Creep Song Quotes

I feel the madness creeping slowly, Loved by many, I'm still lonely, Paid the price for your mistakes, The music died the day I walked away.

One Step...and then the next gets you where you're going." - Sister Creep

Past relationships are nothing more than a collection of songs you can no longer listen to.

Have you ever had a moment where you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were in the right place? That you were on the right journey? Maybe the sense that you’d crossed a boundary, jumped a hurdle, and somehow, after facing some unconquerable mountain, found yourself suddenly on the other side of it? When the night was warm and the wind was cool, and a song carried through the quiet streets around you. When you felt the entire world around you, and you were part of it—of the hum of it—and everything was good. Contentment, I suppose, is the simple explanation for it. But it seems more than that, thicker than that, some unity of purpose, some sense of being truly, honestly, for that moment, at home. Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you’re left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn’t—that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you’d be faced with the burden of crossing it again. The song ends, and you stare at the quiet, dark house in front of you, and you grasp the doorknob, and walk back into your life.

Little Crazy Love Song” I don’t want eventual, I want soon. It’s 5 a.m. It’s noon. It’s dusk falling to dark. I listen to music. I eat up a few wild poems while time creeps along as though it’s got all day. This is what I have. The dull hangover of waiting, the blush of my heart on the damp grass, the flower-faced moon. A gull broods on the shore where a moment ago there were two. Softly my right hand fondles my left hand as though it were you.

And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked song they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks and they didn’t frighten me any more

She's sweet on Wagner. I think she'd die for Beethoven. she loves the way Puccini lays down a tune, and Verdi's always creeping from her room.

What would you have me do? Seek for the patronage of some great man, And like a creeping vine on a tall tree Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone? No thank you! Dedicate, as others do, Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon In the vile hope of teasing out a smile On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad For breakfast every morning? Make my knees Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,- Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust? No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right Too proud to know his partner's business, Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire God gave me to burn incense all day long Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you! Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps And licking fingers?-or-to change the form- Navigating with madrigals for oars, My sails full of the sighs of dowagers? No thank you! Publish verses at my own Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint Of a small group of literary souls Who dine together every Tuesday? No I thank you! Shall I labor night and day To build a reputation on one song, And never write another? Shall I find True genius only among Geniuses, Palpitate over little paragraphs, And struggle to insinuate my name In the columns of the Mercury? No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid, Love more to make a visit than a poem, Seek introductions, favors, influences?- No thank you! No, I thank you! And again I thank you!-But... To sing, to laugh, to dream To walk in my own way and be alone, Free, with a voice that means manhood-to cock my hat Where I choose-At a word, a Yes, a No, To fight-or write.To travel any road Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne- Never to make a line I have not heard In my own heart; yet, with all modesty To say:"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." So, when I win some triumph, by some chance, Render no share to Caesar-in a word, I am too proud to be a parasite, And if my nature wants the germ that grows Towering to heaven like the mountain pine, Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes- I stand, not high it may be-but alone!

The closer I creep toward the precipice of forty, the more time I spend listening to the same songs I listened to in high school and combing through surprisingly vivid memories of my time there, which is wild, because I did not actually have a good time being young!

Her evil cannot reach us here. Let us burn the ancient tree-mace trees and close off the ancient ways. Tear down the tower, the crown of our barrow, and let us hide ourselves from evil. Let no one leave the mound, and if evil grows, we shall flee farther. No! Let evil hear the pounding of our feet! Let evil hear our drumming and our chanting songs of war. Let evil fear us! Let evil flee! In any world, may dark things know our names and fear. May their vile skins creep and shiver at every mention of the faeren. Let the night flee before the dawn and darkness crowd into the shadows. We march to war!" - Nudd, the Chestnut King

There are times, late at night, when your son would wake believing a bullet is lodged inside him. He’d feel it floating on the right side of his chest, just between the ribs. The bullet was always here, the boy thinks, older even than himself—and his bones, tendons, and veins had merely wrapped around the metal shard, sealing it inside him. It wasn’t me, the boy thinks, who was inside my mother’s womb, but this bullet, this seed I bloomed around. Even now, as the cold creeps in around him, he feels it poking out from his chest, slightly tenting his sweater. He feels for the protrusion but, as usual, finds nothing. It’s receded, he thinks. It wants to stay inside me. It is nothing without me. Because a bullet without a body is a song without ears.

Todd, trust math. As in Matics, Math E. First-order predicate logic. Never fail you. Quantities and their relation. Rates of change. The vital statistics of God or equivalent. When all else fails. When the boulder's slid all the way back to the bottom. When the headless are blaming. When you do not know your way about. You can fall back and regroup around math. Whose truth is deductive truth. Independent of sense or emotionality. The syllogism. The identity. Modus Tollens. Transitivity. Heaven's theme song. The night light on life's dark wall, late at night. Heaven's recipe book. The hydrogen spiral. The methane, ammonia, H2O. Nucleic acids. A and G, T and C. The creeping inevibatility. Caius is mortal. Math is not mortal. What it is is: listen: it's true.

My delight is the exquisite. Yes, for me, Glitter and sunlight and love Are one society. So I shall not go creeping away To die in the dark: I shall go on living with you, Loving and loved.

The doo-wop stalker love song on a Cincinnati oldies station--you broke up with me because I was an obnoxious jerk and now you're dating him, so I drive by your house and stare in your window every night, thereby proving that I'm an even bigger creep than you thought

Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds. Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the moorhen's plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last. From the dim woods on either bank, Night's ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear- guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns in stillness.

Cradle Song for Eleanor”: Sleep, my darling, sleep; The pity of it all Is all we compass if We watch disaster fall. Put off your twenty-odd Encumbered years and creep Into the only heaven, The robbers’ cave of sleep. The wild grass will whisper, Lights of passing cars Will streak across your dreams And fumble at the stars; Life will tap the window Only too soon again, Life will have her answer – Do not ask her when. When the winsome bubble Shivers, when the bough Breaks, will be the moment But not here or now. Sleep and, asleep, forget The watchers on the wall Awake all night who know The pity of it all.

Whoever has created An abiding friendship, Or has won A true and loving wife, All who can call at least one soul theirs, Join in our song of praise; But any who cannot must creep tearfully Away from our circle.

She played with her eyes closed. He closed his own eyes, joining her in the darkness. She had said the song depicted a battle, but nothing of the sort came to mind, no lofty images of horses and banners waving or battalions clashing over hills. Only darkness and a pure sound that filled him, creeping into spaces he hadn’t known were empty.

However much they may smile at her, the old inhabitants would miss Tillie. Her stories give them something to talk about and to conjecture about, cut off as they are from the restless currents of the world. The many naked little sandbars which lie between Venice and the mainland, in the seemingly stagnant water of the lagoons, are made habitable and wholesome only because, every night, a foot and a half of tide creeps in from the sea and winds its fresh brine up through all that network of shining waterways. So, into all the little settlements of quiet people, tidings of what their boys and girls are doing in the world bring real refreshment; bring to the old, memories, and to the young, dreams.

My Dearest, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away. I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. “Do you know her?” they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer with the truth. “Better than my own heart.” I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again. I raise my hand and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you’ll pull back, but of course you don’t. You never have, and it is at times like this that I know what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be. But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us. I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is impossible. And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanishes and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.

For, to be woken up at five in the morning by the devotional treacle of Anup Jalota, Hari Om Sharan and other confectioners, all of them simultaneously droning out from several different cassette players; to be relentlessly assaulted for the rest of the day and most of the night by the alternately over-earnest and insolent voices of Kumar Sanu, Alisha Chinoy, Baba Sehgal singing 'Sexy, Sexy, Sexy', and 'Ladki hai kya re baba', 'Sarkaye leyo khatiya' and other hideous songs; to have them insidiously leak into your memory and become moronic refrains running over and over again in your mind; to have your environment polluted and your day destroyed in this way was to know a deepening rage, an impulse to murder, and, finally, a creeping fear at one's own dangerous level of derangement. It was to understand the perfectly sane people you read about in the papers, who suddenly explode into violence one fine day; it was to conceive a lasting hatred for the perpetrators, rich or poor, of these auditory atrocities. (on why he left Varanasi after a few days)

Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds.  Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the moorhen’s plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last. From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns in stillness.

Song for the Last Act Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook. Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of yet another summer loath to go Although the scythes hang in the apple trees. Now that I have your face by heart, I look. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read In the black chords upon a dulling page Music that is not meant for music's cage, Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed. The staves are shuttled over with a stark Unprinted silence. In a double dream I must spell out the storm, the running stream. The beat's too swift. The notes shift in the dark. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves; The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

the name Lannister sent cold fingers creeping up his spine. There was something about the Lannisters, something he ought to remember, but when he tried to think what, he felt dizzy and his stomach clenched hard as a stone. Robb spent

The drinking dens are spilling out There's staggering in the square There's lads and lasses falling about And a crackling in the air Down around the dungeon doors The shelters and the queues Everybody's looking for Somebody's arms to fall into And it's what it is It's what it is now There's frost on the graves and the monuments But the taverns are warm in town People curse the government And shovel hot food down The lights are out in the city hall The castle and the keep The moon shines down upon it all The legless and asleep And it's cold on the tollgate With the wagons creeping through Cold on the tollgate God knows what I could do with you And it's what it is It's what it is now The garrison sleeps in the citadel With the ghosts and the ancient stones High up on the parapet A Scottish piper stands alone And high on the wind The highland drums begin to roll And something from the past just comes And stares into my soul And it's cold on the tollgate With the Caledonian Blues Cold on the tollgate God knows what I could do with you And it's what it is It's what it is now What it is It's what it is now There's a chink of light, there's a burning wick There's a lantern in the tower Wee Willie Winkie with a candlestick Still writing songs in the wee wee hours On Charlotte Street I take A walking stick from my hotel The ghost of Dirty Dick Is still in search of Little Nell And it's what it is It's what it is now Oh what it is What it is now

Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you’re left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn’t—that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you’d be faced with the burden of crossing it again. The song ends, and you stare at the quiet, dark house in front of you, and you grasp the doorknob, and walk back into your life.

In the seventeenth century there occurred the spiritual possession by divers demons of the nuns belonging to the Ursuline convent at Aix-en-Provence. Excommunication was soon in coming for the blighted sisters, who had been seduced into assorted blasphemies by the likes of Grésil, Sonnillon, and Vérin. De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal respectively characterizes these demons, in the words of an unknown translator, as “the one who glistens horribly like a rainbow of insects; the one who quivers in a horrible manner; and the one who moves with a particular creeping motion.

He was an extremely intelligent boy-slash-man from a working- to middle-class family—from what, if he got drunk enough, he called trash—and those two biographical coordinates have always worked on me the way a handsome face never could. His weekly emails to the staff were small masterpieces chiseled out of wit, both anarchic and dry, and what I suspected was creeping intellectual boredom.

Darkness surrounded her, suffocated her. She tried to pierce it, but her eyes could find no hint of light. Nothing that would help her escape this prison. Weight pressed down upon her, heavy enough to crush her bones. And perhaps it had. There was no part of her that didn’t hurt so much that she wanted to howl with it. But when she opened her mouth, dirt and dust tried to choke her. Cold. Pain. Silence. No hope. Then a voice came to her, burrowing down through the soil and coiling around her. “When love,” a woman began to sing softly, “into my dreams was creeping. I gave my heart into your keeping.” Pure ecstasy. How she needed that voice, that presence to alleviate the darkness and pain and salvage her sanity. Tears welled in her eyes as she let the soft song embrace her. Her breath hitched.

A morning-flowered dalliance demured and dulcet-sweet with ebullience and efflorescence admiring, cozy cottages and elixirs of eloquence lie waiting at our feet - We'll dance through fetching pleasantries as we walk ephemeral roads evocative epiphanies ethereal, though we know our hearts are linked with gossamer halcyon our day a harbinger of pretty things infused with whispers longing still and gamboling in sultry ways to feelings, all ineffable screaming with insouciance masking labyrinthine paths where, in our nonchalance, we walk through the lilt of love’s new morning rays. Mellifluous murmurings from a babbling brook that soothes our heated passion-songs and panoplies perplexed with thought of shadows carried off with clouds in stormy summer rains… My dear, and that I can call you 'dear' after ripples turned to crashing waves after pyrrhic wins, emotions drained we find our palace sunned and rayed with quintessential moments lit with wildflower lanterns arrayed on verandahs lush with mutual love, the softest love – our preferred décor of life's lilly-blossom gate in white-fenced serendipity… Twilight sunlit heavens cross our gardens, graced with perseverance, bliss, and thee, and thou, so splendid, delicate as a morning dove of charm and mirth – at least with me; our misty mornings glide through air... So with whippoorwill’d sweet poetry - of moonstones, triumphs, wonder-woven in chandliers of winglet cherubs wrought with time immemorial, crafted with innocence, stowed away and brought to light upon our day in hallelujah tapestries of ocean-windswept galleries in breaths of ballet kisses, light, skipping to the breakfast room cascading chrysalis's love in diaphanous imaginings delightful, fleeting, celestial-viewed as in our eyes which come to rest evocative, exuberant on one another’s moon-stowed dreams idyllic, in quiescent ways, peaceful in their radiance resplendent with a myriad of thought soothing muse, rhapsodic song until the somnolence of night spreads out again its shaded truss of luminescent fantasies waiting to be loved by us… Oh, love! Your sincerest pardons begged! I’ve gone too long, I’ve rambled, dear, and on and on and on and on - as if our hours were endless here… A morning toast, with orange-juiced lips exalting transcendent minds suffused with sunrise symphonies organic-born tranquilities sublimed sonorous assemblages with scintillas of eternity beating at our breasts – their embraces but a blushing, longing glance away… I’ll end my charms this enraptured morn' before cacophony and chafe coarse in crude and rough abrade when cynical distrust is laid by hoarse and leeching parasites, distaste fraught with smug disgust by hairy, smelly maladroit mediocrities born of poisoned wells grotesque with selfish lies - shrill and shrieking, biting, creeping around our love, as if they rose from Edgar Allen’s own immortal rumpled decomposing clothes… Oh me, oh my! I am so sorry! can you forgive me? I gone and kissed you for so long, in my morning imaginings, through these words, through this song - ‘twas supposed to be "a trifle treat," but little treats do sometimes last a little longer; and, oh, but oh, but if I could, I surly would keep you just a little longer tarrying here, tarrying here with me this pleasant morn

It's just a pretty song until the singer starts. Then something happens. I don't know shit about music, so I couldn't tell you if it's the key she's singing in, or the way her voice slides in between the notes like she's flirting with them, or just the simple truth of her sorrow, coming straight out of her mouth, but whatever it is, the song lays me down and eases all my blissfully aching muscles. It creeps inside my heart, circulates into my bloodstream.

The first ray -- as the blessing of the Lord -- Across the face of the beloved did creep, Who, sleeping, went a little pale, And then again more tightly went to sleep. It seemed that warmth of ray of sun Appeared to him just like a kiss. And long with these my lips I have not touched The tan strong shoulder or the dear lips. And now, the deceased spirits in my long Disconsolate wandering along the way, I am now flying toward him as a song And I caress him with a morning ray.

THE FIRST ROOTS CREEP UP I am learning to come upon the tree, slowly, to surprise it For the song its memorizing. The water runs up, the sap Runs down… I will carry water for you, if you ask me. If someone Asks me What differences between trees and me? Each is Beholden to rivers. each knows thirst. In those countries where trees walk, they go barefoot, singing madrigals… excerpt, Collected in: Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature by Lorraine Anderson

And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that tore me as I went through them, and I cried out because I was smarting all over, and then I found that I was climbing, and I went up and up a long way, till at last the thicket stopped and I came out crying just under the top of a big bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all about on the grass, and here and there a little, twisted stunted tree came out from under a stone, like a snake. And I went up, right to the top, a long way. I never saw such big ugly stones before; they came out of the earth some of them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a long, long way. I looked out from them and saw the country, but it was strange. It was winter time, and there were black terrible woods hanging from the hills all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I had ever seen before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were other hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of them; it all looked black, and everything had a voor over it. It was all so still and silent, and the sky was heavy and grey and sad, like a wicked voorish dome in Deep Dendo. I went on into the dreadful rocks. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men; I could see their faces as if they would jump at me out of the stone, and catch hold of me, and drag me with them back into the rock, so that I should always be there. And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others were like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked songs that they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about in the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks, and they didn't frighten me any more. I sang the songs I thought of; songs full of words that must not be spoken or written down. Then I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones, and I went up to one that was grinning, and put my arms round him and hugged him.

Later, I walked towards the dorm circle beside Alaska. The cicadas hummed their one-note song, just as they had at home in Florida. She turned to me as we made our way through the darkness and said,"When you’re walking at night, do you ever get creeped out and even though it’s silly and embarrassing you just want to run home?” It seemed too secret and personal to admit to a virtual stranger but I told her, “Yeah, totally.” For a moment, she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered,“Run run run run run,” and took off, pulling me behind her.

The Sound Of Silence" Hello, darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone Narrow streets of cobblestone 'Neath the halo of a streetlamp I turned my collar to the cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light That split the night And touched the sound of silence And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never share No one dared Disturb the sound of silence "Fools," said I, "You do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you." But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence." Paul Simon, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM (1964)

The woods came for Emeline the way they always did: creeping in with the shadows, seeping up through the cracks. Emeline, they whispered. Sing us a true song. Emeline gritted her teeth, ignoring it. From her perch on the wooden stool beneath the white lights, she continued to croon into the mic, picking the strings of her ukulele, telling herself she didn't care if the ale in the bar taps turned to mucky creek water tonight, or if the cash in the register transformed into crisp golden maple keys. She didn't care if those spongy green clumps currently sprouting up between the floorboards were, in fact, forest moss.

Thanksgiving List Prairie birds, the whistle of gophers, the wind blowing, the smell of grass and spicy earth, friends like Mad Dog, the cattle down in the river, water washing over their hooves, the sky so big, so full of shifting clouds, the cloud shadows creeping over the fields, Daddy’s smile, and his laugh, and his songs, Louise, food without dust, Daddy seeing to Ma’s piano, newly cleaned and tuned, the days when my hands don’t hurt at all, the thank-you note from Lucille in Moline, Kansas, the sound of rain, Daddy’s hole staying full of water as the windmill turns, the smell of green, of damp earth, of hope returning to our farm.

At this point doubts started to creep in. One was always reading of young men running away to sea, or people shipping as deck-hands and working their passages. There seemed to be no special qualifications needed. No ropes had to be spliced. No rigging had to be climbed. All you did was paint the anchor, chip rust off the deck plating and say 'aye, aye, sir', when addressed by an officer. It was a tough life and you met tough men. There were weevils in the ship's biscuits and you had little to eat but skilly. Quarrels were settled with bare fists and you went about naked to the waist. But one of the crew always had a concertina and there were sing-songs when the day's work was done. In after life you wrote a book about it.

I glance over my shoulder, staggering a little when I see the horseman standing in front of me, his gaze fixed to my mouth. “So that’s music,” he says wondrously, as though he only just put a name to the sound. I guess that’s the irony of Thanatos. He’s existed for forever, and he seems to be a well of wisdom when it comes to humans, but the horseman has only been a man for a short while. Giving him a hesitant look, I nod. His gaze scours my face. “Don’t stop,” he whispers. Heat creeps up into my cheeks. I don’t really want to sing now that I have an audience. “Please,” Death adds. He’s still staring at my lips. I want to tell him that people don’t ask these sorts of things, but he knows that. And he seems genuinely … moved by the music. So, I clear my throat, and after only wavering for another moment or two, I begin to sing again, turning back to the tree so that I can resume picking fruit and pretend I don’t have an avid audience. Only, I’m not left alone for long. Thanatos rounds the tree, his gaze moving over my eyes, my lips, my hair. He’s looking at me like I’m the Eighth Wonder of the World and I have no defense for the blatant longing on his face. My song ends, and it’s silent for a long moment. Death shakes his head, still looking possessed. “That was … opodanao.” The foreign word draws out an instant reaction. I feel bathed in light, as though it were stroking my skin and running its fingers through my hair. I think I understand the word’s meaning, but the horseman translates for me anyway. “Beautiful.

Her partner in crime, Ben. The one who’d accompanied her complicitously through the darkest and most shameful moments of her adult life: cradled in her arms as she wandered woozily around the apartment at night, entertaining thoughts of disappearing while she slowly hummed him pop songs; strapped into the backseat while she wept in the parking lot of the Whole Foods; taking over when she got too tired to finish reading to him from Harry Potter, too young to read but making up the story as he saw fit—then he found a werewolf in the woods, and it was really funny and then really scary but mostly funny ha ha ha and then everyone went to bed, the end, Mama. Mama? “Mom,” he says now, and she wonders if he ever remembers the late-night times of his toddlerhood when she would creep in and lift him from his bed and rock him back to sleep in the glider, Mama’s nuts about you, chipmunk. Mama wouldn’t understand the world without you in it.

My Rush You are my rush You are my tortured dreams You are my fear come running on a busted knee You’re a life raft I cling onto I’ll keep an eye on the bottom And my arms around you You are the current that I can’t escape Draw me down into your depths, Down to your depths A storm coming trying to throw me back You’re the angel’s voice ringing And the Devil in the trap The hunter’s game and a lover’s song You’re a hand on the trigger And a whisper in my ear You are the water swirling round my feet You’re a knife-edge that cuts to a steady beat You are the current that I can’t escape Pull me down, pull me down, pull me down To your depths So Soldier (feat. Ainslie Wills) So you’ve been hiding You’ve been hiding that secret under your shirt collar You can’t breathe easy So if he finds it That you’re hiding that secret under your shirt collar You can’t breathe easy When you have to, you’ll find When you have to, you’ll show it Forever leaves behind Forever is not knowing Fearing is a feeling of mine And everybody’s doing their time Those shadows creeping up from behind Are calling out your name

Song for the Last Act Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook. Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of yet another summer loath to go Although the scythes hang in the apple trees. Now that I have your face by heart, I look. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read In the black chords upon a dulling page Music that is not meant for music's cage, Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed. The staves are shuttled over with a stark Unprinted silence. In a double dream I must spell out the storm, the running stream. The beat's too swift. The notes shift in the dark. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves; The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

Did you just take something off?” I ask the darkness. “Sam,” she scolds. I roll onto my side to face her. “What was it?” I whisper. “Nothing,” she hisses back. But I can hear laughter in her voice and I love it. “You took your shorts off, didn’t you?” I say quietly. “Maybe.” “You did.” I wait a beat. Just long enough for silence to settle around the room. “Do you know what that means?” “It means you should shut up and go to sleep.” She giggles. God, that’s a pretty sound. She’s quiet for a second. “What does it mean?” she suddenly asks. “It means your naked thighs are pressed against my sheets.” I groan. I’m turning myself on. Or she’s turning me on. “Sam,” she warns. But she’s laughing, too. She’s so far away from me that I imagine she’s going to roll right off the bed. “You’re awfully far away.” “There’s a reason for that,” she whispers. “What is it?” I whisper back. “Because I have this awful feeling that you’re going to break my heart,” she says. No stutter, so she must have found something to tap on. But I kind of would prefer to think she didn’t. “I don’t plan to hurt you.” God, she might as well have stabbed me in the gut. “No one plans to hurt anyone else. It just happens. Even to good people. So I’m trying not to let myself like you.” “You like me?” “I like you a lot. Too much.” “You like me,” I sing-song in a playful voice. “Sam,” she says on a heavy breath. “What?” “Don’t hurt me, okay?” I can hear the quiver in her voice and tension radiates off of her even from across the bed. It’s like a wire pulled taut. I reach out a hand and feel for her stomach. When I find it, I lift the edge of her shirt and lay my palm on her hip. She squeals when I roll her over and pull her to me. “Sam!” she cries. I adjust her until her bottom is cradled by my thighs. The scent of her hair tickles my nose, so I brush it out of my face, pushing it down between us. It’s silky smooth and she smells so damn good. “Um, Sam…” I nuzzle my face into the nape of her neck and press a kiss to her shoulder. “What?” “You promised to stay on your side of the bed.” “I am on my side of the bed.” She chuckles. “Go to sleep.” She wiggles her bottom in my lap, and I have to pull back a little and adjust my junk. “Um…” “That’s just my dick. I told you he likes you. He’ll give up in a minute. Go to sleep.” My head is lying on my bicep and I feel her turn her head ever so slightly and press a kiss against the tender skin of my inner arm. Damn, that feels good. My hand creeps up a little. This is the first time I’ve touched her naked stomach, and my fingertips are a little greedy. Her hand covers mine and holds it flat against her belly. “Sorry,” I whisper. She doesn’t say anything. She just holds my hand there against her skin, wrapped in hers. After a couple of minutes, she goes soft in my arms. I realize in that moment that I am in serious trouble. Like the awful, terrible, no good, very bad kind. Because I think I’m in love with her. No. I don’t think it. I know it. What I don’t know is whether or not she’s capable of loving me back.

The rest of the day seemed to creep by as slow as a worm in molasses.

Sleep, my soul, and peace attend Thee, all through the night; Guardian angels God will send Thee, all through the night. Slow the drowsy hours are creeping, Hill and vale in slumber sleeping, God His loving vigil keeping, All through the night. Amen. —WELSH FOLK SONG

Have you ever had a moment where you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were in the right place? That you were on the right journey? Maybe the sense that you'd crossed a boundary, jumped a hurdle, and somehow, after facing some unconquerable mountain, found yourself suddenly on the other side of it? When the night was warm, and the wind was cool, and a song carried through the quiet streets around you. When you felt the entire world around you, and you were part of it - of the hum of it - and everything was good. Contentment, I suppose, is the simple explanation for it. But it seems more than that, thicker than that, some unity of purpose, some sense of being truly, honestly, for that moment, at home. Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you're left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn't - that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you'd be faced with the burden of crossing it again.

He said a political writer must be careful. He quoted Auden: A writer's politics are more dangerous to him than his cupidity. He said, Political sentimentality is as bad as any other kind. You have to acknowledge ambiguity, complexity. There is a kind of death that creeps into your prose when you're trying to illustrate a principle, no matter how worthy.

WE MEET AT MORN Still half in dream, upon the stair I hear A patter coming nearer and more near, And then upon my chamber door A gentle tapping — For dogs, though proud, are poor. And if a tail will do to give command. Why use a hand? And after that a cry, half sneeze, half yapping, And next a scuffle on the passage floor. And then I know the creature lies to watch Until the noiseless maid will lift the latch. And like a spring That gains its power by being tightly stayed. The impatient thing Into the room Its whole glad heart doth fling. And ere the gloom Melts into light, and window blinds are rolled, I hear a bounce upon the bed, I feel a creeping toward me — a soft head. And on my face A tender nose, and cold — This is the way, you know, that dogs embrace — And on my hand, like sun-warmed rose-leaves flung. The least faint flicker of the wannest tongue — And so my dog and I have met and sworn Fresh love and fealty for another morn. - Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley

Don't give me anything Even if it's your attention Even if it's your love Even if it's your tears Don't give me your sadness Don't give me your anger Don't give me your thirst Don't give me anything Because I still scramble the sky to find all traces of you, Mother." But son, how can you say something like that? Have I not given you flowers? I have given you the sun. I have given you grass and leaves. I have given you the sea and the sand of the beach. Why still? Isn't it enough for you to drink milk from my loneliness? You taste the pain from my wound, as you used to feel the happiness under my stomach like the scratch of a knife that welcomes your presence. How everything is still, I give you a warm fire, I give you a touch of the morning, I give you a gentle song from my heart that you know holds a million worries. How do you still say things like that? I still give you a light until half of my age. I give you laughter from half of my death. I give you eternal memories and eternal dreams at the same time. I give it all, even if it's just a simple box of lunch that you may receive to sate your hunger. How I always wanted to be there for you, son. Because my only request is nothing more. Let me be your traveling companion, a friend in your troubled times. As I used to rock you and put you in my lap. Let me be the bread that fills your hunger, the consolation of your heart when you are tight, the heat when you are sick. Wasn't I there when you were learning to stand and I was there when you fell? I faithfully wait for you while you run after the moon and sun. And even though time creeps up on me with the strains of age that I may no longer be able to stand up straight as I used to. I will never give up on you son. No, mother will never give up. Because for me, you are enough just yourself. However, can you fill yourself with all the pride? Be content with what you have. Suffice yourself with all the prayers I never stop saying from the corner of my heart which may be the most heavenly hope. Your heaven, son. Even though I know it will disturb your restful sleep. Although it will add to your restless working time. Because I know how hard you struggle. For every drop of sweat that you shed when you have to run to catch the bus that comes to pick you up. When your mind can't escape from your laptop screen that keeps flashing. When morning comes and busy work comes like rain that never ends whacking. Suffice yourself with Mother's love. Even though later, there will be no more cynical words rolling from Mother's lips which are starting to wrinkle. Rest assured, the door to the house of Mother's heart will always be open for you, whenever you want to go home.

The first morning, emerging from your bivouac-thing, there is a great sense of joy and freedom. You feel quite alone in the world and no one knows who you are or why you are there. You could be in a campsite surrounded by happy families or out in the wild woods with silent, dumb creatures that creep and crawl. It makes no difference, the point is that you are alone because you wanted it this way. You don’t talk to a soul the whole time. You just get up, brew a coffee on a camping stove and then zip up the tent and go. If doesn’t really matter where you go either. You know that you have about twelve hours ahead of you just to yourself. So you start walking, along the coast, up a hill, by a river, down a valley, anywhere on and on, stopping every now and then for a banana and a drink (massive water bottle) and a sit. It feels good. You find yourself skipping no, gambolling, like a newborn lamb. In your head, details about daily life swiftly give way to songs, hymns you used to know, praise, yes praise, for God’s mind-blowing creation. Your thoughts then turn to God because there aren’t any people about and you find yourself chatting amicably with Him. Sometimes there are tears, sobbing even, but this comes with emptying. It’s really all about emptying and then, renewal. This is what we miss if we don’t empty stuff. By nightfall, the little tent and sleeping bag beckon; you greet them both joyfully and shut down. Usually it’s freezing and sleep comes in patches, but the night time wakefulness is all part of it. You use it to set things straight, mentally. Another day ahead, more wanderings, then hunger sets in and you head for home, refreshed.

From the looks on his follower’s faces, I’d done a decent enough job of creeping them out. Two of them looked nervously at the duffel, as if they’d just found out I’d brought a piñata stuffed with anthrax to the party.

But let us read the words of one, who was no mean scientist, the words of one whose wisdom was the wonder of his day in the whole world. A man to whom God Himself said, “Lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.” I Kings 3.12. A man of whom the inspired word of God says, “He was wiser than all men; and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of threes, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the Wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom.” I Kings 4.31-34 In His proverbs he speaks much of the wonderful works of God, and in one of them he refers directly to the work that was done on the second day of creation week, and connects it with the word of God by which it was accomplished. Thus, “Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? Who hath fathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if thou canst tell? Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto His word, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Proverbs 30.4-6 The rain which God has bound up in His thick clouds, and which His voice - the same voice that speaks peace and righteousness - causes to fall upon the earth, is a pledge to us of God’s willingness to forgive. Listen to the holy boldness of the prophet Jeremiah: “We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against Thee. Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of Thy glory: remember; break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not Thou He, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon Thee: for Thou hast made all these things.” Jeremiah 14.20-22. The Lord is the One who causes rain; therefore we will wait upon Him, in confidence that He will not abhor us, even though we have grievously sinned; but that He will, for the sake of His own word, pardon our iniquity.

Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds downward & up bring real. Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out, beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds: I'll feed you how I feel:-- of avocado moist with lemon, yea formaldehyde & rotting sardines O in our appointed time I would I could a touch more fully say my countless mind. The senses are below, which in this air sublime do I repudiate. But foes I sniff! My nose in all directions! I be so brave I creep into an Arctic cave for the rectal temperature of the biggest bear, hibernating -- in my left hand sugar. I totter to the lip of the cliff.

It was quiet and I had to fight the thoughts that were trying to creep in. I began to run songs through my head for distraction, mangling the lyrics and humming through the parts I couldn’t remember at all.

Have you ever had a moment where you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were in the right place? That you were on the right journey? Maybe the sense that you’d crossed a boundary, jumped a hurdle, and somehow, after facing some unconquerable mountain, found yourself suddenly on the other side of it? When the night was warm and the wind was cool, and a song carried through the quiet streets around you. When you felt the entire world around you, and you were part of it—of the hum of it—and everything was good. Contentment, I suppose, is the simple explanation for it. But it seems more than that, thicker than that, some unity of purpose, some sense of being truly, honestly, for that moment, at home. Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you’re left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn’t—that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you’d be faced with the burden of crossing it again. The song ends, and you stare at the quiet, dark house in front of you, and you grasp the doorknob, and walk back into your life.

Look through the heavy pine forest and see a fire glowing. Beside it sits a bear of a man, knife in one hand, a clay bowl on the ground in front of him. It has been a long time since he last shed blood for his Gods. Tonight would satisfy them a little while longer. The screech of a doomed animal is cut short and the bowl fills with its steaming blood. He puts it on a flat stone by the fire. He cuts his scarred wrist to let his own blood drip into the warming mixture. For many days he has thrown his runes and has had no clear sight. He has marked each one with his blood and still they reveal nothing. A tune starts deep in his gut. It stretches and twists like an unborn child, travelling up like a snake through his chest, setting his bones to shake. He grinds his jaw shut to keep it from escaping as it creeps up his throat. His lips start to vibrate with the tune as it tries to push its way out. The man is well learned in the ways of the song and knows how to control it. The bowl is steaming heavily and he leans over it to breathe in the blood fumes that will give his visions. This man’s name is Vasilli and he is trying to find his brother.

Gathering all his courage, Sid caught her chin in his hand and lifted her face to him. He wished his fingers would stop trembling, but the glory of her soft skin nearly undid him. “Did’ja like the little present I left for you today?” With her face caught in his fingers, she couldn’t nod. But he saw a soft look creep into her eyes. She liked it. He smiled. “Y’know, Sadie, I loved you even back then. You’ve always been important to me.” She swallowed, the sound loud in the silent room. She leaned back slightly, removing herself from his quivering grasp. “I . . . I know, Sid. And you’ve been important to me, too. Always my favorite—” He covered her lips with his fingers. “Don’t say ‘cousin.’ ’Cause we aren’t.

Singing wordlessly over the song’s (and the album’s) final moments, Bruce evokes the opening bars of “Something in the Night,” and the chill cloaking the entire album: the creeping suspicion that the things that make you feel the most alive will turn out to be some combination of unobtainable, worthless, and self-destructive.

In a husky whisper he recited the prophecy to her. When he finished she stirred in the crook of his arm. “That is your song?” “Huh, yes.” “But, it’s beautiful!” With a start, Hunter realized he thought so, too. “Since my boyhood, I had much hate for the words.” He twined a length of her hair around his finger, smiling. “And great hate for the honey-haired woman who would one day steal my heart. I wished to kill you, yes?” “But I’m not the woman in your song.” “Ah, yes, you are the woman.” “The song says the People will call me the Little Wise One. They don’t! And they never will. I’m far from wise.” “It will come to pass,” he assured her. “It must. All of the words must.” She saw shadows creep into his eyes. “What is it? Why are you so sad?” The muscles along his throat knotted. “My song says I will one day leave my people. I am Comanche. Without them, I will be as nothing, Blue Eyes.” Loretta stared sightlessly into the shifting shadows, watching the play of firelight. “It’s only a legend, Hunter. A silly legend. Hatred going away on the wind? High places and great canyons of blood! New tomorrows and new nations?” She turned her face toward him. “Look into my eyes. Do you see a new morning with new beginnings?” He searched her gaze, and then, in a husky voice that reached way down inside her, he whispered, “Yes.” He drew out the word until it seemed to echo and reecho in her mind.

In a hole, in a hole.” Skodi piped, “. . . in the ground, in a hole, where the wet-nosed mole sings a song of cold stone, and of mud and gray bone, a quiet, small song all the chill, dark night long as he digs in the deep, where the white worms creep, and the dead all sleep, with their eyes full of earth where the beetles give birth, laying little white eggs, and their brittle black legs go scrape, scrape, scrape, and the dark, like a cape, covers all just the same, darkness hiding their shame as it covered their names, the names of the dead, all gone, all fled, empty winds, empty heads, Above grass grows on stone, fields lie fallow, unsown all is gone that they’ve known so they wail in the deep, crying out in their sleep, without eyes, still they weep, calling out for what’s lost, in the darkness they toss, under pitweed and moss in the deeps of the grave, neither master or slave, has now feature or fame, needs knowledge or name, but they long to come back, and they stare through the cracks at the dim sun above, and they curse cruel love, and the peace lost in life, think of worry and strife, ruined child or wife, all the troubles that burned, dreadful lessons unlearned, still they long to return, to return, to return, they long to return. Return! In a hole, in the ground, under old barrow-mound, where skin, bone, and blood turn to jelly-soft mud, and the rotting world sings . . .

The illusions again! thought Anemone. It's all a mirage, is it?... Well, fine! I'm sick of water anyway, sick to death of water. I'd rather suck on this mirage, I'd rather eat sand till I'm spitting blood than drink another drop of smelly water. The whole city stinks of age and stagnation and boredom, and it makes Sachiko as sick as it does me; but she goes on listening to the same old songs, trying to keep from dying of boredom, while I'd rather puke it all out, puke up a great cloud of boredom and let it rain down all over Tokyo, rain till your lungs rot in your chest, till the streets crack and wash away and rivers of puke run between the buildings ... puke going higher and higher, the air so thick it chokes you, and mangroves sprouting from the cracks in the sidewalks... the old trees washed up by the roots, rotting in little pools to become nests for poisonous bugs, horny bugs that hatch out in swarms to creep all over you, Sachiko, like things in the worst nightmares you ever thought up in your orgies of booze and cum, to crawl over you and lay their eggs right on your skin, hatching their squirmy little babies from your rotting body. Sachiko, dear, this room is already a nursery for the creeping and crawling, and you're a rotting pusbag for them to feed on...

We were on a swing through the Midwest, and Brian’s asthma had got him and he was in hospital in Chicago. And, hey, when a guy’s sick, you double for him. But then we saw pictures of him zooming around Chicago, hanging at a party with so-and-so, fawning over stars with a silly little bow around his neck. We’d done three, four gigs without him. That’s double duty for me, pal. There’s only five of us, and the whole point of the band is that it’s a two-guitar band. And suddenly there’s only one guitar. I’ve got to figure out whole new ways to play all of these songs. I’ve got to perform Brian’s part as well. I learned a lot about how to do two parts at once, or how to distill the essence of what his part was and still play what I had to play, and throw in a few licks, but it was damn hard work. And I never got a thank-you from him, ever, for covering his arse. He didn’t give a shit. “I was out of it.” That’s all I would get. All right, are you gonna give me your pay? That’s when I had it in for Brian. One can get very sarcastic on the road and quite vicious. “Just shut up, you little creep. Preferred it when you weren’t here.” He had this way of ranting on, saying things that would just grate. “When I played with so-and-so…” He was totally starstruck. “I saw Bob Dylan yesterday. He doesn’t like you.” But he had no idea how obnoxious he was being. So it would start off, “Oh, shut up, Brian.” Or we’d imitate the way he cringed his head into his nonexistent neck. And then it went to baiting him in a

Love Sometimes Love she said. Is when you reach into Your purse & don't have enough To make your purchase. Love she said. Love is when you constantly search, Looking for that missing magic. That missing nickle or dime, A complete bill that unravels In the nick of time. Love sometimes is second guesses And quick reassurance. Love sometimes holds up the line & makes you crazy. Love she said Love is a stranger that creeps up From behind & gives the cashier what you need Sometimes not what you want. Love she said Is human. Love she said Sometimes walks out the door Soon as you see it

How strong must love be to persist in the face of a powerful evil that has named it hate? How resolute must love be when its enemy uses the mass media to convince the world that it is hate? How courageous must love be to raise its banner and sound its trumpets in an age that would purge it—as hate. Of this we can be sure: at some point in the distant past, Whites were a single tribe, a single people. They were alone against a hostile world, a frosty star in the depths of an ancient darkness, ringed by the ferocity of the natural world, besieged by alien tribes and animal predators. But they were a people, together, united, and possessed by an indomitable spirit. Before us, the world’s darkness receded. Its nightmares withered in the light of our coming. Its monsters fled for the darkling holes that brooded in the shadows. We built civilization and in our victory over that which sought victory over us, we fell from grace. In our triumph, we turned to folly. We renounced our brotherhood and rejected our unity. As ungrateful children of our ancient sires, we turned to separate paths, following petty rulers who put their insignificant lives before the fundamental importance of our people, and in so doing we spilled our brothers’ blood. The darkness that we conquered is once again crawling from its thorny lairs, creeping across the world under many fair-seeming guises, now as cancers upon our civilization, now forming gangs and armies, now devouring us in our disunion. It was a song that called us from the darkness long ago, and once again that mysterious music is beckoning. We will reunite as a single people, a great ring that will circle the globe for our wellbeing, or we will perish, and the Western Light of the world will go with us. These people are my people, my nation, and even as I type, even as I ponder how today decides tomorrow a new spirit rises within us, a spirit that refuses to yield to those who seek our undoing. I have always loved our people, their heroism, their genius, their spirit, and though my heart is filled with concern for them, it sings now, it sings with the coming of the dawn. These are my people, and I love them. I was born for this; it is my destiny.

Yet with a difference. For after a thing has happened nothing can ever go on quite as it did before. We may say that it shall, and that it does. We may even believe this. But a happening can never be un-happened and, faint or strong, its color will creep into the shade of all things and modify it with its own infinitesimal but all-pervading bit of change.

How quiet indeed that moment was. One could even hear the clapper of a street peddler selling porridge flavored with osmanthus blossoms -- a shadow of the everyday world creeping into this peculiar place.

Drinking Alone by Moonlight,” in which Li transforms a taboo—drinking alone—into a celebration: A cup of wine, under the flowering trees; I drink alone, for no friend is near. Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon, For he, with my shadow, will make three men. The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine; Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side. Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave I must make merry before the Spring is spent. To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams; In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks. While we were sober, three shared the fun; Now we are drunk, each goes his way. May we long share our odd, inanimate feast, And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the Sky.

Hot Sauce Shrine" I used to be a high priestess of tail-feather feel-good mumbo jumbo, naysayer extraordinaire cobbling together some crazy quilt catechism to cling to as I tangled in the world's thorns, frantic, fearing the chill soon to come. I haven't turned holy roller or handler of snakes, but things changed slowly, or all at once. Maybe it was when I drove through a dust devil and inhaled its grit of cut grass and cigarette butts. I've taken to praying since the whirlwind shook me loose, or anyway I dip my head at stoplights until I get distracted by scenery, or birds, and the prayers come out confused. I'm clueless—my angel of place smokes blunts and speaks to me in bug bite braille. I know to visit Saint Roch and turn his statue to the wall, but I hunger for alone time on an island with an organ that plays itself, or to whisper all my secrets to the hot sauce shrine. I read that the world is a dream of God, and now I don't know what to do with my hands. The world is God's dream and I am a sparrow passing through song and the brass glow of fire, or maybe that is wrong, and I'm trapped inside, stunned against the glass or down the chimney, terrified of kind hands that sweep me to the door. When I wake I'm walking the moonlit labyrinth with wet feet, and the birds are quiet because I have terrified them with the thunder of my stumbling. Oh God of everything that creeps, I light a candle and ask my question: Is it pilgrimage enough if I spend my life remembering the few seconds I was a bird?

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for tonight! Mother, come back from the echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears,— Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,— Take them, and give me my childhood again! I have grown weary of dust and decay,— Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away; Weary of sowing for others to reap;— Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep! Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! Many a summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded, our faces between: Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain, Long I tonight for your presence again. Come from the silence so long and so deep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! Over my heart, in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone; No other worship abides and endures,— Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: None like a mother can charm away pain From the sick soul and the world-weary brain. Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Fall on your shoulders again as of old; Let it drop over my forehead tonight, Shading my faint eyes away from the light; For with its sunny-edged shadows once more Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore; Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! Mother, dear mother, the years have been long Since I last listened your lullaby song: Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem Womanhood’s years have been only a dream. Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, With your light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep;— Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

An ambition is a little creeper that creeps and creeps in your heart night and day, singing a little song, 'Come and find me, come and find me'.

And Lord I can't make any changes. All I can do is write 'em in a song. Yes but I can see the concrete a slowly creeping. Lord take me and mine before that comes.

Softly at first, humming, creeping, boiling up from nowhere at the horizon line; twisting and surging like snake whirlwinds with adolescent intent; building, spiraling, climbing in vague streamers and tendrils of unconsciousness, the colors came. In a rising, keening spiral of hysteria they came, first pulsing in primaries, then secondaries, then comminglings and off shades, and finally in colors that had no names. Colors like racing, and pungent, and far-seen shadows, and bitterness, and something that hurt, and something that pleasured. Oh, mostly the pleasures, one after another, singing, lulling, hypnotically arresting the eye as the ship sped into the heart of the maelstrom of weird, advancing, sky-eating colors. The siren colors of the straits. The colors that came from the air and the island and the world itself, which hushed and hurried across the world to here, to meet when they were needed, to stop the seamen who slid over the waves to the break in the breakwall. The colors, defense, that sent men to the bottom, their hearts bursting with songs of color and charm. The colors that top-filled a man to the brim and kept him poised there with a surface tension of joy and wonder, colors cascading like waterfalls of flowers in his head, millioncolors, blossomshades, brightnesses, joycrashing every things that made a man hurl back and strain his throat to sing, sing, sing chants of amazement and forever—

Hear me! in Nature are two hostile Gods, “Makers and Masters of existing things, “Equal in power:... nay hear me patiently!... “Equal ... for look around thee! the same Earth “Bears fruit and poison; where the Camel finds “His fragrant [145] food, the horned Viper there “Sucks in the juice of death; the Elements “Now serve the use of man, and now assert “Dominion o’er his weakness; dost thou hear “The sound of merriment and nuptial song? “From the next house proceeds the mourner’s cry “Lamenting o’er the dead. Sayest thou that Sin “Entered the world of Allah? that the Fiend “Permitted for a season, prowls for prey? “When to thy tent the venomous serpent creeps “Dost thou not crush the reptile? even so, “Besure, had Allah crushed his Enemy, “But that the power was wanting. From the first, “Eternal as themselves their warfare is, “To the end it must endure. Evil and Good.... “What are they Thalaba but words? in the strife “Of Angels, as of men, the weak are guilty; “Power must decide. The Spirits of the Dead “Quitting their mortal mansion, enter not, “As falsely ye are preached, their final seat “Of bliss, or bale; nor in the sepulchre “Sleep they the long long sleep: each joins the host “Of his great Leader, aiding in the war “Whose fate involves his own. “Woe to the vanquished then! “Woe to the sons of man who followed him! “They with their Leader, thro’ eternity, “Must howl in central fires. “Thou Thalaba hast chosen ill thy part, “If choice it may be called, where will was not, “Nor searching doubt, nor judgement wise to weigh. “Hard is the service of the Power beneath “Whose banners thou wert born; his discipline “Severe, yea cruel; and his wages, rich “Only in promise; who has seen the pay? “For us ... the pleasures of the world are ours, “Riches and rule, the kingdoms of the Earth. “We met in Babylon adventurers both, “Each zealous for the hostile Power he served: “We meet again; thou feelest what thou art, “Thou seest what I am, the Sultan here, “The Lord of Life and Death. “Abandon him who has abandoned thee, “And be as I am, great among mankind!