When she had twenty years she turned to her mother
Saying mother, I know that youll grieve
But Ive given my soul to st john the gambler
Tomorrow comes time leave
For the hills cannot hold back my sorrow forever
And dead men lay deep round the door
The only salvation thats mine for the asking
So mother, think on me no more

Winter held high round the mountains breast
And the cold of a thousand snows
Lay heaped upon the forests leaf
But she dressed in calico
For a gambler likes his women fancy
Fancy she would be
And the fire of her longing would keep way the cold
And her dress was a sight to see

But the road was long beneath the feet
She followed her frozen breath
In search of a certain st john the gambler
Stumbling to her death
She heard his laughter right down from the mountains
And danced with her mothers tears
To a funeral drawn a calico
neath the cross of twenty years

To a funeral drawn a calico
neath the cross of twenty years

Townes Van Zant

"Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)"

[Jay-Z]
Uh, uh, listen
First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up
Somebody got a problem with Hov'
What's up you all niggas all fed up 'cause I got a little cheddar
and my records moving out the store?
Young fucks spitting at me, young rappers getting at me
My nigga Big predicted the shit exactly
"More money, more problems" - gotta move carefully
'cause faggots hate when you getting money like athletes
Yung'uns ice-grilling me, oh - you're not feeling me?
Fine; it cost you nothing - pay me no mind
Look, I'm on my grind cousin, ain't got time for fronting
Sensitive thugs, you all need hugs
Damn though mans I'm just trying do me
If the record's two mill I'm just trying move three
Get a couple of chicks, get 'em to try to do E
Hopefully they'll menage before I reach my garage
I don't want much, fuck I drove every car
Some nice cooked food, some nice clean drawers
Bird-ass niggas I don't mean to ruffle you all
I know you're waiting in the wing but I'm doing my thing
Where's the love?

"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
I said where's the love?
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
Yeah..

And then the Fugee's gonna break up, now everyday I wake up
Somebody got something to say
What's all the fucking fussing for? Because I'm grubbing more
and I pack heat like I'm the oven door?
Niggas pray and pray on my downfall
But everytime I hit the ground I bounce up like roundball
Now I don't wanna have to kill southpaw
Don't wanna have to cock back the four pound bar
Look scrapper I got nephews to look after
I'm not looking at you dudes, I'm looking past you
I thought I told you characters I'm not a rapper
Can I live? I told you in ninety-six
that I came to take this shit and I did, handle my biz
I scramble like Randall with his
Cunningham but the only thing running is numbers fam
Jigga held you down six summers; damn, where's the love?

"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
Niggas, where's the love?
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
Holla at me!!
"Ain't no love" (take 'em to church) "in the heart of the city.."
Uh, uh, uh - my nigga where's the love?
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
Fuck

Then Richard Pryor go and burn up, and Ike and Tina Turner break up
Then I wake up to more bullshit
You knew me before records, you never disrespected me
Now that I'm successful you'll pull this shit
Nigga I'll step on your porch, step to your boss
Let's end the speculation, I'm talking to all you
Males shouldn't be jealous that's a female trait
Watch you mad 'cause you push dimes and he sell weight?
You all don't know my expenses, I gotta buy a bigger place
Hehehe, and more baggies, why you all aggie?
Nigga respect the game, that should be it
What you eat don't make me shit - where's the love?

Where's the love?

"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."

"Ain't no love.."

Ox often are adult, castrated males.
"When that motherfucka stepped to me I pulled out my ox and gave his bitch-ass a buck fifty!"
In the Vietnamese zodiac, the water buffalo occupies the position of the ox.
Ox has done it the hard way.
An adult castrated male domestic ox
People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily.
Ox people are mentally and physically alert.
Ox is virtual network of people.
The scripture saith, "thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn."
Killing an ox = Good = The removal of enemies from your presence.
A fat ox is a finer thing than a cheese, however good.
2009 is the year of the ox. This calm and trustworthy animal is a symbol of prosperity through fortitude and hard work.
Ox often are adult, castrated males.

This is the first post of my new life...

"I'm gonna play, invisible space invaders, with my feet, poo, pooogh...I lost. That blog was rough, Jason, you can do better. Ditty, just wants to be Frank Sinatra, except Sinatra never killed Dean Martin, to get his career started. That blog post was Arrogant, Obtuse, Unfocused, Abs tact, and a Lie. Jason, I have a few suggestions for the new year. As your no teller of false secrets keep everything simple, true, elegant, as opposed to arrogant, water has no enemy, so cut down down obtuse...abstraction for its own sake is just pretence hiding as intelligence, which is not the same as cleverness, intelligence is focused. Being humble, is the sport of kings, like horse racing, but without all the shit."

Poem for South African Women

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire

And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:

we are the ones we have been waiting for.

from Passion: New Poems, 1977-80, by June Jordan
copyright 1980 June Jordan
reprinted with permission of the June M. Jordan Literary Estate Trust

Ode to Nitrous Oxide
by Sharon Dolin

Coleridge said that nitrous oxide—laughing gas—
provided “the most unmingled pleasure” he ever knew.
—Edward Rothstein, The New York Times

Is it only the memory of being
ten and being driven to Manhattan
to see the “dintist,” as the elevator man
called him—the only time I can recall being
in a building with an elevator—that invokes you?
Or is it the pain I feared then or the pain I flee from now—
tooth pain, the whirring drill, or the agonizing ache of hearing
my husband just having had a housewarming party with another
woman in another apartment—the one I don’t have the keys to?
Is it about laughing over the pain or about “Gonna take you higher,”
as Sly said in the Sixties when I thought I was too young to smoke
yet there I was snorting that sweet stuff up in the dentist’s chair
on what must have been the Upper East Side—this Brooklyn girl
from East Flatbush—and loving it. It felt like soft rubber wrapping
around my face around as the dentist drilled around & around drilled
wiggled his nose & whiskers like a human bunny rabbit. Here I am now,
forty years later, asking for it in another East Side building where my name
is announced. Asking to be put out of my pain—to feel the numbness flower
down my arms into my pelvis. Isn’t it funny how good numb can feel? Is that
the experience? Or is it waking up after—lucid but no longer asking (or caring)
where it throbs—or when—or why—or because of whom.


Sharon Dolin’s fourth poetry book, Burn and Dodge, which won the AWP 2007 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry, is just out from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She currently teaches at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y and directs The Center for Book Arts Annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition.

2. Abstraction
When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.

So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.

The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell