Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself together
for some clear “meaning” - some momentary summary?
No on can have poetry or dances, prayer or climaxes all day;
The ordinary blankness of little dramatic consciousness is good for the health sometimes,
only Dostoevsky can be Dostoevskian at such long tumultuous stretches;
Look what that intensity did to poor great Van Gogh!;
Linger, lunge, scrounge and be stupid,
that doesn’t take much centering of one’s forces;
As wise Whitman said “lounge and invite the soul”
Get enough sleep and not only because (as Cocteau said) “poetry is the literature of sleep”;
Be a dumbell for a few minutes at least;We don’t want Sunday church bells ringing constantly
-John Tagliabue
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him. I say “stay in there. I’m not going to let anybody see you”
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I poor whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him. I say “stay down, do you want to mess me up? do you want to screw up my works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe?”
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever. I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s asleep. I say “I know that you’re there so don’t be sad”. Then I put him back but he’s singing a little in there. I haven’t quite let him die. And we sleep together like that, with our secret pact ,and it’s nice enough to make a man weep…but I don’t weep. Do you?