The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World

by

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

...

spoken by

Ian Wilson

...

not enough time...

Not enough time to learn all your dances
Not enough time to sing all your songs
Not enough time to chase all those romances
just not enough time to find where I belong

Not enough time to let go of the sorrow
Not enough time to forget your name
Not enough time to chase after tomorrow
Just not enough time to heal all the pain

Not enough time to tell you I’m sorry
Not enough time to find the right words
Not enough time to tell you my story
Just not enough time to undo all the hurt

Not enough time to find out what love is
Not enough time to show you my heart
Not enough time for another good-night kiss
Just not enough time to make a fresh start

IF...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling 

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) 

"Wanderer above the Sea of Fog"

just come back...

Cold December moon climbing over the mountains of Northern Mexico

The dessert wind howls through the night... the smell of mesquit

burns in the valley... you roll over in bed... and mumble words

I did not understand...

Before I crawl back into bed I light a candle at my alter...

At the end of the hall... my little alter... candles and flowers

sitting under a black velvet painting of Raquel Welch... that

I found in the old market in Juarez...

I light a candle and burn some incense and a poem on

Japanese paper in a little bowl... I call out her name...

I whisper it low... I say... “forgive me... for whatever

I have done... just come back...”

I listen for footsteps...

I close my eyes and try to sense the presence of an angel...

The devil... her ghost... I can’t find her shadow...

I can’t find her smell... I don’t hear her crying...

In my room... in the hall... in the kitchen... in the den...

In my dreams...

There is a small scar on my wrist... next to my vain...

It does not let me forget... it does not let me go...

It will be there for ever... but she... she always needed

more love than I could ever give her...

I don’t pretend that I ever loved her...

But now... I feel I love her...

There is a woman who’s name is Elena sleeping in my bed.

And I am writing poems in blood on ancient paper...

In hopes of seducing the ghost  I have tried so hard to abandon...

“forgive me... for whatever I have done... just come back...”