Saturday, September 19, 2009

no going back






.

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.





~ Wendell Berry



Worn to brightness, this




Worn to brightness, this
bowl opens outward
to the world, like
the marriage of a pair
we sometimes know.
Filled full, it holds
no greedily. Empty,
it fills with light 
that is Heaven's and
its own. It holds
forever for a while.




~ Wendell Berry

Friday, September 18, 2009

the emporers new clothes



...
Everyone lives in his own fantasy world, but most people don't understand that. No one perceives the real world. Each person simply calls his private, personal fantasies the Truth. The difference is that I know I live in a fantasy world. I prefer it that way and resent anything that disturbs my vision.


...
~ Federico Fellini
 
.

you speak to me in italics







you speak to me in italics
slanting your thoughts deep into me
you come at me from an angle
impaling me on the point of desire
you lean towards me like a tree in the wind
each leaf inscribed with the same word
I have never met your type before
yet I can read you like a book




~ Andre Ramier



.

remember?


Harlan: And so we named a day -- remember? --
          and a certain train that you would be on
          if you wanted to marry me,
Anna:                                   and that you
         would be on if you wanted to marry me,
Both: and both of us were on the train!
Anna: And then, Harlan, we did drift away
Harlan: on a little boat we built ourselves,
          that contained hardly more than our music,
          our stove, our table, and our bed
Anna: in which we slept -- and did not sleep -
Harlan: my birthplace into our new life!


~ Wendell Berry

.

the kiss

...
My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
...
Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!
...
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.
...
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.
...
~ Anne Sexton



Thursday, September 17, 2009

Come to my garden walk, my love


...
Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that
press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some
chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet
eludes.
...
For a lover's gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits
across the shade, spreading a shiver of joy along the dust.
Overtake it or miss it forever. But a gift that can be
grasped is merely a frail flower, or a lamp with a flame that will
flicker.
...
Rabindranath Tagore


.

The Elephant is Slow To Mate



The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.
 
 So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.

Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.

They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.
 
D.H. Lawrence

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Because the woman i love lives inside you,
I lean as close to your body with my words as i can-
and I think of you all the time..
 
~ Hafiz

.

If you use your mind


.
If you use your mind to study reality,
you won't understand either your mind or reality.
If you study reality without using your mind,
you'll understand both.
.

~ Bodhidharma

 

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

if i have made,my lady,intricate




if i have made,my lady,intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong 
your eyes(frailer than most deep dreams are frail) 
songs less firm than your body's whitest song 
upon my mind-if i have failed to snare 
the glance too shy-if through my singing slips 
the very skillful strangeness of your smile 
the keen primeval silence of your hair 

-let the world say "his most wise music stole 
nothing from death"- 
you only will create 
(who are so perfectly alive)my shame: 
lady through whose profound and fragile lips 
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came 

into the ragged meadow of my soul. 





~ e.e.cummings

I am much too alone in this world

... 
...



I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough to truly consecrate the hour. I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough to be to you just object and thing, dark and smart. I want my free will and want it accompanying the path which leads to action; and want during times that beg questions, where something is up, to be among those in the know, or else be alone. I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection, never be blind or too old to uphold your weighty wavering reflection. I want to unfold. Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent; for there I would be dishonest, untrue. I want my conscience to be true before you; want to describe myself like a picture I observed for a long time, one close up, like a new word I learned and embraced, like the everyday jug, like my mother's face, like a ship that carried me along through the deadliest storm.







~ Rainer Maria Rilke



.

up into the silence the green








up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it
you will(kiss me)go
out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it
(kiss me)you will go
on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it
you will go(kiss me
down into your memory and
a memory and memory
i)kiss me,(will go)



~ e.e.cummings 











To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle


.



... 
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass - the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
...
~ Walt Whitman
.

I love you. ... he could not resist reading it once again

...

He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting:

...

I love you.
...

For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure that the words were really there.
...

~ George Orwell, from 1984