Funeral Blues by W H Auden

Posted on February 24, 2012

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

blue valentine

Posted on February 21, 2012

To that end “Blue Valentine” refrains from offering anything like a solution to its romantic mysteries. “When I’ve fallen in love, I don’t have a checklist,” Mr. Cianfrance said. “There are a thousand reasons but there’s also no reason. The same mysterious thing happens when you fall out of love. There are a thousand things wrong, and then again it’s nothing.”

swept by the storms

Posted on February 20, 2012

At this particular time you are feeling the results of extreme stress and you are seeking a ‘way out’ but you are pushing too hard. Obviously you need peace, tranquillity and contentment. Your temperament is such that you are hoping, unrealistically perhaps, that your desires will shortly be fulfilled (even if at this time you are not quite sure what those true aspirations may be!).

You don’t really give in. You follow your beliefs and ideals to the bitter end. You are the personification of stubbornness and whatever may transpire, right or wrong, you refuse to compromise or make concessions.

You are trying to break away from the mundane existence that you have been experiencing of late. You have many high hopes and ideals but you are concerned whether circumstances will allow you to realise these ambitions. You want to spread your wings – to broaden your fields of activities – but you are concerned that your dreams are just that – ‘dreams’ which are not realistic. It concerns you that you are not thinking clearly at this time – what you need is to get away from it all, to give you time to think. A short vacation could well restore your confidence.

Whatever has caused the situation, you just don’t seem to be able to sustain or maintain relationships as you would wish to. What you really seek is to be able to develop a relationship with someone with whom you can truly share: Love, Serenity, Peace and Quiet. But you are a very demanding person and it is your nature that leads to disquiet and discord: you are like the tide, flotsam and jetsam… One minute you experience ‘highs’ and a few moments later ‘lows’. This obviously will introduce discord into any relationship and with this demanding attitude – the ideal state you desire is unable to develop. Despite the urge to gratify your natural desires, you impose a considerable self-restraint on your instincts in the belief that this demonstrates your superiority and raises you above the common herd. You are extremely critical of everything that is presently going on around you and you find it difficult to listen to or to take advice from anyone. You enjoy the original, the ingenious and the subtle.

You would like to be respected and valued for yourself and this can only be achieved from within a close and harmonious relationship.