Oh People! The fifth podcast of No Way Out but Through is live!
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
—Francisco Goya
- Thanks
Gratefulness puts the pedal to the metal and crashes into the void in W.S. Merwin‘s poem Thanks. - Once
Once I was in love with my future. It was lit like a Japanese city. My life was charmed. I got into fistfights. I turned on a dime. I was fiercely optimistic. I was the luckiest man alive. - Self Portrait
It doesn’t interest David Whyte if there is one god or many gods,
he wants to know if you belong — or feel abandoned. - The Sleep of Reason
We collaborated across oceans and created The Sleep of Reason. If, in 2020, you couldn’t see the point of getting up because you had nothing to look forward to—this one goes out to you.
Featuring Maren Euwer, Glen Stohr, Richard La Rosa, and Curt Hopkins. - Hellenism
We live in is a field filled with sunlight
The exact moment when the echo of a city
Collapsing dies away
As Curt Hopkins reads his poem Hellenism, you will find yourself flying over the fence and into the void where you will land on the hood of W.S. Merwin’s oldsmobile. Splash! - After Long Winter
Chiyo (1703-1775) was a Japanese poet of the Edo period, a Buddhist nun, and widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of haiku (then called hokku). After Long Winter is one of the best haiku ever written ( I will fight you about that and you will lose).
Featuring Susan Anderson, Glen Stohr, Curt Hopkins, Richard La Rosa, and Maren Euwer. - Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. Krista Tippet’s interview on her On Being podcast is excellent.
As 2020 rolled by, and I tried to get my head around the whole thing, trying to address it somehow in terms of my podcast, the idea of working with collaborators was finally what inspired me to get some work done again
Thanks so much to said collaborators:
Maren Euwer
Glen Stohr
Richard La Rosa
Curt Hopkins, The Dog Watches
Susan Kay Anderson, Mezzanine
1.
Thanks
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
2.
Once
Scott Taylor
Once, I was in love with my future.
It was lit like a Japanese city.
My life was charmed.
I got into fistfights.
I turned on a dime.
I was fiercely optimistic.
I was the luckiest man alive.
Once, I was shot out of a cannon,
I landed on the moon,
I killed seven with one blow,
I balanced ten torpedoes
on the tip of my tongue like a sailor.
The future was up for grabs,
The past was simply a benign ghost
living in the back of my head.
Then one night,
the gods had had enough
and manufactured a monster
to distress my every dream.
Soon the days muddled into months.
Was I half asleep or half-awake?
No sound was distinct.
All the colors on the wheel
ran together into a bleak, unlovely gray.
Now, a complete disappointment,
I let down my guard
and gave up the ghost.
I was surprised to find myself
eager for doom.
The Future reared up for a final foray,
but changed its mind.
It came inside, and stayed inside.
Once, I felt certain the Future
would make the Past pay
It would shove its face into the mud
until it whimpered, and slinked off
into the dark woods forever.
Once, I saw the moon disappear
like it had been deleted.
Once, as per your request,
I dreamed a little dream of you.
3.
Self Portrait
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.
4.
The Sleep of Reason
Featuring Maren Euwer, Glen Stohr, Richard La Rosa, and Curt Hopkins.
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco Goya
Sanity is not statistical.
George Orwell, 1984
Weariness is a kind of madness.
Albert Camus, The Plague
One moment of incompetence can be fatal.
Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah
I couldn’t see the point of getting up.
I had nothing to look forward to.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Pragmatism?! – is that all you have to offer?
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The old world is dying
and the new world struggles to be born.
Now is the time of monsters.
Antonio Gramsci
5.
Hellenism
History’s ended. The time—
if it is still time—
We live in is a field filled with sunlight
The exact moment when the echo of a city
Collapsing dies away, but before the birds
And insects can resume and sirens sound
And people shout and cry. But this field will last
Forever, exactly as it is. The sounds
Will not resume. And we will have breakfast outside,
Underneath the plane tree, facing the ruins.
6.
After Long Winter
Chiyo, translated by David Ray
Featuring Susan Anderson, Glen Stohr, Curt Hopkins, Richard La Rosa, and Maren Euwer
After long winter, giving
each other nothing, we collide
with blossoms in our hands.
7.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
© 2021 Words and Music by Scott Taylor, unless noted otherwise.