November 14

Daily Wisdom

Daily Inspiration

Celeste Foley

“The Party’s Over”

~ Shirley Bassey

“Those who realize/how fitful and indecent consciousness is/ Stare solemnly out on the empty street./ The mourners and soft singers: The liars,/ and seekers after ridiculous righteousness. All/ my doubles, and friends, whose mistakes cannot/ be duplicated by machines, and this is all of our/ arrogance. Being broke or broken, dribbling/ at the eyes. Wasted lyricists, and men/ who have seen their dreams come true, only seconds/ after they knew those dreams to be horrible conceits/ and plastic fantasies of gesture and extension,/ Shoulders, hair, and tongues distributing misinformation/ about the nature of the understanding. No one is that simple/ or priggish, to be alone out of spite and grow strong/ in its practice, mystics in two-pants suits. Our style,/ and discipline, controlling the method of knowledge,/ Beatniks, like Bohemians, go calmly out of style/ And boys/are dying in Mexico, who did not yet get the word./ The lateness of their fabrication: marks their holes/ with filthy needles. The lust of the world. This will not/be news. The simple damning lust,/ float flat magic in low changing/evenings. Shiver your hands/ in dance. Empty all of me for/knowing, and will the danger/ of identification,/ Let me sit and go blind in my dreaming/ and be that dream in purpose and device./ A fantasy of defeat, a strong strong man/ older, but no wiser than the defect of love.”

                                                      Amiri Baraka (aka Leroi Jones)

                                                             “The New World”