Allie Sherlock & Cuan Durkin
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
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The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
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That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Comments on this entry are closed.
Sorry, but the 21st century female whiny high notes are my deal-breaker for the vast majority of popular music. Quit encouraging this junk.
Take it or leave it Mike. Gerard’s posted plenty of toonz on here that I don’t care for and I’ve never told him to not post it. It’s his crib man, he gets to furnish as he sees fit. The worst you’ll ever see me write is, “…they never made a red centavo off’n my ass…”. Yeah, it’s a keybd macro. I just hit kmfa keys all at the same time and, violin!
Anyway, that young’n needs to learn how to sing from the diaphragm.
I think the young man has a better, more pleasing, deep masculine voice. She is okay if you like her style.
Actually she has a good voice but needs a little professional training. She should also sing without the guitar because it interferes with her timing. Her accent or affliction can be corrected but you can’t give someone the raw talent that she has. By the way that song may be one of the most sensuous songs when sung correctly and with emotion. Watch the video from the movie “Ghost”.
Same song, younger girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oATEWzJxj3k&list=PL2v8kgVeo4EbYDVnRwObjETfWpXbzbgIO
I liked it.
Wow Roy!! UM is a tough song and I do believe you found a beautiful set of chops in that little girl. Smooth, fine transition and great control.
I agree with Mike Anderson. It hurts my ears to listen to her
That appears to be true love!
Won’t knock the singing. I’m old enough to just enjoy their youth.
Didn’t hurt me one bit. She has one of those untrained yet powerful voices that can knock your socks off. I think that location is a pedestrian mall in Limrick, Ireland. I have seen videos like that before, but with different performers.
Musical talent is in the soil in western Ireland. I have been in ordinary pubs with half a dozen players having a friendly seisiun when a gal gets up and starts singing in a style made famous by Delores O’Riordan with the Cranberries. Stunning emotion, power, and range. And then the song is done and no one can convince her to even raise her head at her table, much less sing another.
What amazes me is how all the people simply walk past them with barely a glance or none at all, as if they are not even there. I think that is indicative of society today. Just go on with your life as if nobody else matters except you. Sad.
Good point Stargazer. I noticed that, too. And I wonder if I’m ever going to see a bunch of people without the God damned masks. I am so bloody sick of the sight I could…
not gonna’ finish that sentence.
JWM
https://youtu.be/hx2BbNIL_hk
Hi, Mike. Maybe this lovely young redhead will change your mind. I am not sure if she’s graced Gerard’s pages, but she’s cute, her voice is sweet and she’s not doing things outside her natural range. If you look at her YouTube page, she sings jazz standards too.
Plus, she looks like my grand daughter, Ruby with her red locks and smiling Irish doe eyes.
You’re right Jewel. She’s much easier to listen to than the others, and she looks the part too!
Forgive me if I am repeating myself but although I was formerly trained in piano, I can only repeat the song and touch from an instructor through repetition. I have minimal natural musical ability. I’ve even hacked away at a guitar to disappointment. Regardless as a young adult, I won a handful of piano contests by playing EXACTLY how my instructor told me. Almost all judges said I had a nice touch. If you are still reading, my voice is apparently not Godly. When I was a teen I was loudly singing in church and suddenly everything got almost totally quiet although everyone was apparently singing, including myself. This was the only time God overtly spoke to me. He said “Snake, I have given you many talents. Singing is not one of them.” Then the normal sounds of the congregation could be heard. I have not sung aloud at church since.
@Jack,
Her name is Angelina Jordan. She won Norway’s Got Talent at the age of 7. She competed on America’s Got Talent this year at the age of 13. She got shut out at AGT. Rumor has it that she wouldn’t sign with Simon Cowell’s company so they dumped her. Here are her three performances on AGT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Q3I7FfvUU
You decide. She has over 130 songs on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2v8kgVeo4EbQD6l_WAVjOfItquzW7oEc
She is going to be a superstar, thus belying her full name which is Angelina Jordan Astar.
@ Snake….
You say ‘He said “Snake, I have given you many talents. Singing is not one of them.”’
Maybe you misheard.
Maybe He said, “Snake, I have given you many talents. SINGEING is not one of them.”
In other words, God did not want you to be a barber.
All this time you could have been cutting hair, making people feel good about themselves.
Me: tin ear – full heart. Lovely kids and the feeling comes through.
I am always dazzled by young people with gifts.
Lance,
I feel slightly better now.
They did have guitar face. Which is a indication.
Thanks for the links, Roy.
In her YouTube list, there is this one: https://youtu.be/TeD96o9PBLs
She appears to be about 9, singing Unchained Melody on a TV show. I take back what I said about untrained. She’s had a lot of training. The video in the post is, I would say, unrehearsed.
Yeah, she sounds like a kid. Its ok. I still cried a bit. Song still works.
@Gordon Scott,
Here she is at 9 going on 50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwFloCPXzCs
If you watch to the end of the video, there’s a whole crowd of people standing, listening to them, watching them, applauding.
It’s ok to like something every now now and then, without a “yeah, but…”
Watching a 9 year old singing that is somewhat creepy. She should be singing Skip to My Lou. Kinda makes you wonder who thought it was a good idea for a child to sing all these heartbreak songs.
@ Jewel. Skip to my Lou. indeed.
Back home in the bayou of Ligature Marks, LA, we were so poor that we couldn’t afford a Lou.
No one could.
When we skipped, which was rare (Christ! Roots all over! You could break an ankle.), we had to skip around a Lou made of sticks and rags, wearing a sad little gingham bonnet and Granny Suggins’s false teeth.
It seemed to stare at you with those empty eye sockets as you skipped past.
Sure, it was a simple-minded entertainment, bordering on psychotic, but we were a simple and a psychotic people.
We had no bayous where I grew up, Lance, but we did learn us some singing. Mostly shape note hymns and campfire songs. My father, on Saturdays played piano at various dives and strip joints, and on Sundays, played only a bit less raunchy on the Wurlitzer in our church. I once played in the church, too, but only in D flat. The preacher’s wife could only sing about a half an octave. Their kids sang beautifully, like all preachers kid should. My brothers and sisters and I could sing four parts. In tune. But since becoming Catholic, (insert Church of Christ lamentations here) to my utter horror, I have learned that Catholics don’t know how to sing polyphony, the hymnals and missalettes are disposable, and the music is 50 off shades of gay. Mixing pipe organ and Lord of the Dance is pukeworthy. Truly, we are in the Great Chastisement.
Cuan Durkin’s charm just landed him the role of Prince Charming in a Christmas panto (pantomine) of Cinderella Live online. I do believe he is typecast.