If language were liquid it would be rushing in...
But instead here we are
in silence more eloquent than any word
could ever be
These words are too solid
They don't move fast enough
to catch the blur in the brain
that flies by
and is gone...


I'd like to meet you
In a timeless, placeless place
Somewhere out of context
Beyond all consequences
Let's go back to the building
on little West 12th
It is not far away and the river is there
And the sun and the spaces
are all laying low
And we'll sit in the silence
that comes rushing in
and is gone...


I won't use words again, they don't mean what I meant
They don't say what I said
It's just the crust of the meaning with realms underneath
Never touched, never stirred
Never even moved through
If language were liquid it would be rushing in
But instead here we are
in a silence more eloquent
than any word could ever be
And is gone...
gone
gone
And is gone

-Suzanne Vega

First Word

What wondrous dawning, this newfound life
Heavy the heaving, blank, unchanging child
Cradled as this world changes and I, too, must change
 
The Bible’s first words, first pages, the very beginning
Hover like a berry on the tongue of Adam
Words from a poem long lost to the children

But then a voice drones on from depths unknown

Confessed, it hums the truth from swift, beating wings
It dwells in waves  that  crest above,  in wreaths of flame

Where I, caught in airs of foul notions and intentions

Above a stark and pure re-creation of the world,
become eternity, vast beyond what eyes can see

-D. LaRocco, 2006

"Every existence in nature, every existence in the human world, every cultural work that we create, is something which was given, or is being given to us, relatively speaking.  But as everything is originally one, we are, in actuality, giving out everything.  Moment after moment, we are creating something, and this is the joy of our life."

- Shunryu Suzuki

The Soul Miners

With calls and clamor, man erects the rig
He stokes the flames with Earth's blackened blood
To raise and turn his augers, forged to dig
Through fields and flats of salt and icy mud
At dusk, the workers walk the barren soil
Like ghouls between the gates of life and death
With onyx eyes they reap their endless toil
With Labor's lust they draw their dusty breath
But as the drills do spit the rocky heart
They've dredged from out the world's unmoving soul
Within each captive's most essential part
The steel of Progress carves a harrowed hole
To bring Destruction's manifested strife
From slumbering mistress to waking wife

-D. LaRocco, 2013

 

"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."


-Theodore Rooselvelt

Photographs of guns and flame
Scarlet skull and distant game
Bayonet and jungle grin
Nightmares dreamed by bleeding men
Lookouts tremble on the shore
But no man can find the war

Tape recorders echo scream
Orders fly like bullet stream
Drums and cannons laugh aloud
Whistles come from ashen shroud
Leaders damn the world and roar
But no man can find the war

Is the war across the sea?
Is the war behind the sky?
Have you each and all gone blind:
Is the war inside your mind?

Humans weep at human death
All the talkers lose their breath
Movies paint a chaos tale
Singers see and poets wail
All the world kows the score
But no man can find the war

- Tim Buckley

Flying Teapot

Sometimes I think oh yes
I'd move to where all the shooting stars are gone
With all of our wishes
How could they bare oh no
To carry around the stupid human hopes
So I'm going to help I will
Give a key to lock the door
To the secret paradise
There are so many queuing up
And I won't let them in
Look at them
They are cheeky
They are never worthy
to be saved
Sometimes I feel oh yes
I could do almost everything I wanted
And it makes cry
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Remember
Surrender
There's nothing you can do
Cause love's such a joke
Like a little jack in the box you know
A little jack in the box
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Lay your heart
Lay your soul
Upon my magic carpet
Now we are flying
To Venus just to kill some time for tea OK
Remember
Surrender
There's nothing you can do
Cause love's such a joke
Like a little jack in the box you know
A little jack in the box