My love she speaks like silence,
 Without ideals or violence,
 She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
 Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
 People carry roses,
 Make promises by the hours,
 My love she laughs like the flowers,
 Valentines can't buy her.

 In the dime stores and bus stations,
 People talk of situations,
 Read books, repeat quotations,
 Draw conclusions on the wall.
 Some speak of the future,
 My love she speaks softly,
 She knows there's no success like failure
 And that failure's no success at all.

 The cloak and dagger dangles,
 Madams light the candles.
 In ceremonies of the horsemen,
 Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
 Statues made of match sticks,
 Crumble into one another,
 My love winks, she does not bother,
 She knows too much to argue or to judge.

 The bridge at midnight trembles,
 The country doctor rambles,
 Bankers' nieces seek perfection,
 Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
 The wind howls like a hammer,
 The night blows cold and rainy,
 My love she's like some raven
 At my window with a broken wing.

There was this concert in Bombay on Dylan’s birthday where a lot of Indian artists sang his songs. Some of them were putrid singers but some were really nice. There was someone called Geeta Raheja who sang Joan Baez’s ‘Diamonds and Rust’ and it was brilliant - partly due to the atmosphere - it was amazing, just when she began, this wind sprang up out of nowhere and the leaves in the trees started rustling and suddenly the sky turned cloudy - and there she was on stage, singing beautifully in a plain dark black saree. Amazing effect. Just for that song alone the concert was worth it. Kim Cardoz sang ‘House of the Rising Sun’ really well too. And someone whose name I disremember sang ‘love minus zero’. I had never heard the song before and fell in love with it. I have no clue what the original is like and whether he was mauling it, but I liked the way he sang it. Hence the hunt for the lyrics and this poem.

— Zenobia

Minstrels Links

Bob Dylan:
Poem #112, Mr.Tambourine Man
Poem #227, Desolation Row

And the inspiration for his assumed name, Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind