a whisper behind my eyes it vibrates and my eyelashes flicker if it does not see what it says, then it feels what it means it says, "soft" it says, "pretty" come away with me sink slow submerging warm, tickling the hair on my arms pulling resting on soft silky tentacles of moss and green blue, hugging my mother's satin nightgown a hot summer's afternoon blowing over my shoulders the cool crook of my memory telling me... "you remember sleep...let's sleep now."
A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
What a thrill I thought To sock you in the stomach Right in the guts The o-shaped comic book mouth acquiescing as I might expect Watching Feeling My fist pushing, twisting, t-shirt White Around my knuckles, pulling out globs of you …of who you thought you were Dough …of who you said you were Sticking to my fingers I, in a panic Flick to the floor Still parts will not come off My fingers pop and mock I think I might fall to the ground and scrape the residual of him off like mud Splaying my fingers where dry Crackling in the lines of my hands Flakes of you come off What a thrill I thought
This bus smells like death This bus smells like urine This bus smells like humiliation This bus makes a big black cloud This bus feeds my children This bus wakes the baby This bus has bullet holes This bus is warm and dry This bus knows no color This bus could care less This bus will take you away This bus is full of sickness This bus has heard many stories This bus will take me home
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE, Nobel Laureate (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008), was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, poet, author, and political activist considered by many "the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation"
After publishing poetry as a teenager and acting in school plays, Pinter began his theatrical career in the mid-1950s as a repertory actor using the stage name David Baron. Beginning with his first play, The Room (1957), Pinter's writing career spanned over half a century and produced 29 stage plays; 26 screenplays; many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays; poetry; one novel; other short fiction; and essays, speeches, and letters—many of whose manuscripts are owned and catalogued by the British Library. His best-known works include The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film, and his screenplay adaptations of others' works, such as The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He directed almost 50 stage, television and film productions.[1] Despite frail health since 2001, he continued to act on stage and screen, performing the title role in a critically-acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre, in October 2006.
Pinter's dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters who struggle for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own versions of the past; stylistically, these works are marked by theatrical pauses and silences, comedic timing, irony, and menace. Thematically ambiguous, they raise complex issues of individual identity oppressed by social forces, language, and vicissitudes of memory. Although Pinter publicly eschewed applying the term "political theatre" to his own work in 1981, he began writing overtly political plays in the mid-1980s, reflecting his own heightening political interests and changes in his personal life. This "new direction" in his work and his left-wing political activism stimulated additional critical debate about Pinter's politics. Pinter, his work, and his politics have been the subject of voluminous critical commentary.
In addition to the Nobel Prize in Literature and the French Légion d'honneur, Pinter received 19 honorary degrees and numerous other prizes and awards. Academic institutions and performing arts organizations have devoted symposia, festivals, and celebrations to him and his work, in recognition of his cultural influence and achievements across genres and media. In awarding Pinter's Nobel Prize, instigating some public controversy and criticism, the Swedish Academy cited him for being "generally regarded as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century" and noted: "That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: 'Pinteresque' " ("Biobibliographical Notes")—a word he despised and found meaningless. Two weeks after having to withdraw from the honorary degree ceremony at the Central School of Speech and Drama because of illness and receiving it in absentia ("Degree Honour"), Harold Pinter died from cancer and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, in London
This is a link to Mr. Pinter's powerful and compelling speech given in honor of receiving The Nobel Prize in Literature.
I'm an all American boy And that means I've got my shit together An all American boy I'm prepared at all times and in all states of weather No one sees through my masque or the thin ray of light that leaks out my eye I don't take and I don't ask I always bounce back, try after try An all American boy I see past the truth and I make things happen It's a life I sometimes enjoy I've got god on my side like all true madmen Mad? Did I say mad? Well it's not really exactly what I meant And, if I may add? Silly me! What am I saying? That's not what I meant! My ruddy cheeks and crooked smile Are well worth the wait and even the price A master in the art of denial A nod of the head will usually suffice
