Autophony

Sing! Sing a song of joy A song of truth and beauty! A song of love A song of hope A song for eternity! A song of the galaxies A song across the oceans! A song of light A song of peace A song forever in in motion! A song for the rainbow A song for the flowers A song for a million heavens! A song on your lips A song in your heart A song that makes you happy! A song of forgotten sorrow A song for the future unknown! A song for the laugh of a child A song for the sparrow's twitter. A song of dreams A song of friends A song to go around the world. Sing! For the joy of life And sing it loud and clear! (To the tune of "An die Freude")

you seek to maim my body with a thousand cuts until it breathes no more cut here cut there cut my heart my liver my hands cut anywhere i shall grow again fresh renewed and leave no trace of the scar cut cut again go on cutting till your hand pain and yet it shall be futile I am eternal I know pain and suffer but that is all I am beyond death and pain is but illusory an ephemeral burn it singes me no more go on cut cut cut cut and i will grow grow grow grow you cut cut cut i grow grow grow

Little bundle in my arms, Your pink little face, Asleep, Vulnerable, Innocent, Drives me to tears; And emotions beyond description. As I hold you, I fall into a reverie – Diaper changes, Baby baths, Pink dresses and paranoid wife. Toddler days and teddy bears, Crawling, standing, falling down, Those first steps; Camera poised to record those fleeting landmarks. Schooldays: A tearful face, dimpled cheeks pinched cruelly by o-cho-chweeters; Leaky water-bottle, Sandwiches given to the crows, A bewildered nursery teacher And mother bent over A-B-C. Fights with those rough boys For the playground swing, Daddy dearest will beat them up And my little doll remain unhurt, Only her spirit a little bruised. Adolescence: Tampons, boys and pimples; Those giggles Those looks of shyness Awkward days for daddy. Young lady about town Dashing admirers Phone calls, flowers, Paranoid papa. The coy bride, Copious tears, Silk sarees. A deep unsaid apprehension That some young man Is losing his freedom. Pesk...

To Anchises first Roman; To Titan straddling twinned worlds of fancy and fact that pride in splendid isolation ignorant of the force entwining their fates; To Atlas, bearer of weight; To Aristophanes of the cloud-cuckoo land; To Nabokov of Lolita and the butterflies; and to that Alexander who claims the province of the spoken phrase in his domains: A bounty of words, an embarassment of riches of sweetness and light, the harvest of stars and the pageant of life!