Sensual – Poem by Asad Jaleel
Posted by asad123 in Poems, relationships, Uncategorized on February 18, 2012
Sensual
I want to write a poem
For people who don’t like poetry
People like you
Grounded, diligent people
Brilliant, generous people
Start at the senses
Don’t read this with your eyes
Taste it with your mouth
Swish the syllables under your tongue
Feel each word like a soft kiss
I would just speak
In whispered s’s
And rolling l’s
Erase the hard letters
Your k’s and t’s and p’s
Lustfully lick your lips
Sip sentences like cider
Letters leave from my hands
Settle softly behind your teeth
Vibrate against the drums of your ears
This is a love letter
Not a pedantic lesson
Step out of the school
Don’t study this like a chapter
Feel it like a pounding rain
Scripture Analysis – 1 Corinthians 13
Posted by asad123 in Christianity, Islam, Poems on February 11, 2012
Text of 1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b]but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
- 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames
- [References: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20corinthians%2013&version=NIV
- http://www.crivoice.org/biblestudy/bb1cor10.html]
[People call this passage, "The Hymn to Love." It is about a set of ideals of what love should be. Many readers find this to be one of the most elegant, beautiful, powerful portions of the New Testament.
The author is likely Paul, writing a letter to the people of the city of Corinth. Corinth was home to pagans who worshiped Aphrodite, a love deity. Paul acted as a missionary, trying to inspire these pagans to embrace Christianity.
Paul speaks often here of love. He wrote this in Greek, a language that has a number of specialized terms for love. He used only one Greek word for love in this passage - the word "agape." This kind of love is unselfish love, love that is neither greedy nor lustful.
Part of what makes this passage beautiful is its three-part structure. Verses 1-3 argue that love is the essence of religion, without which all religious acts lose their meaning. Verses 4-7 give attributes and non-attributes of unselfish love. Verses 8-13 are about the superiority of love over other things.
Verses 1-3 pose three scenarios where religious acts are devoid of love. One scenario is speaking in tongues. Another scenario is foretelling the future. The third is giving away all of one's wealth in charity. Paul wants the Corinthians to see that the value of an action depends on the intention behind it. I recognize an echo of this teaching in Islam where Prophet Muhammad (S) said that Allah judges all actions by intention.
Verses 4-7 describe unselfish love. Paul describes love as being humble, never boasting or being envious. Paul knows that people will hear this and think of times they felt pride in the context of a relationship. He's not just saying that love is not proud but he's also saying the converse, that what is prideful is not love. The kind of love that inspires sins like pride, envy, rage, and jealousy is not the highest love. For Paul and his followers, the highest love is love that wants the best for the other person without expecting anything in return. Incidentally, Christians frequently read Verses 4-7 at weddings.
Verses 8-13 talk about how love endures and supersedes other virtues. Paul has a profound insight here when he says that as a child, he reasoned in a childlike way. Modern constructivist education theory embraces this idea that children reason in a way that differs from the way adults reason. Paul says he became an adult and put aside childish things. Many people can relate to this, recognizing beliefs they had in childhood which they discarded after growing.
Then Paul ends quite powerfully with the line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." He is saying that after discarding all the childish notions that he knew to be false, faith, hope and love remained. He is rejecting the cynical attitude that faith is delusion, that hope is wishful thinking, and that love is just pain. He affirms that these three are real, and love is the best of the three.
We can get lost in the dark places of the soul where it seems nothing is real. We can doubt the things that we used to hold as certain. But I believe, agreeing here with Paul, that faith can be real, hope can be real, and finally, that the love that deserves to be called love is real.]
Shalom to Israeli Readers
שלום לקוראים שלי בישראל. ברוכים הבאים לאתר שלי. לחלוק את מה שתמצא פה עם חברים ובני
משפחה. אנא חזור לעתים קרובות. תודה
Shalom to my readers in Israel. Welcome to my site. Share what you find here with friends and family. Please return often. Thank you.
Song Analysis – “Somebody I Used to Know” Gotye
Posted by asad123 in Music, relationships, Uncategorized on February 7, 2012
Gotye is Belgian and his name is pronounced “gaw’ tee ay.”
Now and then when I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and that’s an ache I still remember
[“But felt so lonely in your company” is a sweet turn of phrase. It suggests coldness and distance. Then he describes love as “an ache I can still remember.” Those of us who have been in love and lost it recognize this feeling.]
You can addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad it was over
(I relate to the line about being addicted to sadness. During periods of my life, I have been stuck in patterns of feeling bad about myself. It’s weird that you can be addicted to feeling so bad, but all addiction goes from feeling good to feeling bad.]
She didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know (3x)
[Will Smith’s character on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” once said, “I was just a relative – you made me family.” The line here, “Now you’re just somebody that I used to know,” describes something that is going in the reverse direction. What is a person who was once your girlfriend? You can call her your ex. But she has no status in your life. She has no special rights or privileges as your ex. So she’s just somebody you used to know. There’s a poignancy in that because this woman went from maybe the most important woman in your life to a woman who is just one step above a stranger.]
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something I had done
And I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Adele, Kelly Clarkson, and Rihanna Top Charts for Feb. 11 2012
Read the list of the top 40 artists for the week according to Billboard. The data comes from Nielsen BDS, Nielsen SoundScan, and “online music sources” ( likely iTunes, Rhapsody, and Amazon MP3).
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/charts/
Song Analysis – “A Good Year for the Roses” – George Jones
Posted by asad123 in Music, relationships on February 3, 2012
I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick
On the cigarettes there in the ashtray
Lyin’ cold the way you left them
At least your lips caressed them while you packed.
And a lip-print on a half-filled cup of coffee
That you poured and didn’t drink
But at least you thought you wanted it
And that’s so much more than I can say for me.
Chorus:
But what a good year for the roses
Many blooms still linger there
The lawn could stand another mowin’
It’s funny, I don’t even care.
And when you turned and walked away
And as the door behind you closes
The only thing I know to say
It’s been a good year for the roses.
After three full years of marriage
It’s the first time that you haven’t made the bed
I guess the reason we’re not talkin’
There’s so little left to say, we haven’t said.
While a million thoughts go runnin’ through my mind
I find I haven’t spoke a word
And from the bedroom those familiar sounds
Of our one baby’s cryin’ goes unheard.
Chorus
[Frequent readers of this blog know I love story-songs. This is a fantastic example of a story song that uses subtle phrasing to communicate a great deal of meaning. It's a sad, touching narrative about a marriage falling apart.
It's almost as if time freezes and the speaker can see everything in crystal-clear detail. He sees lipstick on her used cigarettes and her mug of coffee. He muses that while the cigarettes are cold now, they felt the touch of his wife's lips, as if he envies these inanimate objects. Similarly, he talks about the half-filled (half empty?) cup of coffee that she didn't drink. Yet the coffee can boast that it was wanted and he feels like he hasn't been wanted in ages.
He describes the yard outside. It seems that he has turned to the yard as an escape. He feels powerless to fix his marriage but the garden is something that he can maintain. He notices that the grass is too long. The one thing in his world that seems to be doing well is the roses. Of course, roses are so often a metaphor for love and romance. The irony here is that he has these beautiful roses, but no one who will appreciate them.
It ends with a heart-breaking image- the couple's baby cries, yet no one hears the sound. The song could have ended with the man's tears, it could have ended with the wife's tears, yet by ending with the baby's tears, it makes the story so much sadder.]
Poem Analysis “Funeral Blues” W.H. Auden
Posted by asad123 in Films, Poems, relationships on January 22, 2012
(Poem #256) Funeral Blues
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 woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
[If this poem sounds familiar to you, perhaps it is
because an actor reads it dramatically at a funeral
for the man he loves. W. H. Auden also
likely wrote it for a man he deeply loved.
I enjoy the following lines, "He was my North, my South,
my East and West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest."
These are the four cardinal directions.The beloved dominates
his sense of both space and time. This suggests he went
everywhere with him and spent every moment with him.
I hear echoes of a very ancient poem in this Auden piece.
The Roman poet Catullus wrote a love poem in Latin that
resembles this one.
(http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/Latin1000/Readings/1020B/25catullus2.pdf/ ) It almost seems
comical that he goes to such lengths to mourn a little bird,
but this was a pet that his beloved adored.
Not everyone can write a poem like this when someone dies.
Yet there is something about the feeling of the poem that
anyone who has lost a loved one will recognize.]
Rihanna, Adele and Flo Rida Top Billboard Weekly Chart for Jan. 28
Top 40 for Week of Jan 28, 2012
Top 40 Chart
Song Analysis “Video Games” Lana Del Rey
Posted by asad123 in Uncategorized on January 21, 2012
Swinging in the backyard
Pull up in your fast car
Whistling my name
Open up a beer
And you say get over here
And play a video game
I’m in his favorite sun dress
Watching me get undressed
Take that body downtown
I say you the bestest
Lean in for a big kiss
Put his favorite perfume on
Go play a video game
Refrain: It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you
Everything I do
I tell you all the time
Heaven is a place on earth where you
Tell me all the things you want to do
I heard that you like the bad girls
Honey, is that true?
It’s better than I ever even knew
They say that the world was built for two
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby now you do
Singing in the old bars
Swinging with the old stars
Living for the fame
Kissing in the blue dark
Playing pool and wild darts
Video games
He holds me in his big arms
Drunk and I am seeing stars
This is all I think of
Watching all our friends fall
In and out of Old Paul’s
This is my idea of fun
Playing video games
Refrain – 2x
[Lana Del Rey is Elizabeth Grant, a singer-songwriter whose music is hard to classify. It's sort of indie rock/neo-disco. The song, especially the vocals, has an angelic, almost ethereal quality. The sad, somber tone of the vocals clashes with the lyrics that seem as if they should be much more upbeat.
The speaker in this song is a character reminiscent of the film "The Stepford Wives" (1974). She is submissive. She wears what her lover wants her to wear. She puts on the perfume he likes. She lets him play all the video games he wants. The titular "video games" create another kind of tension in the song - between old and new. The song sounds like it may have been written forty or fifty years ago, yet the references to "video games" thrust it into the present time, as it seems clear that the man is playing a home console, not arcade Pac-Man.
One part of the song that gets me every time is when the speaker seductively purrs, "I heard that you like the bad girls/ Honey is that true?" There is a bit of a paradox here. If he likes bad girls, should she pretend to be a bad girl because that is what he wants? Or does being a bad girl mean deliberately defying him and thus being something other than what he wants? This song has an unshakable melancholy and it comes from the idea that a good relationship cannot survive on pretense. She's pretending to be his fantasy, but that's not who she really is. She's asking him to love this fake version of herself. Ultimately, she will resent him and he will tire of her slavishness.]
Song Analysis “Too Much Food” Jason Mraz
You can say that I’m one curly fry in the box of the regular
Messing with the flavor oh the flavor that you savor
Saving me for last but you better not eat me at all
Living in a fast food bag making friends with the ketchup and salt
People say that I’m crazy for not moving on to better things
Instead I’m sitting around trash talking with the onion rings
But it’s much too soon to leave this easy life
Pass me the spoon. Pass the analytical knife
Cause you’re about to get cut and get cut down
It’s all about the wordplay all about the sound in the tone of my voice
You gotta let me make my choice alone before my food gets cold
Better shut up or get shot down. It s all about the know how all just a matter of taste
Stop telling me the way I gotta play. Too much food on my plate.
Believe it or not I super-sized my sights on the surprise in the cereal box
My stomach’s smaller than my eyes
so I went to see the doctor and he said “turn your head and then cough”
I didn’t listen to what he said instead I couldn’t wait to get off
He said I can have this but I cant have that
That I should keep wishing I was living the life of a cat because
I ain’t the one whose gonna be missing the feast
Just like you ain’t the one who seems to be calming the beast
Now you’re about to get cut and get cut down
It’s all about the wordplay all about the sound in the tone of my voice
You gotta let me make my choice alone before my food gets cold
Better shut up or get shot down. It s all about the know how all just a matter of taste
Stop telling me the way I gotta play. Too much food on my plate.
Well if you are what you eat in my case I’ll be sweet so come and get some
I’m so over it.
Now you’re about to get cut and get cut down
It s all about the know how all just a matter of taste
Stop telling me the way I gotta play. Too much food on my plate.
(Get up and get some)
there’s too much food on my plate
[You can say that I'm one curly fry in the box of the regular
Messing with the flavor, oh the flavor that you savor
Saving me for last, but you better not eat me at all...
"Jason turns up the level of aggression just a tad here, bringing electric guitars to a more prominent position but still keeping things as bouncy and catchy as ever. This one's extremely Barenaked Ladies-inspired, what with all of the lines about food and wanting to be different. Wit just abounds as Jason describes himself in fast food terminology, once again dropping mad rhymes like there's no tomorrow. It's basically his way of telling the world that he can only handle so many people telling him what to do and who to be at the same time. His attitude here is much live that of Dave Matthews in the song "Tripping Billies" - I guess you could say Jason's philosophy is "Eat drink, and be wacky." "-David Martin, http://www.epinions.com/review/pr-Waiting_For_My_Rocket_To_Come_Jason_Mraz_Music/content_103233261188)
I'm sure that quite a few of Mraz's fans, like me, thought this was all about food. If you think it's about food, that's great, you can enjoy the song on that level. But look again at these lines,
"Now you're about to get cut and get cut down
It's all about the wordplay all about the sound in the tone of my voice
You gotta let me make my choice alone before my food gets cold
Better shut up or get shot down. It s all about the know how all just a matter of taste."
Is he really talking about food or is he talking about a studio trying to control his music? Some people really hate this quest for deeper meanings. If that's you, then as much as I want to increase my hits, this site probably isn't for you.
But unlike a lot of bloggers, I'm not trying to remake people in my image. This is just aesthetics which comes down to this - what is beauty and what is truth. The rest is up to you.]