periol's poetry hour

alright everyone, break out the candles and berets, i have a 17+ minute acoustic rendition (sung!) of T.S. Eliot's "The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" for you.  In lieu of posting all the words here I'll post a link and the first few.  Anyways, hope you guys like it!  

http://periol.com/prufrock.mp3

words:  http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/prufrock.html

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I, 
When the evening is spread out against the sky 
Like a patient etherized upon a table; 
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 
The muttering retreats 
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 
Streets that follow like a tedious argument 
Of insidious intent 
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                               10 
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" 
Let us go and make our visit. 

  In the room the women come and go 
Talking of Michelangelo. 

Oh Periol, that is just beautiful.
I'm listening to it again.

you have a wonderful singing voice and play guitar just perfectly.

I love it periol.

I just listened to it for the second time.

You are very talented.

Your voice has a wonderful "dreamy" quality.  It's rich and sensuous.

I think you're growing in confidence.

I'm listenining to it seeing if I can tune into you some more.

I think you've broken some "bondage" of some kind somehow and now you're free/ready to soar and you're feeling it.   It's like you suddenly realised you have wings and you're flying and the flying feels so good to you and there's no stopping you now.

Soaring confidence.

And man, it's showing itself so amazingly in your music.

Darlin'.....just remember us as the TFP when you're a big star.

Make sure you don't forget your old friends and don't let all that fame go to your head.

Funnily enough now I keep getting 'Bob Dylan" but that's maybe telling me you have this strong poetic side you need to and should express.

John Lennon/Bob Dylan/Periol.

I'm diggin' it.

I love this.  I just love it.  In fact at one point it made tears come to my eyes.   You can touch people's souls.  That's what an artist can do.

Promise me you won't ever sing any Abba, okay periol?

Love ya man. 

wow you guys, thank you.

i guess wrapping up the album for the time being has made me bored.  i discovered that all the things about my voice i was trying to fix during the vocal takes for my album just plain go away when i play guitar.  i hear the notes better, or more likely i have more freedom to find the tune.  

i still feel like i'm getting there, but you're right em, i feel like the time i've been waiting for is nearly upon me.  for so long now i've been waiting and listening, and making sure i should still be waiting.  and i've always had the sense when the time came to launch i would know.  

and i don't know how or why or anything really, but i really think a curse was broken recently.  i don't know what it was, but it's gone.  i know it.

and beyond that, i haven't said anything out of fear of being wrong, but i somehow managed to not fuck things up with amanda.  :)  through a long and strange (out of necessity of course for me) and slow and twisting path, we somehow managed to keep talking and hanging out and who knows where things could go or how long they last but right now things are real and that's enough for now.

i don't know where all of this is going, but somehow i know this is going to be a good spring and summer.  

btw, pammie, i'm honored you posted this to your news page.  that means a lot.  thank you.  

you are way way welcome my friend, i love your work periol. I really do. the sound of your voice is soothing and kind and loving. I hope you will continue writing and performing your songs.

welcome to the next edition of periol's poetry hour.  this one won't last quite as long - just a hair over five minutes.

this time i musicified e.e. cummings poem "anyone lived in a pretty how town"

http://periol.com/cummings2.mp3

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

not to beat a dead untinfoily horse, but here's another one.  a living poet this time - Franz Wright.

http://periol.com/old_story.mp3

Old Story

First the telephone went, 

then 

the electricity.

It was cold, 

and they both went to sleep 

as though dressed for a journey.

Like addictions condoned 
from above 
evening fell, lost

leaves waiting 

to come back as leaves-- 

the long snowy divorce. . .

That narrow bed, a cross 

between an altar 

and an operating table. Voice

saying, While I was alive 

I loved you. 

And I love you now.

Nice work periol.  Thank you.

thanks em.  

a few more today.  but i'll post this one for now.  

rumi.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi)

anyways, here's the song...
http://periol.com/fringe.mp3

Fringe

You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart,
but how can I run from what gives me life?

I'm weary of personal worrying, in love
with the art of madness! Tear open my shame

and show the mystery. How much longer
do I have to fret with self-restraint and fear?

Friends, this is how it is: we are fringe
sewn inside the lining of a robe. Soon

we'll be loosened, the binding threads torn
out. The beloved is a lion. We're

the lame deer in his paws. Consider
what choices we have!


Rumi: The Book of Love
Translated by Coleman Barks

Rainer Maria Rilke
from the book of hours
http://picture-poems.com/rilke/hours.html#I am

http://periol,com/rilke.mp3

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
just to stand before you like a thing,
dark and shrewd.
I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves towards deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise
or else alone.
I want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,
and never to be too blind or too old
to hold your heavy, swaying image.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere do I want to remain folded,
because where I am bent and folded, there I am lie.
And I want my meaning
true for you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I studied
closely for a long, long time,
like a word I finally understood,
like the pitcher of water I use every day ,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the deadliest storm of all.

crap that last link is wrong.

http://periol.com/rilke.mp3

The next episode:  

http://periol.com/wait.mp3

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours.  Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands.  And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
     
Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

i got distracted, and ended up turning another rumi poem into a song.  oops.  

http://periol.com/ode314.mp3

Ode 314

Those who don't feel this Love pulling them like a river, those who don't drink dawn like a cup of spring water or take in sunset like supper, those who don't want to change, 

let them sleep. 

This Love is beyond the study of theology, that old trickery and hypocrisy. I want you to improve your mind that way, 

sleep on. 

I've given up on my brain. I've torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away. 

If you're not completely naked, wrap your beautiful robe of words around you, 

and sleep. 

http://www.khamush.com/love_poems.html

That was great periol! 

Rumi.  I like Rumi.

listen
i only have so many words left
and i'm tired of waiting
to say what i mean
already
i mean what i say
which is that i'm tired of 
more
everything
everywhere
except where it matters more,
inside the face of the other.

and yes, i'm aware it's ridiculous of me
to think out loud
but i believe in something 
more
and for the first time
i feel there's something to be done
and it doesn't start with big plans
to change the world
or become famous
it starts in the heart.
see i said it's ridiculous
but i believe
it's true
and when i say that
i don't take belief lightly
there are so many things
i don't believe
like the history they taught us
or religion or television or government 
or the economy or the moon
or that anything anywhere is real
because everything everywhere
is more than real.

and it's not that i don't believe 
in my own greatness
which is crouched 
in the corner 
waiting
to turn kinetic
it's that i believe in your own greatness
coming around the bend
and it's not that i don't believe in heaven
it's that i don't believe we should wait
you could call it hedging my bets.
and it's not that i've drawn a beam
on what heaven
on earth
should look like
but i certainly know
it's not what we have now
and the only way
to even make a start
at righting the ship
is to start
inside the face of the other
already
the waves have been saying
we are all just reconstituted water
and rock
so it's more important
for me to be happy with you
than anything in the world
i guess i mean
to make happy
and live happy
and sleep happy.

that happy is a big word in disguise.
it means being honest
and healthy and living
in peace.  and those are all big words 
too big to explain
but the only way to make something trendy
is to start a trend
so start one you can believe in
when you look inside me
and i'll start one to believe in
when i look inside you
because you know that i know 
that you know that i know
that you know
it's all propaganda
and there's no copyright 
on making a new reality
where this world is not made
of commodities
where we admit the truth about ourselves
we are all ridiculous
all the politicians
all the actors and actresses, musicians 
and musicianetttes, all the plumbers and doormen 
and office workers and executives
and their assistants
and the moms and the dads
all the fathers and mothers
all the teachers and carpenters
and day laborers and homeless 
we are all fucking ridiculous
clowning around
and only some of us
are crazy enough to have figured this out.
it doesn't fucking matter.
stop looking in the mirror.
look at me.
let me look at you.
let's make fairy tales 
real together.
you and me.
me and you.