Famous Poems

And

Neil Gaiman

William Blake

Smashing Pumpkins/Billy Corgan

Stabbing Westward

Emily Dickinson

Lord Byron

Emily Jane Bronte

Fading in the sun that shone;

We must speak of other matters:

You can be me when I’m gone

Neil Gaiman poems from Smoke and Mirrors

There was a computer game, I was given it

One of my friends gave it to me, he was playing it

He said, it’s brilliant, you should play it

And I did, and it was.

I copied it off the disk he gave me

For anyone, I wanted everyone to play it.

Everyone should have this much fun

I sent it upline to bulletin boards

But mainly I got it out to all my friends

(Personal contact. That’s the way it was given to me)

My friends were like me: some were scared of viruses,

Someone gave you a game on a disk, next week on Friday the 13^th

It reformatted your hard drive or corrupted your memory.

But this one never did that. This was dead safe.

Even my friends who didn’t like computers started to play:

As you get better the game gets harder;

Maybe you never win but you can get pretty good

I’m pretty good

Of course I have to spend a lot of time playing it.

So do my friends. And their friends.

And just the people you meet, you can see them, walking down motorways

Or standing in queues, away from their computers,

But they play it in their heads in the meantime,

Combining shapes

Puzzleing over contours, putting colors next to colors,

Twisting signals to new screen sections

Listening to the music

Sure, people think about it, but mainly they play it.

My record’s eighteen hours at a stretch.

40,012 points, 3 fanfares.

You play through the tears, the aching wrist, the hunger, after a while

It all goes away

All of it except the game, I should say.

There’s no room in my mind anymore; no room for other things

We copied the game, gave it to our friends.

It transcends language, occupies our time,

Sometimes I think I’m forgetting things these days

I wonder what happened to the TV? There used to be a TV.

I wonder what will happen when I run out of canned food?

I wonder where all the people went? And then I realize how,

If I’m fast enough, I can put a black square next to a red line,

Mirror it and rotate them so they both disappear,

Clearing the left block

For a white bubble to rise…

(so they disappear)

And when the power goes off for good then I will play it in my head until I die

A few years back al the animals went away.

We woke up one morning, and they just weren’t there anymore.

They didn’t even leave us a note, or say good-bye. We never figured out quite where they’d gone.

We missed them.

Some of us thought that the world had ended, but it hadn’t.

There just weren’t any more animals. No cats or rabbits, no dogs or whales, no fish in the seas, no birds in the skies.

We were all alone.

We didn’t know what to do.

We wandered around lost, for a time, and then someone pointed out that just because we didn’t have animals anymore, that was no reason to change our lives. No reason to change our diets or cease testing products that might cause us harm.

After all, there were still babies.

Babies can’t talk. They can hardly move. A baby is not a rational, thinking creature.

We made babies.

And we used them.

Some of them we ate. Baby flesh is tender and succulent.

We flayed their skin and decorated ourselves in it. Baby leather is soft and comfortable.

Some of them we tested.

We taped open their eyes, dripped detergents and shampoos in, a drop at a time.

We scarred them and scalded them. We burnt them. We clamped them and planted electrodes into their brains. We grafted, we froze, and we irradiated.

The babies breathed our smoke, and the babies’ veins flowed with our medicines and drugs until they stopped breathing or until their blood ceased to flow.

It was hard, of course, but it was necessary.

No one could deny that.

With the animals gone, what else could we do?

Some people complained, of course. But then, they always do.

And everything went back to normal.

Only…

Yesterday, all the babies were gone.

We don’t know where they went. We didn’t even see them go.

We don’t know what we’re going to do without them.

But we’ll think of something. Humans are smart. It’s what makes us superior to the animals and the babies.

We’ll figure something out.

Awake, awake my little boy!

Thou wast thy Mother’s only joy:

Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?

Awake! Thy father does thee keep.

"O, what land is the Land of Dreams?

What are its mountains, and what are its streams?

O Father, I saw Mother there,

Among the lillies by waters fair.

Among the lambs clothed in white

She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.

I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn

O when shall I return again?"

Dear child, I also by pleasant streams

Have wandered all night into the Land of Dreams;

But though calm and worn the waters wide,

I could not get to the other side.

"Father, O Father, what do we here,

in this land of unbelief and fear?

The Land of Dreams is better far

Above the light of the Morning Star."

Smashing Pumpkins/Billy Corgan Lyrics

Ain’t it funny how we pretend we’re still a child

Softly stolen under our blanket skies

And rescue me from me, and all that I believe

I won’t deny the pain

I wont’ deny the change

And should I fall from grace here with you

Will you leave me too?

Carve out your heart for keeps in an old oak tree

And hold me for goodbyes and whispered lullabyes

And tell me I am still

The man I’m supposed to be

I won’t deny the pain

I won’t deny the change

And should I fall from grace here with you

Will you leave me too?

Too late to turn back now, I’m running out of sounds

And I am changing, changing

And if we died right now, this fool you love somehow

Is here with you

I won’t deny the pain

I won’t deny the change

And should I fall from grace here with you

Would you leave me too?

To lie here and die among the sorrows

Adrift among the days

And everything I ever said

And everything I’ve ever done is gone and dead

As all things must surely have to end

And great loves will one day have to part

I know that I am meant for this world

My life has been extraordinary

Blessed and cursed and won

Time heals but I’m forever broken

By and by the way…

Have you ever heard the words

I’m singing in this song

Its for the girl, I’ve loved all along

Can a taste of love be so wrong

As all things must surely have to end

And great loves will one day have to part

I know that I am meant for this world

And in my mind as I was floating about the clouds

Some children laughed I’d fall for certain

For thinking that I’d last forever

But I knew exactly where I was

And I knew the meaning of it all

And I knew the distance to the sun

And I knew the echo that is love

And I knew the secrets in your spires

And I knew the emptiness of youth

And I knew the solitude of heart

And I knew the murmurs of the soul

And the world is drawn into your hands

And the world is etched upon your heart

And the world is so hard to understand

Is the world you can’t live without

And I knew the silence of the world

Cast the pearls aside, of a simple life of need

Come into my life forever

The crumbled cities stand as known

Of the sights you have been shown

Of the hurt you call your own

Love is suicide

The empty bodies stand at rest

Casualties of their own flesh

Afflicted by their dispossession

But no bodies ever knew

Nobody’s

No bodies felt like you

Nobody’s

Love is suicide

Now we drive the night, to the ironies of peace

You can’t help deny forever

The tragedies reside in you

The secret sights hide in you

The lonely night divide you in two

All my blisters now revealed

In the darkness of my dreams

In the spaces in between us

But no bodies ever knew

Nobodys

No bodies felt like you

Love is suicide

Stabbing Westward Lyrics from Darkest Days

The more I feel

The more I die

Nothing to give

Nothing inside

Everything I touch I break

I scratch and tear

Until it bleeds

I do not want

I only need

This is where my story ends

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life

It’s that it gets you in the end

So goodbye my friend

Goodbye

I’ve cried those tears a thousand times

But those shallow empty songs about suicide are patronizing

You’ve got to learn to face your fears

Or do you think I’ll be less lonely when I’m dead

It can’t silence all the voices in my head

I close my eyes but I can’t make it go away…

Do you think I’ll be less lonely when I’m dead

I know the songs you’re singing saying nothing loud and clear

I’ve heard that song a thousand times

But your noble empty lies about suicide are patronizing

You can never understand how I feel

Or do you think I’ll be less lonely when I’m dead

Emily Dickinson

If recollecting were forgetting

Then I remember not

And if forgetting, recollecting

How near I had forgot

And if to miss, were merry

And to mourn, wree gay

How very blithe the fingers

That gathered this, today.

A species stands beyond

Invisible as music

But positive as sound

It beckons, and it baffles

Philosophy-don’t know

And through a riddle, at the last

Sagacity must go

To guess it, puzzles scholars

To gain it, men have borne

Contempt of generations

And crucifixion, shown

Faith slips-and laughs, and rallies

Blushes, if any see

Plucks at a twig of evidence

And asks a Vane, the way

Much gesture, from the pulpit

Strong hallelujahs roll

Narcotics cannot still the tooth

That nibbles a the soul

Upon a festal day

‘Twill be because beyond the rose

I have been called away-

If I should cease to take the names

My buds commemorate-

‘Twill be because Death’s finger

Claps my murmuring lip

My life closed twice before its close

It yet remains to see

If immortality unveil

A third event to me

So huge, so helpless to conceive

As these that twice befell

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you-Nobody-Too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! They’d advertise-you know!

How dreary-to be-Somebody!

How public-like a frog

To tell one’s name-the livelong June

To an admiring bog!

Could die-did die

Could smile upon the whole

Through faith in one he met not,

To introduce his soul

Could go from scene familiar

To an untraversed spot-

Could contemplate the journey

With unpuzzled heart-

Such trust had one among us,

Among us not today-

We who saw the launching

Never sailed the bay

Heart! We will forget him!

You and I-tonight

You may forget the warmth he gave-

I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me

That I may straight begin!

Haste! Lest you’re lagging

I remember him!

It would hurt us-were we awake-

But since it is playing-kiss us

And we are playing-shriek

What harm? Men die-externally-

It is a truth-of blood

But we- are dying in drama

And drama-is never dead

Cautious-We jar each other

And either-open the eyes-

Lest the phantom-prove the mistake-

And the livid surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite-

With just an age-and name

And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian-

It’s prudenter-to dream

When We Two Parted- Lord Byron

When we two parted

In silence and tears

Half broken hearted

To sever for years

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow

If felt like a warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken

And light is thy fame;

I hear thy name spoken

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A kneel to mine ear;

A shudder came o’er me-

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee so well:-

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell

In secret we met-

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee?

With silence and tears

Emily Jane Bronte

Riches I hold in light esteem;

And love I laugh to scorn;

And lust of fame was but a dream

That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer

That moves my lips for me

Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,

And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal

‘Tis all that I implore:

In life and death a chainless soul,

With courage to endure

Without identity

And never care how rain may steep

Or snow may cover me!

No promised heaven these wild desires

Could all, or half, fulfill;

No threatened hell, with quenches fires,

Subdue this quenchless will!

So said I, and still say the same;

Still, to my death, will say-

Three gods within this little frame

Are warring night and day:

Heaven could not hold them all, and yet

They all are held in me;

And must be mind till I forget

My present entity!

Oh, for the time when in my breast

Their struggles will be o’er!

Oh, for the day when I shall rest,

And never suffer more.

More to come…well…someday anyway.