"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

The Partisan, Sentinel, and TBD

-(c) D.B. Rocca, 2012

Oblique Strategies

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation - particularly in studios - tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you're in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that's going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn't the case - it's just the most obvious and - apparently - reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, "Don't forget that you could adopt *this* attitude," or "Don't forget you could adopt *that* attitude."

-Brian Eno

"Take a Break"

"Listen to the Quiet Voice"

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

Borderlands

Your bones remain a spectacle
across the crumbling brick box
that looms, decaying, like a shadow of some god
A promise whispered when dawn was just a theory
unproven, and we lay naked amidst the remains
Broken, marrow dried to scarlet dust
The alphabet of tribute I write with craven finger
A sorrow I accumulate and hold,
a fist that clenches in budding iris
and waits for your complete destruction
before it ever dares to bloom

-D.B. Rocca, 2012

 

Clear Cut, Apparently

Faced with mounting circumstance and pausing in passing

Looking across distances and trying to convey

Desolate surrounding of your own invention

With cold point bland refusal to just dissipate

Searching for a glimpse of heaven

Thinking of the bonds you'll sever

With steadfast aim you'll try to convey

You will pray for absolution while you're thinking of nothing

And take it for granted that you're already placed

Grim determination of transparent texture

Pulling down the blinds for convenience's sake

Spit in the wind in a nonchalant fashion

Gamble the odds on suicidal stakes

Days drag on in indecision

Clear cut with each incision

Casual slashes now and gradual falling from grace

You'll forget about ascension when your face hits the dirt

You take it for granted that there's been a mistake

-Martyn Bates

www.eyelessingaza.com