DRAMA

I don't care to dwell in the past
that murky place of half-baked memories

my story begins here
now
on this Saturday afternoon in a strange city

Oh sure, there was this and that...
that
this
event
the epic
cast in others' stories
villain
friend
confidante
lover,
fallen idol

when cast in another's drama
and understand the role I am supposed to play
I potest "I am not like that!"
But he tries to convince me I am
He needs someone to play that role
and I care
and I am free

watching the rain beat against the window
my drama begins as a silent monologue

it is a Saturday afternoon in a strange city . . .

(c)2005 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: drama12-2.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 12:39 PM
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a man who lies

a dishonest man is not a fun man
he'll break your heart at every turn
a dishonest man is not a fun man
he'll leave you to cry and burn

don't ever love a man untrue
don't love a man who lies to you
he'll break your heart at every turn
while in the dark you cry and burn

a man who lies is not your friend
his love is fickle, prone to bend
if he bends the truth at his whim
face his lies: stay away from him

save your heart for a man of gold
whose word is good, whose word is true
he's the man you can love 'til you're old
the kind of man who won't betray you

don't ever love a man untrue
don't love a man who lies to you
he'll break your heart at every turn
leaving you to cry and burn


(c)2008 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: Man_Who_Lies.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 5:45 PM
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FIRST ELEGY Excerpt from the Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke - Translation

My translation has attempted to somewhat simplify to make more accessible to Americans. I hope I have not lost the profundity of Rilke.


First Elegy (Excerpt)

Who, if I cried out, would listen among the classes of holy angels?
and should one clasp me to its breast,
its profound essence would dissolve me.  For beauty
is nothing but the first sight of a terror
that we can hardly stand except that it quietly refrains
from destroying us.  Every angel is too awesome.
And so I swallow my luring call and weep in the dark.
Who can help us us? Not angels, not men—and animals
know that we’re homeless in this world we’ve constructed.
Maybe along a hillside a tree stands that we can see
each day, and there are always yesterday’s streets
and the fidel habit moved in like a tenant who now secure
shall not move on.  Oh, and there’s night—night when a cosmic wind
erodes our faces—gentle, yearned for, but how it forces
us to confront the solitary beat of life.  Is it easier for lovers?
No, they only conceal the lottery from each other.
Don’t you understand yet? Throw the emptiness
from your arms into the clearing where we breathe—
maybe the bird in the widened air will fly viscerally.

  -Translation - Eleanor A. Binnings (c)2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
=================
Die erste Elegie
Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es nähme
einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem
stärkeren Dasein. Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.
Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf
dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermögen
wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,
und die findigen Tiere merken es schon,
daß wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind
in der gedeuteten Welt. Es bleibt uns vielleicht
irgend ein Baum an dem Abhang, daß wir ihn täglich
wiedersähen; es bleibt uns die Straße von gestern
und das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit,
der es bei uns gefiel, und so blieb sie und ging nicht.
O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt –, wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,
sanft enttäuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen
mühsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?
Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.
Weißt du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht daß die Vögel
die erweiterte Luft fühlen mit innigerm Flug.


Direct download: First_Elegy_Translated_Rilke_-_Binnings.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 1:01 PM
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Rick Davis is playing harmonica on this.  I'd love to have a solo.



Moonbeams & Thin Air


The way you love me is unfair
Your good intentions all turn to lies
all moonbeams and thin air

I no longer know what I may share
without clean water, the orchid dies
the way you love me is unfair

between us at first was something rare
but history tells me it's no surprise
it's all moonbeams and thin air.

for you i laid my raw skin bare
too often i've exposed myself unwise
the way you love me is unfair

some things in life are meant to wear
long....but .... still time grows wings and flies
it's all moonbeams and thin air

i recall the touch of your hands in my hair
but now i'm unreflected in your eyes
the way you love me is unfair
it's all moonbeams and thin air
i love you more than you care.......

(c)2008 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Direct download: I_Love_You_More-H.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 1:10 PM
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An acquaintance with privilege
The walls are so high
Opportunity is perennial
yet underground like a sigh

Acquaintance with privilege
Who truly are you?
Behind those walls, what do you do?
Or think about when moments are spare
Or minister to with strong feelings of care?

Acquaintance with privilege
What matters to you?
What are your priorities?
In your life, what's new?


(c) 2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: Acquaintance_With_Privilege.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 5:57 PM
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Travis Lemle is the artist.

Once long ago we created the Solotramp website together, Travis' art, my poetry.  The title of this art is "Alone." 

Then we didn't go into the site for a period of time, and it vanished.


Direct download: LOVE-REMIX.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 5:48 AM
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Shadows

though i hear your words
there is no action
so why should those words
mean anything to me?

you've held your secrets
you've hid in the shadows
you claim that's your right
and yes, yes it is

you can stay in the shadows
i'll not look for you there
nor will i care what you say

stay in the shadows
it's your right
but those shadows
will hide the jewels
Direct download: shadows.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 3:04 AM
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Two years ago today is when I flew to Phoenix to meet the surgeon for the brain bypass. 

These two years have truly been an incredible experience. 

I am alive.  Thank you, everyone!!!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

====================================================

My first for 2008 . . . a poem I had sought . . . and here it is.  Cycles of life . . .

I Wait

We're slipping along the paths
that lead away from each other--
no longer lovers and barely friends.

The echo of your words of love
throb in empty canyons ever
more distant while day to day

jargon swallows memories of when
we once touched.  Even now a bond
reaches from me to you, each day

unraveling and growing more tenuous. 
We don't talk except in empty phrases
that neither move the earth nor us.

I neither leave nor stay . . .  I wait.


(c)2008 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: I_Wait.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 3:07 PM
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I originally wrote "Bodies" after a conversation with a bulemic.  It was among the first I recorded after my surgery (quite body conscious then!) and experimented again with the sound.  I decided to re-do it, so here it is, a bit different.  Another change I still want to make in it . . . next time. . .

      Bodies
This body slid into the world
with perfect limbs
lungs . . . and innocence

for years it did
all the things
bodies should do
moving breathing
crying cringing
from bumps falls burns
bleeding touching
he sweet the bitter
he sour    salt

sleeping under blankets
and beneath stars
seeing objects
and plants and animals
hearing music
and voices
and clicks and creaks

Maybe we don't enjoy
the way our bodies
hurt or give warning
or the rough hands
that press into our ribs
the bite and itch and burrow
of feeding insects
the way cold can be too cold
or hot too hot
and how viruses make us ill

when do we learn we're not to love these bodies?
their colors their shapes the sounds they make?
the marks and scars that hint at our most dramatic stories?

we conceal our bodies
some of us even keep
out the lights
so our lovers will not judge
our bodies as harshly
as we do ourselves

those who remove their clothes
have the bodies we're supposed to have
implanted liposuctioned rhinoplastied bo-flexed
waxed like fruit in a display ad

how do we come
to be conscious
of bodies
and then despise our own?
these bodies
that entered the world
to do the things
that bodies do . . .
these bodies that cook everything
we can ever taste of life

(c) 2007 Binnings  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: Bodies_2007.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 3:02 AM
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Rebel nun of the 17th century.
Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz lived in the certainty that "all things come from God, who is the center and at the same time the circumference from which all the lines of creation issue and where they stop." Such was the life of this religious woman of 17th-century New Spain, who not only left her mark on Spanish-American literature but whose cry of revolt over their inferior position of women is timely even today.

Beatriz Berger.  World Press Review.  Oct 1994.
From http://www.lasmujeres.com/sorjuana/rebelnun.shtml

Here is your introduction to Sor Juana.

And here:  http://www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/culture/SorJuana/SorJuana2.htm


A Su Retrato
Este, que ves, engano colorido,
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engano del sentido;
este, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los anos los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,
es un vano artificio del cuidado
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inutil para el hado:
es una necia diligencia errada,
es un afan caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadaver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

My translation:

To Her Portrait

the artifice of colors  that here you see
testify to cunning and crafty grace
But if its false logic and gloss faded away,
we'd begin to see how illusory is the likeness,
how human vanity deceives us all into thinking
years erase the horrors those years
have etched into our faces
But to battle with time is insanity,
is a futile gesture you cannot hope to win,
 is an absence of caution, is wit put aside
is a delicate flower caught in the wind
is a weak defense against what Fate's contrived
is a conquest doomed, and you know in your mind
it's a corpose, dust, shadow, a reed's insides

(c) 2004  Binnings  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Direct download: To_Her_Portrait_-_Sor_Juana_translation.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:40 PM
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