Tag: Gabriel Smy

I should have drunk more champagne

I should have drunk more champagne. And the rest
of the world can kiss my ass. Plaudite,
amici, comedia finita est.
Better to burn out than to fade away.
Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean
the end of the revolution. I see
black light. I can’t sleep. Rain had always been
a harbinger of tragedy for me.
You can stop now; I’m already dead. All
my possessions for a moment of time.
Please put out the light. Please don’t let me fall.
I am not in the least afraid to die.
I must go to meet God, try to explain…
Do you hear the rain? Do you hear the rain?

(Compiled from famous last words of real people)

The World of You

I think the world of you means
I think the guy I like has a girlfriend.

I think the world of you meaning
I think the rain is calling,

I think the rain is falling down,
I think the kids are in trouble.

I think the rain is coming down
lyrics. I think the ayes have it.

I think the world of you.
I think the world is coming to an end.

(Google autosuggestions for “I think the…”, April 2011)

Oak Beach

The black police dog winced
as its paws touched the thorns
on the bushes by the side
of a remote beachside highway.

A little reluctantly, the cadaver dog
followed its police handler into
the Long Island brush, looking
for yet more human remains.

We always say ‘another day in paradise’.
The wind whistled through the reeds
and the brush crackled
as the cadaver dog carried on sniffing.

Selected text from a BBC news article about bodies found on Long Island, 7 April 2011. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Apologia Ignis

We incorrectly stated
that Julian Brooker, twenty three, of Brighton,
was blown fifteen feet into the air
after accidentally touching
a live railway line.

His parents have asked us to make clear
he was not turned into a fireball,
was not obsessed with the number twenty-three
and didn’t go drinking on that date every month.

Julian’s mother did not say,
during or after the inquest,
her son often got on all fours
creeping around their house
pretending to be Gollum.

From an apology in The Sun, 29 April 2005. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Unfurl unfold

I would shape myself into your pocket.
I will shake, sneak, shrink, slip
I was shapeless infant to your pocket.

I was shaking and I disappeared
I was thinking I would disappear
I would shrink and
I will sink and

I wish ink and I would disappear.

I will slip into the groove and cut me up.
And cut me off. You cut me off.

There’s an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds
Where the wings
And it won’t take root
And there I’ll
So now I’ll
Tonight I’ve set you free.

Just to feel
Just to feed your fast ballooning head.

We would shrink and then
We will shake and we’ll be quiet as mice.

Take the lotus flowers into my room.
The bird lights float
The bird that’s flown
Put this flower
A bird has flown into my room.

Mm, moments float into my room.

‘Cos all I want is the moon upon a stick.
A man upon a stake.

I dance around the pit; the darkness is beneath.
Dancing round the pain. The darkness is relief.

(Compiled from fans’ transcripts for Radiohead’s Lotus Flower, released Feb 2011 with no lyrics)

The Tip of the Bud of the Lotus

In a certain lake swarming with geese and cranes,
The tip of a bud of lotus was seen one span above the water.
Forced by the wind, it gradually moved, and was submerged at a distance of two cubits.
O mathematician, tell quickly the depth of the water.

Lilavati

There is something divine in the science
of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea
in the hollow of its hand. It measures
the earth; it weighs the stars; it illumines
the universe; it is law, it is order,
it is beauty. And yet we imagine
that its highest end and culminating point
is book-keeping by double entry.

(From Longfellow’s novel Kavanagh, preceded by a translation from Bhaskaracharya’s 12th-century Sanskrit text Lilavati, via The Lumber Room)