Three From Venice

Take Note

We are the grit
That mars the paint
Or makes the pearl.

"Fiery dust,"
Lord Byron wrote,
Furious, fiendish;
Take proper note.

--MD

Bob Mould: "Walls In Time"

Here is another set of lyrics from Bob Mould's oh so excellent District Line, though you should really listen to the song . . . .

WALLS IN TIME

Is it a crime to want to show your soul?

Waste enough time, another black hole

Misguided, not even lost, not even sure

Now find the disease or the cure

Has life lost all its glory and wonder

Sad tales are told again and again

Sleep, toss and turn, my old bed

What a tale, again and again

Now all the stories of the world could fit in a building

In a building high and wide

Filed under headings that no one's quite sure of

Lord knows that everyone tried

When the pen meets the paper

When the mind, it begins to stray

How a soul could lose its will to explain

Oh, explain again and again

Day after day, day after day, day after day

Flowers losing life when picked from the ground

A nice arrangement for the occasion

But flowers, when moved from place to place

Lose all meaning, dislocation, dislocation

In a fit of fitless night, a flame attempts to spark a soul

Ignite, burn, candle light, a waste of time, another dead soul

If these walls around my soul could talk

The words would lose importance

Within these walls I hold so dear these words

We all want to leave a mark somewhere

For those of us who feign to care

In all unfortunate times we find a way

To build up these walls in time

To build up these walls in time

Is it a crime?

--Bob Mould

Robert Graves: "Arrow Shots" and Hitting The Mark

ARROW SHOTS


Only a madman could mistake,
          When shot at from behind a tree,
The whizz and thud that arrows make--
          Yours, for example, fired at me.


Some bows are drawn to blind or maim,
          I have known others drawn to kill,
But truth in love is your sole aim
          And proves your vulnerary skill.


Though often, drowsing at mid-day,
          I wince to find myself your mark,
Let me concede the hit, but say:
          "Your hand is steadiest after dark."




SHE TO HIM


To have it, sweetheart, is to know you have it
Rather than think you have it;
To think you have it is a wish to take it,
Though afterwards you would not have it--
And thus fear to take it.
Yet if you know you have it, you may take it
And know that still you have it.




THE YET UNSAYABLE


It was always fiercer, brighter, gentler than could be told
Even in words quickened by Truth's dark eye:
Its absence, whirlpool; its presence, deluge;
Its time, astonishment; its magnitude,
A murderous dagger-point.
                                            So we surrender
Our voices to the dried and scurrying leaves
And choose our own long-predetermined path
From the unsaid to the yet unsayable
In silence of love and lover's temerity.


--Robert Graves