The most
merciful thing
in the world,
I think,
is the inability
of the human mind
to correlate
all its contents.
We live on
a placid island
of ignorance
in the midst
of black seas
of the infinity,
and it was
not meant
that we should voyage far.
--H.P. Lovecraft
Once, when
a religionist denounced me
in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you?
Do you have to call me bad names in addition?
--Isaac Asimov
Badlands
Prove It All Night
Outlaw Pete
Out In The Street
Working On A Dream
Johnny 99
Because The Night
Waiting On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The River
Born To Run
Thunder Road
American Land
Glory Days
Dancing In The Dark
* NADEZHDA TOLOKONNIKOVA, MARIA ALEKHINA
& YEKATERINA SAMUTSEVICH
We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution.
--Subcomandante Marcos
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
--Henry David Thoreau
The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.
--Susan Sontag
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
--Frederick Douglass
it was Philly and the bartender said
what and I said, gimme a draft, Jim,
got to get the nerves straight, I'm
going to look for a job. you, he said,
a job?
yeah, Jim, I saw something in the paper,
no experience necessary.
and he said, hell, you don't want a job,
and I said, hell no, but I need money,
and I finished the beer
and got on the bus and I watched the numbers
and soon the numbers got closer
and then I was right there
and I pulled the cord and the bus stopped and
I got off.
it was a large building made of tin
the sliding door was stuck in the dirt
I pulled it back and went in
and there wasn't any floor, just more ground,
lumpy, wet, and it stank
and there were sounds like things being sawed in half
and things drilled and it was dark
and men walked on girders overhead
and men pushed trucks across the ground
and men sat at machines doing things
and there were shots of lightning and thunder
and suddenly a bucket full of flame came swinging at
my head, it roared and boiled with flame
it hung from a loose chain and it came right at me
and somebody hollered, HEY LOOK OUT!
and I just ducked under the bucket
feeling the heat go over me,
and somebody asked,
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
and I said, WHERE IS YOUR NEAREST CRAPPER?
and I was told
and I went inside
then came out and saw silhouettes of men
moving through flame and sound and
I walked to the door, got outside, and
took the bus back to the bar and sat down
and ordered another draft, and Jim asked,
what happened? I said, they didn't want me, Jim.
then this whore came in and sat down and everybody
looked at her, she looked fine, and I remember it
was the first time in my life I almost wished I had a
vagina and clit instead of what I had, but in 2 or 3 days
I got over that and I was reading the
want ads again.
don't ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn't playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it's all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can't believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he'd be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that's the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn't even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.
that night I couldn't destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what's a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I'm a poet
and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.
you? you . . . a poet?
I guess you're right, I said, I guess you're right.
but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On...original mix of entire album 1971
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
--Woody Allen
Jesse Colin Young: What's Going On/Mercy Mercy Me...1976
look at that headlight shining through the rain
it must be that old Santa Fe freight train
I’m standing on Salteo tile on an old adobe porch
across the street the Baptist church, God’s own neon torch
well my baby's sleeping safe inside, I’m the shadow she’s the light
now here comes the sound of the Santa Fe at midnight
Baby wakes up and calls to me: “what is that lonesome sound?
it echoes off the mountains out near the lights of town”
and I say, “hush now, I come to you and hold you so tight
and rock you to the sound of the Santa Fe at midnight”
blowing through those cotton fields
near the Cana’tior river breaks
past the shanty towns of old Juarez
the eagle and the snake
blowing across West Texas, rattling out of sight
the music of the Santa Fe at midnight
making love to the sound of the Santa Fe at midnight
well look where we have ended up on the edge of the great southwest
staring at those restless trees along the water's edge
and up the street the Rio Grande like Egypt’s old Blue Nile
with the memory of the early ones who rested here a while
now the freight trains and the log haul trucks, they’re passing through
they don’t have the urge to wink at the likes of me and you
it’s all just diesel smoke, iron rail and a running string of lights
the music of the Santa Fe at midnight
blowing through those cotton fields
near the Cana’tior river breaks
past the shanty towns of old Juarez
the eagle and the snake
blowing across West Texas, rattling out of sight
the music of the Santa Fe at midnight
making love to the sound of the Santa Fe at midnight
