Bastille Day

Words and music by geddy lee, alex lifeson, and neil peart
Theres no bread, let them eat cake
Theres no end to what theyll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
But theyre marching to bastille day la guillotine will claim
Her bloody prize free the dungeons of the innocent the king
Will kneel, and let his kingdom rise
Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by
And were marching to bastille day la guillotine will claim
Her bloody prize sing, o choirs of cacophony the king has
Kneeled, to let his kingdom rise
Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast
For they marched up to bastille day la guillotine -- claimed

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song performed by Rush
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As I See It

Americans
must man the barricades
storm the battlements
The Bastille can be won
of the vested interests
who would deny Americans
Health Care Reform.

poem by Vince Gullaci
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The Storming of the Bastille

In France on the 14th July people eat out, remembering a fact:
On the 14th July 1789 there was the invention of the restaurant.
That day there was the storming of the Bastille
However one has to eat every day.
The Bastille held seven prisoners: among them, four youngs.
That one was the revolution of the lawyers: Robespierre, Danton, Saint Just;
They became judges, cut the heads of dad king and mom queen.
Had those sovereigns their heads? People needed bread.
Marat was struggling with his eczema in a bathtub,
He fell on the battlefield. Citoyens, people are hungry.
Oh Jacobins your heads didn't survive, either.
Maybe it's expensive today but, Lesbia, can I invite you to dinner?
Aux armes, citoyens.

poem by Paolo Giuseppe Mazzarello
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Bastille day, French revolution

After a costly foreign war,
Injustices angered the poor,
The king didn't much seem to care,
So calls to rebel filled the air,
Once passions had begun to stir,
Blood spilt so power could transfer,
The status quo began to fear,
Whilst the left felt their day was near,
Fuelled by an unfaltering will,
Revolution dawned closer still,
Brave souls stormed and took the Bastille,
Then celebrated the ordeal,
Hailed were the seeds of the king's fall,
First by few nationals then by all,
The chance to bare one's heart and soul,
Unites the country as a whole.

poem by Christian Lacdael
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Time

What if I put time in a glass jar
And tossed it into the rolling ocean
Do I get to wish upon a shooting star
Changing it into a potent love potion

What if I could stop the clock
So I can spend eternity with you
Never ending nights of pillow talk
Making me bellow yabbadabbadoo

What if I cherished you for the duration
My heart telling my brain what to do
Though you send it into fibrillation
Still every moment will be love anew

What if I made our time stand still
It's the real deal; no silly lover's game
Your vicious attack on my heart's bastille
For you and me are one and the same

poem by Charles Hancock
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The Bastille

I dreamed Paris and shifted to the location a remote village school,
Marie.Antonette came running and her hair braided into pigtails
And she wore a red pinafore.
Her blue eyes invited me to play hide & seek.
I was shocked and played my tambourine with this song.
'Really I am scared of pitfalls Marie
And do you remember 'The Bastille'? (old fortress)
The prison until stormed.(July,14,1789)
That demolished by the populace.
When the poor people begged they cannot eat bread as it's too expensive,
Then you ignored them and said; ' Better you eat cakes.'
Do you remember what happened on the following day?
I re-read the History to check whether it's you or someone else?

poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Bastille

Do you wait for reckless half moons
Theater without pomegranates
Doves as empty as icons
I wait for your frail rose
Hope that knows stars
Come to me in the moonlit silk
Lattice as charming as wanton lions
Lanterns of the old world

Our hands pray for resolution
We are tents in the desert
Surrounded by solemn winds
Your sacred candle burns late
I whisper like a fire
Opium islands cry like Chloe s
Spain has wept
Swords of Paris subdue writers
White shells by Dover hail the tide
Cruelty is the staid and defined

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poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Blue Noodles And The Silver Moon

Twas christmas time in Oxford street, we shopped for presents, trying to be discreet, carols and lights that end so soon, blue noodles and the silver moon.

The cobbled street's of Tunbridge Wells, each time we kissed, it rang the bells,
love is all, when all cocooned, blue noodles and the silver moon.

Riding elephants on a Thailand beach, tsunami heartbeat and gentle feet,
blood red sky and clouds that swoon, blue noodles and that silver moon.

Summer in Paris, arms entwined, I loved you so, for you were mine, caress the louvre, mime the rhymes, bastille gate's they sense a crime, wicked feats condemn and soon,
blue noodles shiver beneath frightened moon.

Barcelona nights of a fashion lust, a tapas dawn and velvet crush, sense foreboding and creeping doom, blue noodles choke by a crying moon.

So tell me then, what changed your mood? I hoped to seek of a heart turned crude,
we said goodbye and I thus conclude, farewell blue noodles, adios sweet moon.

poem by Fergus Michael Condron
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Ragnarok

Our Trojan world is polarised to mourn;
To dream and find a black spot on the sun,
And wake to love and find our lover gone.

The destination of any weapon is grief.
In homesteads now where joy must seem naive
Under a splitting sky our women conceive.

The towns of houses, massed security
Out-generalled by a later century,
Are hearse-plumes on an old economy.

The ache of crushed walls when the raid is over.
This is a house, we said, we have built forever:
A two-backed fool, thinking of one day's weather.

Only one monster has to love his error.
Only his wrangling heart cannot recover,
But glories in illusion when half cadaver;

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poem by Kenneth Allott
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Frenchman for the Night

Comes a song I've heard before
A scratchy grammaphone
Cuts to the bone
La vie en rose arpeggios
So the dream begins
And the song is amplified
Buy the beaujolais
On Bastille Day
He dances in the tide
Chorus:
By the light of the moon
Hes a frenchman for the night
By the light of the moon
It'll be all right
Well it takes him back
To the days of love and war
And the girl he knew
With eyes of blue
Waiting on the shore
If hed only known

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song performed by Jimmy Buffett, music by Jimmy Buffett, Roger Guth (1994)
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The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

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poem by Frank O'Hara
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Hic Jacet the Balance of Power - Acrostic Sonnet

So the scene shifts at last, seventy years have past,
Only the nuclear threat tempers the joys we feel.
Vain seem toil, tears, and sweat, void the noble ideal,
Its principles the Past has swallowed. ‘Red’ is dead.
Errors were made, and vast, mainly by those who led.
There’s an important debt the Future may reveal: -
Hopes blossomed, goals were met through suffering and zeal,
Enlightened laws were passed, the poor were housed and fed.
Remember this forecast when free trade’s ugly head
Is raised, do not forget those freedoms which appeal
To us were won while yet most could not afford a meal.
And shall ‘progress’ outlast the need to butter bread?
Grant perspicacity to see how much we owe
Employing energy to help Tomorrow grow.

My thesis: far too fast the tide turns, cog-wheel tread
Against ourselves we fête in freedom’s name, - a wheel
Yet to unmask teeth, whet its appetite to steal
Basic rights still classed inalienable, and thread
Ever tighter nets entrapping liberty. We spread

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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May Day

Come Jack, our place is with the ruck
On the open road today,
Not with the tepid "footpath sneak"
Or with the wise who stop away.

A straggling, tame procession, perhaps,
A butt for burgess scorn;
Its flags are ragged sentiments,
And its music's still unborn.

Though none respectable are here,
And trim officials ban,
Our duty, Jack, is not with them,
But here with Hope and Man.

Nor have we cause for shame, who see,
In the glory-lighted street,
The Old Brigade of Liberty
The partial ranks complete.

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poem by Bernard O'Dowd
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You & The Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful

And every morning before Im awake
I walk around the world to make sure shes alright
And every evening fore I bolt the door
I give the stars a stir to make sure they will spin all night
For I see people who will scratch and spit and kick and fight
And I see nations war about whether right is left and whether wrong is right
And I know storms inside your head can amplify the blight
But no matter what the weather, you and the clouds will still be beautiful
No matter what the weather, you and the clouds will still be beautiful
And every troy with wooden horse
I take to peaceful waters but cant make him drown
And every bastille that gets stormtroopered
Hail to the chief comes rainin, rainin, rainin, rainin down
And Ive seen people conduct lightning down to a summers day
And Ive seen nations playfully hurl snowballs packed with stones and clay
And I know rain inside your head can seriously put a stop to play
But no matter what the weather, you and the clouds will still be beautiful
No matter what the weather, you and the clouds will still be beautiful
So let it rain
And when we see flying saucers, flying cups, and flying plates

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song performed by Xtc
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Quietly Making Noise

Quietly making noise
By: jimmy buffett, michael tschudin
1993
Oscar wilde died in bed
Several floors above my head
Living well beyond his means
In that crazy paris scene
Rain falls down in sheets so clear
And no one ever calls me hear
Travelin by myself these days
Im into jazz and felt berets
Far from that old eastern shore
Searchin for strange metaphors
I dont want to be another victim of fashion
No I dont want to see my name in the paper each day
Hey you can leave that to the young turks
Theyre handsome and dashing
Posing for paparazzis down laguna way
Now down in the metro I feel the world start to multiply
Bastille, rubber wheels, spiked heels

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song performed by Jimmy Buffett
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The Lay of the Laborer

A spade! a rake! a hoe!
A pickaxe, or a bill!
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what ye will—
And here's a ready hand
To ply the needful tool,
And skill'd enough, by lessons rough,
In Labor's rugged school.

To hedge, or dig the ditch,
To lop or fell the tree,
To lay the swarth on the sultry field,
Or plough the stubborn lea;
The harvest stack to bind,
The wheaten rick to thatch,
And never fear in my pouch to find
The tinder or the match.

To a flaming barn or farm
My fancies never roam;

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poem by Thomas Hood
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The Bastille: A Vision

I.

"Drear cell! along whose lonely bounds,
Unvisited by light,
Chill silence dwells with night,
Save where the clanging fetter sounds!
Abyss, where mercy never came,
Nor hope the wretch can find;
Where long inaction wastes the frame,
And half annihilates the mind!

II.

"Stretch'd helpless in this living tomb,
O haste, congenial death!
Seize, seize this ling'ring breath,
And shroud me in unconscious gloom.
BRITAIN ! thy exil'd son no more
Thy blissful vales shall see--

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poem by Helen Maria Williams
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The Australiad - (A poem for children.)

'Twas brave De Quiros bent the knee before the King of Spain,
And “sire,” he said, “I bring thy ships in safety home again
From seas unsailed of mariner in all the days of yore,
Where reefs and islets, insect-built, arise from ocean's floor.
And, sire, the land we sought is found, its coasts lay full in view
When homeward bound, perforce, I sailed, at the bidding of my crew.
Terra Australis1 called I it; and linked therewith the name
Of Him who guideth, as of old, in cloud and starry flame.
And grant me ships again,” he said, “and southward let me go,
A new Peru may wait thee there, another Mexico.”

A threadbare suitor, year by year, “There is a land,” said he;
While King and Court grew weary of this old man of the sea;
For there were heretics to burn, and Holland to subdue,
And England to be humbled, (which this day remains to do,)
O land he named, but never saw, his memory revere!
The gallant disappointed heart, let him be honoured here!

Meanwhile the hardy Dutchmen came, as ancient charts attest,
Hartog, and Nuyts, and Carpenter, and Tasman, and the rest,

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poem by Mary Hannay Foott
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The Birth Of Rain

Drifting on a drab Sunday in Perth among the ashtrays and leftover sublimities of the church bells. My studio window above the rooftops a smear of willow and wet pine undulating gently in the stillness that followed the rain. Wolves on the easel, waiting to pay the rent. May of the fifth year into the twenty-first century, fifty-six, I sit in a blizzard of tobacco crumbs because I'm too poor to buy tailor-mades, coughing at the computer, wiping small drops of water like pygmy tears from the Cyclopean eye of the screen that glows with the same effulgence as the dirty sheet of the sky. The main migrations are over, but maybe these words are rosaries of late-returning birds. Two anthracite, boat-tailed grackles on a branch just beyond the grimy glass and a gust of sparrows chirrup like squeaky alternator-belts, manically elated in the wake of the storm that has just passed. My freedoms are more sober, my resurgencies probably less profound than the gray roses I give birth to here at my desk, waiting for one of these terminal urgencies of insight to sway me like a bell.

Maybe Louise later today with her Cola and cassettes, and her rough, voluptuous, laughing humanity scorning the random acids of the vulgar world that schools her, a muse who doesn't take requests, a generous longing that's been through a lot. So I sublimate the root-fires of my leafless batons into an auto-de-fe of white canes tired of trying to tap their way through a maze of sexual creeds, blind. The result? A novel and dozens of poems apples above the worms. And I keep her cats, Morgan and Rain, mother and kitten almost fully grown. There are no humans Louise loves more.

The kitten was born beside me on the couch at one-thirty in the morning while Louise was in the hospital and I read La Mettrie, d'Holbach, Diderot, d'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau and Helvetius, eighteenth century French les philosophes. Two days ago, remembering, she asked me to write a poem to celebrate the birth. And it's two hundred and fifteen years since the French revolution went into convulsions and mothered daggers out of its wounds, and we are neither free, nor equal, nor brothers, and the birth of Rain, by association, is only the smallest of iota subscripts below the voluminous pretext of that slaughter, hardly, if at all, a mote that matters; but in a way she was born while the peasants stormed the Bastille, and time sent corpses and ideas floating facedown on one of its more famous rivers of blood all the way to the embryonic comma of this tender, contrary event. And there was honour in being a witness when Morgan jumped up beside me

and lay her head upon my right arm as a pillow, the great red text
with ivory pages open to the public like the Vatican before me
as the soft, gray satchel of her body shuddered with the natal lightning
of a different storm, the quickening eruptions of a different riddle
than the one that dropped its answer like a blade
on the necks of the cropped carnations as I kept on reading, thinking
to run for a towel before deciding not to disturb her,
that a little blood on the couch wouldn't hurt anything
compared to the streams of gore that caked the pages of my book.

And there was a humility in the act of watching, and a trust,
as if a great secret were demanding something of her
she was willing to go through hell to give. And my heart
laboured with her like a sympathetic strawberry, convinced of a miracle,

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poem by Patrick White
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The Chronicle Of The Drum

Part I.

At Paris, hard by the Maine barriers,
Whoever will choose to repair,
Midst a dozen of wooden-legged warriors
May haply fall in with old Pierre.
On the sunshiny bench of a tavern
He sits and he prates of old wars,
And moistens his pipe of tobacco
With a drink that is named after Mars.

The beer makes his tongue run the quicker,
And as long as his tap never fails,
Thus over his favorite liquor
Old Peter will tell his old tales.
Says he, 'In my life's ninety summers
Strange changes and chances I've seen,—
So here's to all gentlemen drummers
That ever have thump'd on a skin.

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poem by William Makepeace Thackeray
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