DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
tula #2
Hi ho
The ever resourceful Olga, or should i say Olga Sulfur-16 Guela, told me to visit this, this saying that I'll probably like to... And i actually did.
Henceforth, I shall now be Ron Watermelon-2 Villegas. Hi ho.
To explain further, let me now quote Wilbur Daffodil-11 Sawin, future president of the US of A.
"As I said in my speech, your new middle name would consist of a noun, the name of a flower or fruit or nut or vegetable or legume, or a bird or a reptile or a fish, or a mollusk, or a gem or a mineral or a chemical element -- connected by a hyphen to a number between one and twenty."
Vonnegut addicts would understand that it has always been his belief that one of the reasons why people act the way they should not be acting is due to the lack of extended families.
Now, it's not that I no longer like my middle name, de Vera, which is also nice in itself, nor am I fully convinced with everything that the late great Vonnegut has written in his novels.
Its all in good fun really. And if you must know, Rowan Atkinson is also a member of the Watermelons, according to the website from which gave me my new middlename, selected at immaculate random. Hi ho.
I'm explaining a few things
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.
I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.
From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
Pablo Neruda
shingha
Found this in the desktop of a computer at an internet cafe in the shopping center. Thought i'd share the fun... shingha.
random thoughts
As of writing this post,
I miss Olga whom I haven't seen all day,
I'll never see Bob Smith again (more on this on later posts), Hopefully,
I've just earned P200 after serving as a major network's guinea pig for their new gameshow,
My cellphone's battery is dead,
I want to drink coffee,
I've just learned in the news that the AFP shall be deploying troops at urban communities, again,
I just finished editing my friendster profile,
Ka Bel has just been released, finally,
The rain has stopped.
Oh well...
----
I promise to try writing something coherent next time.
Meanwhile, I urge you, anonymous-reader-who-is-cursing-me-now-for-wasting-your-time-by-making-you-read-what-is-written-above, to visit this. Its pure genius. Really.
motorcycle diaries
I always liked to ride motorcycles. The sound of the engine, vehicles zooming by, the faces of the people you see in the sidewalks, and the wind as it rushes on your face adds up to a wonderful experience.
I went home to Pangasinan for the weekend. Waiting for me at home was my dad's new motorcycle which he has been boasting about for quite a while. But it was apparent that its full capacity was yet to be exploited (the mileage was only at around 425.) This is where I come in.
After I woke up last Saturday morning, I immediately and eagerly went to our garage and hopped at the motorcycle. (Yes, no time to spare for breakfast nor a change of clothes, just a wash in the face was enough.) I called my cousin to join me for the joyride and off we went.
From Bayambang, we went to San Carlos City to Malasiqui and Back. I'm assuming that the distance was 70 kilometers since it took us an hour and we travelled between 60-100 km/hr.
The road was smooth and wide, and since it was in the province, in the middle of farms and agricultural land. There were only a few cars and vehicles in the road so we pretty much had only ourselves for the trip.
And the trip was really a joyride. To quote, "You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness." (Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintainance)
And that is what I like about Morotcycles. You become a part of the surroundings. The wind that makes the branches of trees sway is the very same one that you feel on your face.
The only trouble we had was when we came back home. That is when I felt the burns. After all, what can you expect when you ride a motorcycle, in a road which is most of the time without any shade, wearing only boxershorts and a tee, at 12:00 pm, with the nearly perpetual summer yet to end in the Philippines?
Postscript
Before I went back home to Manila, the Mileage was at 550. (We also went to Camiling Tarlac last Sunday, but at 6:00pm where it was colder.)