Playing the blue guitar
I love this poem. I love the image of a man with a blue guitar, I love the idea that his blue guitar creates a new reality. Let's all find a way to play the blue guitar.
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
-from "The Man With the Blue Guitar"
by Wallace Stevens
Read more of the poem here, on the Web site of the professor who first introduced me to it (and who, incidentally, forced me to learn HTML, despite my ardent protestations; and here I am...).
posted by Amanda @ 9:42 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
To see the painting which inspired this wonderful poem, click here. Is the poem about, as Ghandi said, "being the change we wish to see in the world?" Or is it about letting the world change us as we interact with it? Or simply about how we see the world, action or inaction irrelevant in the realm of viewing and perceiving? I don't know.
my all-time favorite cowboy junkies song (lyrics by Townes Van Zandt):
Blue Guitar
(From the album "MILES FROM OUR HOME")
I wish I had a blue guitar,
A blue guitar to play all night long.
Singing songs of loss and love.
Singing songs till morning comes.
Ghosts in the basement
Screams from the kitchen
I tell you folks I'm leaving.
Seems I can already hear the door slammin'.
I tell you folks I think I'm leavin'.
Goodbye to the highway
Goodbye to the sky
I'm headed out goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye to the highway
Goodbye to the sky
I'm headed our goodbye, goodbye.
I wish I had a blue guitar,
A blue guitar to play all night long.
I wish I had a blue guitar,
A blue guitar to let you know somehow
You are not needed now.
later,
dbh
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