Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Poem for the day: Be Drunken

One of my Western Culture professors had us watch Long Day's Journey Into Night in class one day. I watched it again the other night; this poem (spoken by a dreamy Dean Stockwell) has always stuck with me:
Be Drunken, Always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually.

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But be drunken.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please."
-- Charles Baudelaire

The cast of Long Day's Journey Into Night

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pass the tequila! ;P

2:53 PM  

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