The Writer's Almanac from Sunday, March 17, 2013 "Places to Return" by Dana Gioia, from The Gods of Winter. © Graywolf Press, 1991. ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013 Today is St. Patrick's Day, a day to celebrate all things Irish. If you are in the mood, you can sing some classic Irish folk songs.
Gary is my neighbor!!! Such a great guy!
If you’d like to hear the best version, ever, of Danny Boy, check out the Vocal Majority barbershop version. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Bending, Everything Is
Paths lead up, down. Day’s not east. All’s traffic.
In these necessary hours, a man lifts his arms,
stretching a ready, signaling crimson. A long
shadow adds you. The you adds with. And all
night, love. Bending everything. So, if numbers
inquire, tell them we are the ones, they are ones,
I am one: awe-filled not a turned-brain knob.
If the numbers inquire, tell me you are a one, I
am your one, we truckle, burnished, roan now, in
submarine confusion, swollen, last guest, happy
proclaiming life is the insult. Even when it’s not.
If the numbers inquire, you can say how differing
drummers relive, repeat lessons of pilgrimage,
malaise, the hungering decline of allegiances,
how to fill a numb center, to reshape the line.
Night is a dream and I am dreamt by trees. Trees
are like words. Words are veils. In the forests,
the stones are moss-covered. The trees sign to the stones.
Between two there are lichens. Between things, words.
Words are the things. But we don’t grow wise. Last
night, trees dreampt me, you took me into your arms.
The chill on the night is a path. We don’t grow wise.
Hold me. Night is a dream. Permission varies, a person
changes, no fiction’s real. The lovers, joined, were
separable. Indistinguishable. Not to themselves: so
neither could extirpate the memory? How could they
be true to their natures? It made them like numbers.
In the jail of San Francisco a gardener’s more beautiful
than his roses. That odor of decay in tender flesh.
In the Johnny Neptune Bar where the Sunset guys shout
“lemme have a Bud, I need a bud” a man is fucked.
“Queer” is a family where since they spoke the same
language all the people understood each other as they
wandered looking for a land to like. When they found
it, they began to change it into a great decorated city.
With decorated walls, courtyards and a tower to make
them famous as Babel because that beckons a proud
people who although overweened and confounded with
a curse of voices were one family of bending numbers.
Here cross-dressing is transpersonal. The drag’s hero.
Here the mix and match malebox is full. Check it out
You can’t order tools for living. Cross-dressing for
counterfeiters, ersatz, fake, actors, novices, postulants.
Pass. Received, recommended. Each an encore. Awe-
some is not the word. Try another body, try clone, truly
yours, try genetic position, try engineering (impotent
mission) try to change anything. Change your whistle!
Divent, divest, invent, invest, enter the second journey
moving through to dis-embody, trans-body, cross over.
Try to change your lord: memory. Go to another planet.
Drag-queen’s hero, transpersonal. Check it out. Try.
(C) Copyright Edward Mycue
Gary is my neighbor!!! Such a great guy!
If you’d like to hear the best version, ever, of Danny Boy, check out the Vocal Majority barbershop version. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Bending, Everything Is
Paths lead up, down. Day’s not east. All’s traffic.
In these necessary hours, a man lifts his arms,
stretching a ready, signaling crimson. A long
shadow adds you. The you adds with. And all
night, love. Bending everything. So, if numbers
inquire, tell them we are the ones, they are ones,
I am one: awe-filled not a turned-brain knob.
If the numbers inquire, tell me you are a one, I
am your one, we truckle, burnished, roan now, in
submarine confusion, swollen, last guest, happy
proclaiming life is the insult. Even when it’s not.
If the numbers inquire, you can say how differing
drummers relive, repeat lessons of pilgrimage,
malaise, the hungering decline of allegiances,
how to fill a numb center, to reshape the line.
Night is a dream and I am dreamt by trees. Trees
are like words. Words are veils. In the forests,
the stones are moss-covered. The trees sign to the stones.
Between two there are lichens. Between things, words.
Words are the things. But we don’t grow wise. Last
night, trees dreampt me, you took me into your arms.
The chill on the night is a path. We don’t grow wise.
Hold me. Night is a dream. Permission varies, a person
changes, no fiction’s real. The lovers, joined, were
separable. Indistinguishable. Not to themselves: so
neither could extirpate the memory? How could they
be true to their natures? It made them like numbers.
In the jail of San Francisco a gardener’s more beautiful
than his roses. That odor of decay in tender flesh.
In the Johnny Neptune Bar where the Sunset guys shout
“lemme have a Bud, I need a bud” a man is fucked.
“Queer” is a family where since they spoke the same
language all the people understood each other as they
wandered looking for a land to like. When they found
it, they began to change it into a great decorated city.
With decorated walls, courtyards and a tower to make
them famous as Babel because that beckons a proud
people who although overweened and confounded with
a curse of voices were one family of bending numbers.
Here cross-dressing is transpersonal. The drag’s hero.
Here the mix and match malebox is full. Check it out
You can’t order tools for living. Cross-dressing for
counterfeiters, ersatz, fake, actors, novices, postulants.
Pass. Received, recommended. Each an encore. Awe-
some is not the word. Try another body, try clone, truly
yours, try genetic position, try engineering (impotent
mission) try to change anything. Change your whistle!
Divent, divest, invent, invest, enter the second journey
moving through to dis-embody, trans-body, cross over.
Try to change your lord: memory. Go to another planet.
Drag-queen’s hero, transpersonal. Check it out. Try.
(C) Copyright Edward Mycue