31 January 2014

but don't worry, be


Labor Day

but don't worry, be
happy. There's
always a silver
lining in every dark
cloud. Trust in
the American
Dream in
a country where
anyone can become
President. Remember
that we live
in a society
unburdened by
class. Trust that
progress is the driving
engine of our
time and that
your representatives
have your best
interests at heart.
Don't forget that when
God closes a
door, he always
opens a window. In spite
of everything, still
believe that people
are good at heart.
And always
remember that
murder will out.

L. Steve Schmersal, Labor Day, 2014

09 January 2014

I loved you for


I loved you for the
Length of time
It takes to burn a
Cigarette, as one
Does, in the mouth.

A cigarette does not
Burn for long, it
Seems, but in the
Eternity of loving, it
Can last for a forever:

A tiny fire, and a smoke,
A glow, and a breath;
A heat, not hot
Enough to warm, yet
Red enough to burn.

L. Steve Schmersal, I loved you for, 2014

02 January 2014

It snows in New York



Es schneit

Es schneit in New York.
Ich hab zu viele Gefühle zu fühlen
To contain all the whispers in the snow


L. Steve Schmersal, Es schneit, 2014.

Ellipses between brackets: Happy New Year, Everyone



[...]

Why don't you think of Him as the One who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the One who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting His birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy?

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1902-1908



[...]

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919



[...]

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah
What condition my condition was in

I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag within
I tripped on a cloud
And fell eight miles high
I tore my mind
On a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah
What condition my condition was in

I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole
And then I followed it in
I watched myself crawlin' out
As I was crawlin' in
I got up so tight I couldn't unwind
I saw so much
I broke my mind
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah
What condition my condition was in

Someone painted "April Fool"
In big black letters on a Dead End sign
I had my foot on the gas
As I left the road
And blew out my mind
Eight miles outta Memphis
And I got no spare
Eight miles straight up
Downtown somewhere
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

I said I just dropped in to see
What condition my condition was in
Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.

The First Edition, Just Dropped In, 1967; Kenny Rogers, lead; Mickey Newbury, songwriter.