thought i'd been through this in 1919
and gathered them all
but my feet are slipping
there's something we left on the windowsill
there's something we left yes
we'll see how brave you are
we'll see how fast you'll be running
we'll see how brave you are
yes, anastasia
i'm not a huge tori amos fan but i guess she is #5 on my last.fm profile for some reason. i say i'm not a huge fan tho bc till tonight i had never heard 2 of her best/most beloved albums (i.e. under the pink + boys for pele) in their entirety. i only had a few songs from each of those albums, including some great live performances (instead of the studio ones, in fact), thanks to friends putting them on mixes for me. that's how i got into tori to begin with, and idk...i guess i don't feel very "well-versed" in her stuff.
i haven't been to a single one of her concerts (i don't usually "follow" artists that way anyhow), i don't buy her merch, i think i've only seen like 2 of her music videos. and i don't feel like i fall into any sort of camp, one that likes only her earlier stuff or one that prefers her later work. i like to judge each album on its own. i started off with a later one, scarlet's walk, and i quite like a bunch of songs from the beekeeper. her 2 latest efforts (american doll posse + abnormally attracted to sin) sort of bore me for the most part, tho there're still individual songs i like. in general i'm pretty open when it comes to music. yet i always get kinda weirded out when i meet other ppl who are not just fans, but true fanatics. ppl who think she's some kind of genius/goddess. O.o
well. i am glad i finally listened to boys for pele bc now "caught a lite sneeze" is one of my all time favs...i really like the lyrics for some reason. not sure why.
caught a lite sneeze
caught a lite breeze
caught a lightweight lightningseed
boys on my left side
boys on my right side
boys in the middle
and you're not here
i need a big loan
from the girl zone
building
tumbling down
didn't know our love was so small
couldn't stand at all
mr. st. john just bring your son
the spire is hot
and my cells can't feed
and you still got that belle
dragging your foots
i'm hiding it well sister ernestine
but i still got that belle
dragging my foots
right on time you get closer
and closer
called my name
but there's no way in
use that fame
rent your wife and kids today
maybe she will
maybe she will caught a lite sneeze
dreamed a little dream
made my own pretty hate machine
boys on my left side
boys on my right side
boys in the middle
and you're not here
boys in their dresses
and you're not here
i need a big loan
from the girl zone
**
tori's music kinda puts me in the mood for mary ruefle's poetry...maybe bc they both seem to write in a very emotional quirkiness/absurdism? shrugshrug. also they both have red hair. tho tori, lately, has developed a penchant for wigs in a variety of bright and unbecoming colors. i suppose the key difference between these two, for me, is that i like ruefle a good deal more. maybe bc music fans are so often dicks. tho poetry "fans" can be dicks too. or maybe i'm the real pompous dick for hating the whole concept of "fandom." here's a ruefle poem i love:
The Pedant's Discourse
Ladies, life is no dream; Gentlemen,
it's a brief folly: you wouldn't know
death's flaschcard if you saw it.
First the factories close, then the mills,
then all of the sooty towns
shrivel up and fall off from the navel.
And how should I know, just because my gramma
died in one? I was four hundred miles away,
shopping. I bought a pair of black breasts
with elastic straps that slip over the shoulder.
I'm always afraid I might die at any moment.
That night I heard a man in a movie say
I have no memories and presumably he meant it.
But surely it was an act. I remember my gramma's
housedress was covered with roses. And she
remembered it too. How many times she turned
to her lap and saw the machines: the deep folds
of red shirts endlessly unfolding while they dried.
Whose flashcard is that? So, ladies and gentlemen,
the truth distorts the truth and we are in it up
to our eyebrows. I stand here before you tonight,
old and wise: cured of vain dreams, debauched,
wayward and haggard. The mind's a killjoy, if
I may say so myself, and the sun's a star,
the red dwarf of which will finally consume us.
+2 more! (all from Apparition Hill)
Arturo's Song
No sparkles in the brain-pan.
I shall be a dazing one
all of my days.
After the olives ripen in Tuscany
there is no second sorrow.
When I am sad I have nothing to say
and when I am happy speak freely
of my sorrow.
The Queen of Constriction
"I am as lonely as...as Franz Kafka."
-Franz Kafka
Leafy outside the window. A little bird with
a mermaidish figure flies down to the rain-polished
branch and shakes. A man brings me something to eat
without disturbing me. It is a dream scene. On
Thursdays I mop. I swing the thing. Black water
results. A vile thing with far too many legs
must be escorted out. I too am removable,
especially the head parts. But who would know?
All those lashy legs chachacha across the spatula.
I might as well be in China. Where I am.
With concrete here and concrete there, here
a block, there a block, everywhere a block
block. I look at Miss Legs: poesy in the year
2000 will have offpsring like this. Oh my!
I'll chuck it off the balcony all the same:
which is what I do now and watch her fall
seven stories to the court below
where she lands without a shake and goes
on her many ways. Crackers cum laude for lunch.
Why I never shall marry is plain:
an act of constriction is needed
during these long and dumbfounded days.
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