The Influences We Heed

"Halfway to work and Merriman already has told me
What he thinks about the balanced budget, the Mets'
Lack of starting pitching, the dangers of displaced
Soviet nuclear engineers, soy products, and diesel cars.

I look out the window and hope I'll see a swan.
I hear they're bad-tempered but I love their necks
And how they glide along so sovereignly.
I never take the time to drive to a pond

And spend an hour watching swans. What
Would happen if I heeded the admonitions of beauty?
When I look over at Merriman, he's telling Driscoll
That the President doesn't know what he's doing
With China. "China," I say out loud but softly.
I go back to the window. It's started snowing."

- "Opinion" by Baron Wormser

from Subject Matter: Poems

Decision '08

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."

- Kahlil Gibran

Ah Yout'

I’ve had a little bit too much
All of the people start to rush by
How does he twist the dance?
Can’t find my drink, oh man
Where are my keys?
I lost my phone

What’s going on on the floor?
I love this record, baby
But I can’t see straight anymore
Keep it cool
What’s the name of this club?
I can’t remember
But it’s alright

Just dance
Gonna be okay
Da-da-doo-doo
Just dance
Spin that record babe
Da-da-doo-doo
Just dance

- Select lyrics from Just Dance (2008)

Lyrics by Colby O'Donis

Performed by Lady GaGa

Losing Love

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young
And some when they are old
Some strangle with the hands of Lust
Some with the hands of Gold
The kindest use a knife
Because
 the dead so soon grow cold

Some love too little, some too long
Some sell, and others buy
Some do the deed with many tears
And some without a sigh
For each man kills the thing he loves
Yet each man does not die.

- An Except from The Ballad Of Reading Gaol (Part I)

by Oscar Wilde 
(1854-1900)

Of Wanting

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names--
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

- "What We Want" by Linda Pastan

from Carnival Evening

No Country for Old Men

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

- Sailing to Byzantium

by William Butler Yeats (1928)

On Old Cape Cod

If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air
Quaint little villages here and there
You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod

If you like the taste of a lobster stew
Served by a window with an ocean view
You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod

Winding roads that seem to beckon you
Miles of green beneath a sky of blue
Church bells chimin' on a Sunday morn
Remind you of the town where you were born

If you spend an evening you'll want to stay
Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay
You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod

If you spend an evening you'll want to stay
Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay
You're sure to fall in love
With old Cape Cod

- "Old Cape Cod", written by Claire Rothrock, Milt Yakus

and Allan Jeffrey and released in 1957;

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Harry got up
Dressed all in black
Went down to the station
And he never came back
They found his clothing
Scattered somewhere down the track
And he won't be down on Wall Street
in the morning

He had a home
The love of a girl
But men get lost sometimes
As years unfurl
One day he crossed some line
And he was too much in this world
But I guess it doesn't matter anymore

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
Things can get pretty strange
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute

Lying here in the darkness
I hear the sirens wail
Somebody going to emergency
Somebody's going to jail
If you find somebody to love in this world
You better hand on tooth and nail
The wolf is always at the door

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
Things can get a little strange
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute

And in these days
When darkness falls early
And people rush home
To the ones they love
You better take a fool's advice
And take care of your own
One day they're here;
Next day they're gone

I pulled my coat around my shoulders
And took a walk down through the park
The leaves were falling around me
The groaning city in the gathering dark
On some solitary rock
A desperate lover left his mark,
"Baby, I've changed. Please come back."

What the head makes cloudy
The heart makes very clear
The days were so much brighter
In the time when she was here
But I know there's somebody somewhere
Make these dark clouds disappear
Until that day, I have to believe
I believe, I believe

In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute
You can get out of the rain
In a New York Minute
Everything can change
In a New York Minute

- From "New York Minute" performed by Don Henley

The Farmer Hogget and Camille Saint-Saen

If I had words to make a day for you,
I'd sing you a morning golden & true
I would make this day last for all time
then fill the night deep with moonshine.

- The "Farmer Hogget" Song from the movie Babe (1995)
Sung to Saint-Saens'  Symphony No.3 in C Minor, Op. 78

(the Organ Symphony)

O Day Full Of Grace

O day full of grace, which we behold,
To us from the sea ascending;
You over the earth your reign unfold,
Good cheer to all mortals lending,
That children of light in every clime
May prove that the night is ending!

How blest was that gracious midnight hour,
When Christ in the flesh was given;
Then flushed from the east the dawn with pow’r,

That spread o’er the darkened heaven;
Then rose o’er the world that sun divine
Which gloom from our hearts has driven.

Were all of the trees endowed with speech,
Were all of the leaflets singing,
They never with praise His worth could reach,
Though earth with their praise were ringing.
Who fully could praise the Light of Life,
Who light to our souls is bringing?

As birds in the morning sing God’s praise,
His fatherly love we cherish,
For giving to us this day of grace,
For life that shall never perish.
His Church He has kept these thousand years,
And hungering souls did nourish.

With joy we approach our Father’s land,
Where day is forever dwelling,
Where ready for us His mansions stand,
Where heaven with praise is swelling;
And there we shall walk in endless light,
With blest ones His praise forth telling.

- N.F.S. Grundtvig, 1826