I love my dog

By Cat Stevens

I love my dog as much as I love you
But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

All he asks from me is the food to give him strength
All he ever needs is love and that he knows he'll get

So, I love my dog as much as I love you
But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

All the pay I need comes shining through his eyes
I don't need no cold water to make me realize that

I love my dog as much as I love you
But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, nana...

I love my dog as much as I love you
But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, nana...

I love my dog, baby, I love my dog. na, na, na...
I love my dog, baby, I love my dog. na, na, na

Comments : since we are on dogs. Here's one reason dogs are preferable to the opposite sex - Anonymous

Sam's Ghazals

By Elise Paschen

You’re out. The house is dead. With me:
You’re safe. Why not stay home, instead, with me ?

That Ur prince whisked you off past four.
At my leash-end, you’re not misled by me.

He’s like a tide. He comes. He goes.
I’m always here. Life’s anchored with me.

My needs are few: a bowl, a lead, some love.
You won’t get in the red with me.

You never have to cook, just pop a Mighty Dog:
a snap to have breakfasted with me.

He paws, he yaps, he barely listens.
I’m all ears. Much is left unsaid with me.

Maybe I have my quirks (stairs scare, streets clank),
But you’ve always kept your head with me.

He is six foot one. I am one foot high.
Don’t ever let him tread on me.

Though small, I claim my space and like you snug.
(It’s tough sharing a bed with me.)

My name is Samson. Yours is Paschen.
So keep your name and stay unwed with me.

- Sam

Comments : And after last week’s poem from a she-dog to her master, here is one from a he-dog to his mistress. I love the reasons given by the dog to convince his mistress that he is better than a human boyfriend.
Notice the brilliant contrast the dog brings out in
‘He’s like a tide. He comes. He goes.
I’m always here. Life’s anchored with me.’
Also,
‘He paws, he yaps, he barely listens.
I’m all ears. Much is left unsaid with me.’
:-) Awesome, isn’t it ?
- Zen

Doggerel

By Abigail Thomas

I’m quintessential female
I have a jealous heart
and that last girl he brought up here
was nothing but a tart

she ate up all his ice-cream
she drank up all his schnapps
and then she made a noisy fuss
when I climbed on their laps

he took me off the sofa
he put me in the chair
she said,”My god, your furniture
is nothing but dog - hair”

(my master is an idiot
how freely I admit it
he used to have a thinking – cap
but someone must have hid it)

she laughed at all his silly jokes
(which most girls find a chore)
and then she took off all her clothes
and dropped them on the floor

it’s not that I’m small-minded
he’s had some other lovers
but this one didn’t understand
I sleep under the covers

I don’t like to be pushed around
I do not care for scowls
she told him that I snapped at her
when all I did was growl

I’m certainly no prude
(I’d prove it if he’d let me)
but I saw no reason why she shouldn’t
rue the day she met me

her clothes I chewed to pieces
her silly boots I bit up
some of this mess I swallowed
but most of it I spit up

“how could you keep a dog like him?”
she cried,”this filthy cur?”
my master looked at me and smiled,
“No, not a him, a her.”
- Suzy

Comments : I found this poem about a possessive pet dog quite cute. Rather true to human emotions too, but being expressed by a dog with rhyme and metre makes it adorable. It's from a book titled 'Unleashed. Poems by Writers Dogs'.
- Zen

Everybody Knows

By Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that its moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of calvary
To the beach of malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Comments : This is the first Leonard Cohen song I heard years ago and it still remains one of my favourite Cohen songs / poems. The cynicism, the sardonic wit, the imagery – all are just amazing. While I cannot read /hear too many Cohen song-poems at a stretch, I think they are just the thing in ones and twos when one is in the right mood to appreciate them. Cohen’s poetry puts words to stark despair and disillusionment – looking into the dark crater and back again – like no one else can. - Zen

Links to information about Leonard Cohen :
Wikipedia, of course. Interestingly, Wikipedia reveals that he underwent five years of seclusion at a Buddhist centre and has been ordained as a Buddhist monk.

This article discloses that Cohen's maternal grandfather was a rabbi who wrote a 700-page thesaurus of Talmudic interpretations. Now we know exactly where the understanding for the poem ‘Who, By Fire’ comes from. The same article also discloses that Cohen has been labelled "the poet laureate of pessimism", "the grocer of despair", "the godfather of gloom" and "the prince of bummers", in addition to 68 other facts about him.

And this is where all the information about Cohen is to be found.

Links to more poems by Leonard Cohen : http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/624.html
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/leonard+cohen/bird+on+the+wire_20082816.html
(Who could but love these lines – ‘Like a bird on a wire/ Like a drunk in a midnight choir/ I have tried, in my way, to be free’)
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/744.html
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/leonard+cohen/im+your+man_20082812.html
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/744.html
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/339.html

Learning to Live with Islam

(This post is reprinted from this blog, with due permission of course.)

The veil is not the same as the suicide belt. We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license.
--- Fareed Zakaria. Learning to Live With Radical Islam. Newsweek: February 28, 2009.

Sharia demands death for the adulteress
I am not an adulteress
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the gays
I am not a gay
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the blasphemer
I am not a blasphemer
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the apostate
I am not a Muslim
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Islam demands Sharia for everyone
I am no one
I learned to live with Islam.

An adaptation of "First they came...", a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
By, The Rational Fool

Comments : One of the reasons I like Desipundit is that it regularly introduces me to posts such as this. Something about the poem grabbed my attention when I read it. The wikipedia entry on Pastor Martin Niemoller and his poem was rivetting too. Am copying below the 1976 version of his poem.
- Zen

First They Came (1976 version)

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

French Horn

By Jane Hirshfield


For a few days only,

the plum tree outside the window

shoulders perfection.

No matter the plums will be small,

eaten only by squirrels and jays.

I feast on the one thing, they on another,

the shoaling bees on a third.

What in this unpleated world isn't someone's seduction?


The boy playing his intricate horn in Mahler's Fifth,

in the gaps between playing,

turns it and turns it, dismantles a section,

shakes from it the condensation

of human passage. He is perhaps twenty.



Later he takes his four bows, his face deepening red,

while a girl holds a viola's spruce wood and maple

in one half-opened hand and looks at him hard.

Let others clap.

These two, their ears still ringing, hear nothing.

Not the shouts of bravo, bravo,

not the timpanic clamor inside their bodies.

As the plum's blossoms do not hear the bee

nor taste themselves turned into storable honey

by that sumptuous disturbance.


Comments : A friend forwarded this poem to me a few days ago and I knew I would post in on the blog over the weekend. The beginning of the poem grabbed me and drew me in - 'for a few days only, the plum tree outside the window shoulders perfection'. Lovely image !
For more poems by Jane Hirshfield, check this.
Zen

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

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.


Comments : The backdrop to this poem is Federer’s defeat at the Oz Open yesterday at the hands of his nemesis Nadal. Fed wept yesterday as this is the third Grand Slam final where Rafael has thrashed him in one year, and he is very close and yet so far at equaling Pete Sampras’ record.
A poem to console fedex…. he shall rise from the ashes yet again …. :-) the poem is not v appropriate but it captures the spirit rather well..
- Sachin