Horrible Poems from Horrible People

So, I enjoyed creating that strange poem/speech out of John Howard’s old Tampa interview so much on the weekend that I’ve been combing through the PM archives for the past few days and making more.

After the first one, which I thought was quite successful in terms of coherent message and clear stylistic choices, I’ve found the next few tough. I have also (of course) started questioning myself. Exactly what is the point of doing these weird poem/speech things? The historian in me is hyperventilating, because I’m twisting people’s words and making them sound more horrific than, perhaps, they actually sounded. The liberal artist in me is feeling icky for having to read through all these horrible words, trying to make them into something called ‘art’ and is worried that by putting them on my blog I’m seemingly condoning the messages in the speeches. I’m worried that my historian fears will stop me taking the speech/poems far enough to make some kind (any kind) of artistic statement. And the perfectionist in me keeps complaining that none of my poems subsequent to the first one are good enough to warrant me continuing with this particular writing exercise.

However, there is something addictive about them that has kept me writing, despite all the internal protests. Plus, they’re very quick. And the process of picking random, unrelated statements and then being able to craft them into some kind of whole is endlessly fascinating to me. It’s like trying to put a puzzle together when you don’t know what it’s supposed to look like in the end. So, here’s a couple of others.

John Howard (from an interview about the lack of WMD’s in Iraq)

I will answer for my statements

I’ve made plenty of mistakes

I get things wrong

I mean, I apologise if I misled people.

Deliberately misled people.

I’m explaining it.

I’m explaining to you what happened.

Well, I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

I can’t do better than that, I’m not an encyclopedia.

You’ll forgive me for not answering simply yes or no, not off the top of my head.

I’d have to get the speech, I’d have to find…

I would have to ask.

As you’re asking me the question.

The answer to that is: I’m not in a position to answer.

I can’t answer.

But, there has been no intention to deceive or mislead

Let us choose our words carefully.

Bad faith, bad motives, deliberate intention.

Anything that I have said that might be seen as misleading

Was not a deliberate misleading.

The literal statement I made

Literally what I said:

Are you prepared to go to war?

 

We can’t walk away.

 

Pauline Hanson (from her first speech to parliament in 1996)

I do not feel we can go on living in a dream world

I am fed up to the back teeth

I was born here: where the hell do I go?

Like most Australians, I worked for my land.

I must pay and continue.

I call on the people:

One people, one nation, one flag

Just an ordinary Australian who speaks for 90% of Australians

The majority of Australians be fair dinkum.

But, Australians, it is too late.

Millions of Australians stop kowtowing

Ordinary Australians have been kept out

Mainstream Australia is in danger

Divided into black and white

Wake up, Mainstream Australia!

Life’s knocks applied to mainstream Australians.

Most Australians want

Two sets of rules.

There is light at the end of the tunnel:

I can invite whom I want into my home, I say who comes into my country.

I may be only a ‘fish and chip shop lady’ but

How proud I am.

I salute them all.

 

John Howard (interview about Sept. 11th, children overboard, war in Afghanistan)

This is not an attack on Islam

There is no total solution.

But these people will not come to the mainland.

It’s one of the pillars of our society.

Even in times like this,

We have laws.

We’ve got laws in relation to that.

Handle the problem where it first occurs.

We cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated by this:

The kind of people we are.

A humane people.

We preserve our standards.

We continue to behave in a humane fashion.

Our resolve is being tested.

Emotional blackmail is very distressing.

It must be very distressing.

It’s a difficult issue.

A 100 year battle.

A matter of common humanity.

You seek to roll yourself into a small ball and disappear.

They are playing on that.

I will condemn.

I don’t want people in this country who throw children overboard.

Genuine refugees don’t throw children into the sea.

Soho as a Person

I had to write this for an application. And, look, I’m not going to lie, I was pretty pleased with it. Who knows if that means the application will go well or not, but in the meantime, you lucky people get to read it.

Also, you might have noticed I’m struggling to write things at the moment (ANY of the things), so I figured I should share WHATEVER THE HELL I HAD.

So, anyways, here it is. Soho as a person.

 

In her younger years,

Her voice was like a knife that cut through the darkness,

Because she only woke in darkness

And she didn’t talk, she screamed.

 

Even now,

When those around her are nestled in floral pastels,

Sagged in softly collapsed settees,

Their wrinkled fingers wrapped around waning cups of tea,

She has a penchant for sharp lights and sharper sounds:

Seeks them out and lets them cut her.

She likes the prettiness of glitter,

Not for its delicacy,

But for the hard edges of the sparkles and

The hidden pricks of corners that catch under your fingernails.

 

She has had a hundred lovers,

A thousand,

So many that it would take a lifetime to think back and speak their names aloud,

One after the other,

With the significance that each deserves.

(She takes a quiet pride in not favouring a ‘type’,

Because,

‘Oh, how boring,’ she’d sigh on perfumed breath,

Chin sinking towards her flattened palm and eyes rolling heavenwards).

She coaxes them still:

men, women, young, old,

The endearingly hopeful and the quietly crushed,

Her alternating faces the siren’s call making

Each new devotee feel at home.

And each new one thinks they know her

Deeply and completely

Intimately and concretely

But each is wrong

Because what one person could see

All of her at once and not be consumed by confusion?

 

Her single constant is the

Blood red still clinging to her lips,

Which on other women might cause mutters of,

‘Mutton’ and ‘lamb’,

But on her looks correct,

‘Proper’

As if she was dragged into this world so garish and so gory

(and she probably was, if anyone was left that could remember back that far)

 

But, careful.

She is not just the aging party girl,

The one whose diamonds are cut glass,

And whose bronze and blonde colourings are stored in bottles.

Yes, she knows all the people you see in the magazines,

The shiny-teethed smilers from the telly.

The gods and goddesses of the silver screen,

Are regular guests, pressing their cold hands into her warm one.

But this old bird has seen things and done things,

Felt thing and said things

You wouldn’t dare face in your nightmares:

Heaving, disintegrating green-grey houses,

Sunken-eyed and leaking corpses,

A pregnant woman pierced with nails,

Are all images she tries daily to forget.

So if she spends her time now

Winking at the young and the witty,

Flattering the powerful and the beautiful,

Seeking out the rich and the stylish

Well, then, who can blame her?

She’s had her fair share of broken hearts and broken limbs.

 

Sometimes she thinks she’ll move to the country,

To search life’s meaning

In the silent significance of slow nature.

But the screech of hot rubber on tarmac

And the smell of a thousand bodies twisting through

Frenetically jumping lights,

Pull her up each time.

And she thinks,

What could be more meaningful than this great mess of humanity,

Bumping along,

Trying desperately to fit together?

 

The Terminal: Favourite Poems

Oslo, 21 

With the last of our kroner

We buy milk and biscuits

To eat cross-legged on the floor,

Like children.

Swigging from the carton

Because we have no cups.

Giggling in the half-light

Worried someone will catch us.

Because don’t you know?

Children aren’t allowed

To drink straight from the carton

To have milk AND biscuits

For dinner AND breakfast.

Children aren’t allowed

To be alone in airports

At 3m on a Tuesday:

They have school the next day

And should be in bed.

Tromsø, 18

It is already night

And an unearthly glow

Shoots skywards from

The buildings.

Capitalism

And Electricity

Have replaced The Sun,

Lighting the Heavens the

Wrong Way Round.

Tromsø, 28

Early morning light

At midday

Turns the snowy mountains

Into soft pastel piles of

Ice-cream.

The peaks and troughs

No more menacing

Or impressive

Than the gouged-out buckets

Of Haagen-Daaz

In Leicester Square.

Buoyed by artificial warmth

And a barrier of glass

I know I could

‘Tame the Ancient Mountain Trolls!’

“Bend the Northern Wind to My Will!’

And

‘STEAL THOR’S THUNDER!’

But the Quiet Norwegians

In their sensible wool

Pay no attention.

Calling me instead

To my gate

and Home.

Heathrow, 21

On our first big trip

Together

As Adults

Chocolate bars were more important

Than a night’s accommodation.

We fold ourselves

Into plastic chairs

Make our bodies tight envelopes

For our valuables.

All Around us,

Human-luggage-bundles

Do the same.

Sighing and snoring and shuffling

Objects and people

Breathing as one.

Guards pace slowly,

Stare with red eyes

Stopping occasionally

Where clothes look like rags

Skin looks like coffee

Or heads are covered.

‘Oi. You.

Where’s your ticket?’

Santiago, 24

The British Man

Thinks Steve is:

‘An Old Soul’.
I think:

The British Man is

‘An Old Twit.’

But Steve is

Good and Kind

To Everyone.

The Canadian Girl

And I

Plot together

At the back of the pack.

Shoot death stares at Britain.

Talk telepathically

About his short-shorts

And his stretches

(And the combination of the two).

‘Who stretches in an Airport?’

We scream silently

Eyes tearing up with the effort.

Cork, 29 

There is nothing

More beautiful

Than my friend’s children,

Running through

Cork Airport together.
They give me

Sticky chocolate kisses

Press flushed round cheeks

Into my cool, pale hands

Throw their voices

Carelessly in the air.

Mathematically,

They are less than 0.05%

Of the space

Of this airport.

But when they leave

The building is suddenly

Empty.

Stansted, 27

I am uncertain

How cold I am.

I start

Wrapped in layers,

Each piece of skin

Coyly concealed

Each limb restrained,

Neatly tucked

Into each other

Like complex origami.

Hour by hour

I strip silently, sleepily

Releasing colour and cloth

To gently fall

In haphazard patterns

Beneath my flopping limbs.

I wake to curious stares

Not for my skin,

Suddenly exposed,

But because I’ve built

A Nest

In a place people are

In a Hurry to Leave.

Hobart, 23

The summer air is cleaner here

Cooler here

Emptier here

Here you breathe oxygen

Not smoke

Or smog

Or sweat

Or stress

Here you breathe air,

Actual air,

Which is light,

Just like the people always said.

‘As light as air.’

Florence, 27

The airport is white-hot

Concrete

And the air-conditioning is

Broken.

I am hung-over

(Friend’s wedding the night before)

I buy a bottle of water

As tall as my chest.

I see

An old man doubled up

On a plastic chair

And then notice more and more

A field of people

Wilting in the heat.

Cairns, 20

I think:

‘I have never felt humidity before,’

Which is silly,

Because I am 20

And live in Australia

And of course I have.

But I am 20

And prone to flights of fancy

And dramatic statements.

So, ‘I have never felt humidity before.’

The heat here is different.

Is heavy.

Is pushing against the glass that surrounds us

Using its terrible weight

To crack

And warp

And menace.

It is thick

Filling all available space

Outside you see it

Settling on people’s foreheads,

Their cheeks

Their armpits

The back of their knees

That soft spot just behind their ear lobe

And turning to moisture.

Inside,

It is a temperate climate,

And I think again,

‘I have never felt humidity before.’

Minneapolis, 29

I always forget

When the Customs Officials

Ask Questions.

They are not genuinely interested

In the answers.

No.

That’s not right.

They ARE genuinely interested

In ‘The Answers’

As Answers.

They are not genuinely interested

In Me.

As a person.

A person made up of ‘The Answers’.

Separate to ‘The Answers’.

For whom ‘The Answers’

Are not statistics,

Clues,

Warning Signs,

But History,

Memory

Identity,

And Life.

I can’t help feeling

In Another Time

In Another Place

This blonde boy would offer

Tea and Biscuits

A floral seat on his mother’s couch

And Some Answers of his own.

Newcastle, 14

We are a gaggle of girls

My cousin and aunts and I.

Newcastle Airport

Is one large room

And we fill it with chatter

With girly plans

Of shopping

And swimming

And more shopping

And eating

And even more shopping

And lying in the sun.

I have grown up with boys

And I’m worried.

Will I be girly enough?

Am I somehow defective?

Maybe

In one store

I will choose something

And they will know instantly:

‘She’s not a real girl.’

Seattle, 28

I am hiding from people

I know

But don’t know

Around corners

Behind columns

Under books

And in music

Call my flight!

Please!

I’m no good at invisibility.

Albuquerque, 12

My Dad likes deserts.

We have come to stare at

Deserts.

To drive through

Endless plains of Red and Gold

Flat and unchanging.

I like the thrust of Mountain Ranges

The crispness of snow

The colour blue.

‘Dad why did we come

To stare at Deserts?

We have deserts at home.

All of home is a desert.’

‘There are deserts

And there are Deserts,’

Dad replies

His eyes bluer

Than I have ever seen them.

LA, 21

I am so thin

I am L.A. thin

I am Kate Moss thin

I am pants falling off thin

I am ‘turn to the side and I disappear’ thin

I am ‘breathe too hard and I blow away’ thin

I am ‘oh God how did you lose all that weight???!!’ thin

I am ‘didn’t have enough money to eat 3 meals a day’ thin

I have never been so thin

I have never been so happy

I have never been so worried

About putting it all back on again.

Adelaide, 14

When they last saw me,

I was 8

And my mother had died.

I am scared because Lisa is crying.
Then she explains

She isn’t really crying

Her tear duct is fault

And sometimes it fills with water

For no reason at all.

And I realise,

I wasn’t scared.

I was touched.

The Terminal Revisited

I was involved in an amazing live art project on the weekend, which was both challenging and incredibly rewarding.

Me at ‘The Terminal’
http://the-terminal.org/

The theme of the weekend was to explore an idea of ‘non-space’ and places in the modern world that can conceivably described as ‘non-space’. This would tend to be in-between places, places of transition, places of borders, border crossings etc. Hence the project’s name, ‘The Terminal’.

10 international artists were chosen to participate, all responding to the stimulus in different ways. Some political and historical: Abu Ghraib prison; Irish women travelling to the UK for abortions; the position of the immigrant in UK society; the transportation of cows for food. Some were more abstract: deconstructing an object and using it for something entirely different to its original purpose; attempting to become invisible; bringing one’s awareness to the objective physicality of the space around and inside one’s body and the connections between them.

My proposal was quite literal: I proposed to write a poem about every airport terminal I had ever been in my life. Furthermore, I would use the poems to build a visual representation of my life in airport terminals, mapping my life in a very different chronology then the ones commonly used. I would also invite the audience to share their memories of airport terminals in an attempt to create an alternate map of the world through memory, rather than through longitude and latitude.

My idea was looking at ‘non-space’ and ‘borders’ on several levels. Obviously it was looking specifically at borders and trying to represent what happens in those points of the world where there are borders and we are trying to cross them. However, it was also about attempting to represent temporal ‘in-betweeness’, as memory exists/is created in the past, but is remembered/recreated in the present, so sits in a half-way place between the two (in my opinion). Finally, it was also about a state of creative ‘in-betweeness’, in that I was displaying these poems before I had the opportunity to properly polish them. Mostly I was doing only 2 drafts and then inviting people to read them. They were also being invited in to watch me (as a writer) work. Not that watching someone write is necessarily that thrilling, but they were able to sit in this creative in-between space with me and see what that was like.

Those things all sounds very well-thought out, but the truth is most of my justifications were discovered through the course of the work. I told the curators I wanted to write poetry about airport terminals, they said ‘sure thing’ and then as I was working through it I realised all sorts of (more) interesting ways that my work was related to the theme of borders and border crossings and terminals.

When I went into the space on Friday, I was terrified. Reading all the other artists’ bios, they seemed to have much more abstract, well-thought out, political ideas than me and they were all much more experienced. But at that point there wasn’t much I could do.

Waiting to head in and make more art. Me and some of the other artists.

I had made a list of airports ahead of time, which clocked in at about 47 separate airports that I had been at. Many of those airports I had been at multiple times, but the main aim was to get just one poem about each terminal up and if I managed to get some more out that would be an awesome bonus.

The first problem, once I had put the map on the wall and set up my writing lamp, was that I did not know where to start. To be honest, I don’t really write poetry all that much. I mean, I write poetic plays, which is related. But I wouldn’t call myself a poet. How does one even start with a poem?

I began with my first ever memory of an airport, of travelling overseas at 3 years old and decided that was as good a place as any. I scribbled down some lines. They seemed ok. So, I put them on the wall. And that’s how I started.

Friday was difficult. I constantly struggled with the fact that me sitting in the space and writing was very dull. Without many poems up and attached to the map, the space didn’t look that interesting either. I had deliberately chosen to do something very insular, very non-performative as I think my performances often suffer from a desire to be constantly entertaining, constantly physically and emotionally active. I wanted to do something that was very much taking place in the brain. That was quiet and still and see how that felt.

Well, it felt goddamn weird. Every pore of my body was revolting against it. My brain was screaming, ‘Be interesting! Be interesting! Put your pen in your mouth! Make a face of concentration! Look like a wise writer! More wise! Don’t worry about actually writing! Just look good!’ The fact that people would come in and stare at me (which was the idea, which was what I signed up for) was also very disconcerting. I like to write in cafes. I like to write around people. However, I’m usually the one staring at them. I’m usually on the edges, not in the middle. They usually ignore me. And I like that. It was strange to be so ‘on display’ for what is usually such a private act.

By the end of the night (11pm) I felt I was finally getting somewhere and easing into the work. I was starting to draft pieces before attaching them to the wall and it felt like they were getting better because of it. My perfectionist side was still not very happy about what I was deciding to display (‘This is shit, its not even poetry. This is shit, its not even poetry.’ Was a fairly constant refrain throughout that first night), but because of the need to create this alternate map and visual representation, as well as the need to write down at least 47 ‘poems’, I had to kind of get on with it.

I got a good start on writing on Saturday morning before a lot of the audience came in. But this then started me on another issue. Whilst I was not getting naked like some of the other artists (another worry from the night before – ‘I’m not being edgy enough! I’m not being provoking enough!’) the poems that I was writing were ridiculously personal. Because what I realised early on Saturday was that the memories I have of airport terminals are not of the places, the buildings themselves, of course they’re not. They are memories of what I was leaving behind and what I thought I was going to. They are, on the whole, about relationships, about hopes and dreams. And my relationships, like everyone’s, have been complex, tough, beautiful, heart-warming and heart-breaking depending on the person, the day, the context, the ending, the beginning.

What I essentially ended up doing was opening up my diary, prettying up the words a bit, sticking them on the wall and then inviting people to take a stickybeak. Whilst I sat on the floor next to them. I know that I have a blog, but I don’t sit next to you watching your faces as you read each line. You can hate it in private and then tell me later you loved it, even if you didn’t, if that’s what you’re into. In this space, we didn’t have that luxury of space and time and privacy. People were murmuring to each other about the things I’d written behind me and I was fluctuating between wanting to hear every word (in case they were good words) and blocking them all out (in case they were bad words).

At the hostel, being ‘checked-in’ for the day by our curator. Me and some of the other artists.

In some ways it was easier to expose myself to strangers than friends. I found myself justifying to my friends why some of the poems weren’t that polished. The worst people, however, were probably the ones who I only knew a little, or I had just been introduced to. The ones who don’t know me well enough to love me anyway and who might decide that I’m crazy and then decide not to be friends with me anymore (and I’d care when they decided not to be friends anymore). Those ones. Those ones were the worst. I did have to warn one new friend that he might think I was crazy when he asked if he could read the poems. I told him he could read them and also reassured him I was not crazy. Just in case (He was perfectly lovely about them all, really and said probably the nicest and wisest thing anyone has ever said in regards to my writing and theatre-stuff: ‘Make sure you keep a little bit of you for you.’)

I took a break Saturday afternoon to listen to one of the talks downstairs (we were allowed one talk a day) and that’s when I noticed how done in I was. My head was pounding from so much writing and thinking and remembering and stressing and emoting. I listened to half the talk. The other half I stared at the blinds with my mouth open. I was shocked by how much energy I was using up.

One of the wonderful things about the project was that we were essentially in a lock-down. So, were not allowed computers, phones, internet. We were also not allowed money of our own and we were looked after by the curators. They shuttled us from venue to hostel (we all slept together in the same hostel room) and fed us. This was meant to be constricting and in some ways it was. But it was also incredibly freeing. I hardly ever get given the opportunity to be free of responsibility. To be cared for so that I can just make art. (I mean, how wonderful is that??? That is WONDERFUL) The lack of phones and internet and being in a strange place made me incredibly productive – the only way I could take a break was to make a cup of tea. And whilst I did make full use of the tea-making facilities, there are only so many cups of tea you can have in a day (7 cups. Its 7. That’s how many cups of tea you can have in a day). With the other performers all working and with no need to shop for food, cook food, clean up etc. there was really only once choice: write.

Close to the end.

Which explains why I got so much written. It was wonderful. I’m considering how I can recreate these circumstances on a regular basis. I think it most importantly hinges on getting rid of the bloody computer/internet and phone. Just giving them to someone else (that you trust. That will give them back to you again). Writing by hand in a place that is not your house. And then just getting on with it.

On Sunday night we sat around drinking together and it was wonderful. There was much discussion of what I should do with the poetry I’d written (and the memories I’d collected) now, which was very exciting and I think there are some great possibilities of where it can go. It was kind of amazing to be given this space to try out some ideas and see if they had legs (They had legs. Many useful legs. Many interesting, colourful, misshapen legs. Oh, the legs my ideas had). To make art whilst also trying out ideas is pretty special and I was darn happy with where I ended up.

I’ll also share with you some of my favourite poems. Not all, because the internet is permanent and live art is transient (even durational live art is transient) and I don’t know that I want everything I wrote over the weekend up here. But some.

Over and out.

Low-Level Frustration

I heard life was a Low-Level Panic.

It’s not.

Life is an endless trickling stream of frustration.

Life is a chinese water-torture.

Life is the quiet rumblings of an oncoming earthquake that never hits (but never ends).

Life is a long list of things you can’t do and you can’t change and you will always regret.

 

You’re lucky though.

The modern world has developed ways to cope.

Fake remedies (the beauty industry)

Mindless distractions (the internet, social media)

False hopes (self-help books)

Pretend power (democracy, petitions, peaceful protest)

 

The culture that hurts you pretends it can heal you.

The world that separates you thinks it can connect you.

 

They’ll tell you:

The most useful emotion in this life is not bravery or love or anger. 

It is nothing so noble or romantic.

The most useful emotion is acceptance.

A cool, suburban, comfortable acceptance.

Dull, utilitarian acceptance.

 

Don’t ask too many questions.

Don’t try and find out how the world really works.

Don’t ask to see the man behind the screen.

This only leads to revulsion.

And revulsion leads to anger.

And anger can be terrifying.

 

Low-level frustration is easy to accept.

To ignore.

For you.

And for them.

 

 

 

Korea

In the spirit of yesterday’s poem, I found this one on my hard-drive and thought I’d share. I actually wrote it on some hotel stationary in Korea when I was there on my stop-over in January 2011.

But, here you go, anyway.

 

 

 

Snow

Isn’t soft like people tell you

In poems

Or how it looks in a photo.

Its crunchy

And hard.

Like a driveway of sparkling white gravel

Not a downy-feather quilt.

And those curves and mounds that undulate so prettily?

That call and coo, ‘come lie down’, so silkily?

Points and edges

Too tiny to see.

The ends of a snowflake are sharp, cut out of bright white papers by children’s scissors

And they sting if you get too close,

Prick your sides,

Stand you up to attention quick smart

‘Cause you better believe

There’s no snooze button here, buddy.

Its up and at ‘em, George McAdam.

 

Here

There’s no warm breeze,

Sighing me to sleep.

The cold wind sticks in like pins

Through my ‘completely inappropriate clothing

For the weather.’

 

(In my mind,

Those are my grandmother’s words,

Scolding as my summer skirt

Is dragged out the door by an autumn wind.

Though, in truth,

She only every said,

‘Do you think you’ll need

A cardi?’)

 

Here,

Even your limbs can’t slack off,

Get away with wandering

With shuffling

Dragging.

Every few steps

I kick up my feet,

And slam them down hard

To get the blood flowing,

Scattering the shards of snow

Like a giant on a rampage.  

 

I jump in circles

And laugh like a child

(Or a mad woman)

At the hard lake and

The ice-locked boats.

 

The snow makes everything Quiet,

With a capital ‘Q’.

(except for the crunching, with a capital ‘C’)

Though, early morning Songdo,

Would be quiet any way.

It feels like

I got the wrong address

Or someone slept in

And everyone forgot to come to the party.

 

A single Korean man

Driving a snowmobile,

Stares

As I run and sing and scream in joy,

‘Its fucking cold!’ 

When I Was a Child

Didn’t know how to react to the Australian election. So I wrote a poem. I don’t normally write poems.

 

When I was a child you taught me

Always be kind

Always be good

Always share (and others would)

Only take what it was that I needed

And look out for those smaller than me.

 

When I was a child you taught me

Not to argue

Not to use names

Not to bite or hit or kick or spit

To use my words nicely and if I couldn’t

Use them nicely, ‘don’t use them at all’.

 

When I was a child you taught me

The world is fair

And the world is kind

And the world is safe

And right always won (though it might take some time)

And that we were right

And we ARE right

And always will be right

So it is right

That we won; and we win; and we go on winning.

(And even if it didn’t feel like winning sometimes,

It Was.)

 

When I was a child you taught me

That science was immutable;

That love was forever;

That people got what they deserved (eventually);

That hard work always was rewarded (potentially);

That beauty equalled goodness;

That goodness was enough;

That intelligence was valued;

That the world has been, is and always will be;

That monsters wouldn’t get you

(Once the light was on);

That wishing on stars and blowing out candles and picking up pennies

Was a legitimate way to make dreams come true;

That the ‘grown-ups knew what they were doing’

And when I was grown-up,

I WOULD TOO.

 

But when I was a child

You Lied. 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

– Robert Frost