I love these friends of mine

My friends have many mountains,
Many mountains that I can breathe in
My friends have many houses,
Many caves that I could choose to live in

Yeah, you're a friend of mine
I love these friends of mine

borrowed from Marianne Faithful's song

Love is a Sickness

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,
All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries—
Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
Not well, nor full nor fasting.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries—
Heigh ho!
Samuel Daniel. 1562–1619

I wish I could post the song instead of the poem, because it is a song more than a poem for me, (I used to sing it), which portrays very well the perception of love as a sickness, but of the mind, on which a lot of Medieval scholars wrote treatises. They were trying to provide an analysis of its symptoms and suggest cures. And when they were calling it a sickness, they were not speaking metaphorically, No!; they were speaking of a sickness, just like any other sicknesses. For your enjoyment: "Questions on the Viaticum". The seriousness of their preoccupation and their explanations seem mostly funny from the point of view of our knowledge of medicine and human sciences. But I can't keep myself from asking: have we arrived at a better understanding? Have we moved any closer in explaining this feeling (or syndrome, depends on how you approach it)? Or, rather, have we gave up the effort of trying to give an account of it and left the concept (and the thing itself, I don't know what it is, this_thing_called_love) to be exhausted by the consumerism of advertisements and horoscopes? And, lastly, will there be an end to my rhetorical questions? And, loss of words, I sigh!

Bored by Dreams

Things are never what they seem
Play a part most of the time.
What is yours cannot be mine
And I'm bored by dreams.

Bored by dreams.

I can't say the words I mean
Make myself go through the line.
Does the payment fit the crime
If I'm bored by dreams ?

Take me through the steps my love,
Shall we dance again?
I was older then,
Now we are the same.

Lasse des rêves.

Rêve qui brille dans le noir
Brillera bien, tu peux le croire.
Toujours dire la vérité
Quand je suis lasse des rêves.

Take me through the steps, my love,
Shall we dance again?
Things were always brighter then,
Hear me call your name.

After a certain age
Every artist
Works with injury.

After a certain age
Every artist
Works with injury.

Take me through the steps my love,
Shall we dance again?
I was always older then,
Now we are the same.
Marianne Faithfull

a change in melody, a shift of rhythm happened and I consistently look out for the tunes which are not exhausted, in one way or another.

but here is a song which goes in every moment and place, which, I find, never loses its novelty. 


There was a boy...
A very strange enchanted boy.
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea,
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he.

And then one day,
A magic day, he passed my way.
And while we spoke of many things,
Fools and kings,
This he said to me,
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

Nature Boy

Soon This Space Will Be Too Small

Soon this space will be too small
And I'll go outside
To the huge hillside
Where the wild winds blow
And the cold stars shine

I'll put my foot
On the living road
And be carried from here
To the heart of the world

I'll be strong as a ship
And wise as a whale
And I'll say the three words
That will save us all
And I'll say the three words
That will save us all

Soon this space will be too small
And I'll laugh so hard
That the walls cave in

Then I'll die three times
And be born again
In a little box
With a golden key
And a flying fish
Will set me free

Soon this space will be too small
All my veins and bones
Will be burned to dust
You can throw me into
A black iron pot
And my dust will tell
What my flesh would not

Soon this space will be too small
And I'll go outside
And I'll go outside
And I'll go outside

Lhasa de Sela / The Living Road