7 FEB 2020

2 FEB 2020 · The bleak fields are asleep. My heart alone wakes; The evening in the harbour Down his red sails takes. Night, guardian of dreams. Now wanders through the land; The moon, a lily white. Blossoms within her hand.

25 JAN 2020 · You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

5 DEC 2019

27 SEP 2019 · Who are you Who is born in the next room So loud to my own That I can hear the womb Opening and the dark run Over the ghost and the dropped son Behind the wall thin as a wren’s bone? In the birth bloody room unknown To the burn and turn of time And the heart print of man Bows no baptism But dark alone Blessing on The wild Child

7 SEP 2019 · Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

6 SEP 2019 · o bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies—and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

6 SEP 2019 · Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

6 SEP 2019 · O what can ail thee, knight at arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. O What can ail thee, knight at arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a fairy's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A fairy's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said— I love thee true. She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side. I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death pale were they all; They cried—"La belle dame sans merci Hath thee in thrall!" I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.

6 SEP 2019 · If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.