's dead shall be regrown
And your vicious pain, your warning sign
You will be fine

Hello, here I am
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin

Any type of love, it will be shown
Like every single tree reach for the sky
If you're gonna fall, I'll let you know
That I will pick you up like you for I

I felt this thing I can't replace
That everyone was working for this goal
Where all the children left without a trace
Only to come back as pure as gold
To recite this song

Hello, here I am
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin
Tonight

Hello, here I am
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin
Tonight

Hello, here I am
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

I cannot live
I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me

Hello, here I am
(Do this with me)
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin
(Do this with me)

Hello, here I am
(Do this with me)
And here we go
Life's waiting to begin

Life's waiting to begin.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
e. e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
Said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Touched by An Angel
Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

       But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
            - John 8:7

The City
C. P. Cavafy

You said, "I will go to another place, to another shore.
Another city can be found that's better than this.
All that I struggle for is doomed, condemned to failure;
and my heart is like a corpse interred.
How long will my mind stagger under this misery?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look
I see the blackened ruins of my life,
which for years on end I squandered and wrecked and ravaged."

You will find no other place, no other shores.
This city will possess you, and you'll wander the same
Streets. In these same neighborhoods you'll grow old;
in these same houses you'll turn gray.
Always you'll return to this city. Don't even hope for another.
There's no boat for you, there's no other way out.
In this way you've destroyed your life here,
in this little corner, you've destroyed it everywhere else.