Mutley's $.02 - Post a picture of you as a child.

O Fortuna

O Fortuna,
velut Luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem;
egestatem,
potestatem,
dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis;
obumbrata
et velata
mihi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis
et virtutis
mihi nunc contraria;
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
hac in hora
sine mora
cordae pulsum tangite!
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!

O Fortuna (English Translation)

O Fortune, like the moon of ever changing state,
you are always waxing or waning;
hateful life now is brutal, now
pampers our feelings with its game; poverty,
power, it melts them like ice.

Fate, savage and empty, you are a
turning wheel, your position is uncertain,
your favour is idle and always likely
to disappear; covered in shadows and
veiled you bear upon me too; now my
back is naked through the sport of
your wickedness.

The chance of prosperity and of virtue
is not now mine; whether willing or not,
a man is always liable for Fortune's service.
At this hour without delay touch
the strings! Because through luck she
lays low the brave, all join with me in lamentation!

When we two parted

1
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

2
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

3
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They knew not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:--
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

4
In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive,
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee!--
With silence and tears.

-Lord Byron (1815)

Dog

The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddle and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn't hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit's Tower
but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master's Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramaphone
of puzzling existence
with its wonderous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

When I have fears

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

-John Keats (1848)

Belfast Confetti

Suddenly as the riot squad moved in,
it was raining exclamation marks,
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.
A fount of broken type. And the explosion
Itself --- an asterisk on the map.
This hyphenated line, a burst of rapid fire...
I was trying to complete a sentence
in my head, but it kept stuttering.
All the alleyways and side-streets
blocked with stops and colons.

I know this labyrinth so well ---
Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street ---
Why can't I escape? Every move is puntuated.
Crimea Street. Dead end again.
A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon
face-shields. Walkie-talkies. What is
My name? Where am I coming from?
Where am I going? A fussilade of question marks.

-Ciaran Carson

London

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind forg'd manacles I hear:

How the Chimney-sweepers's cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plague's the Marriage hearse.

-William Blake 1794

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its scilptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

-Percey Shelley (1818)