Orpheus Alone It was an adventure much could be made of: a walk On the shores of the darkest known river, Among the hooded, shoving crowds, by steaming rocks And rows of ruined huts half buried in the muck; Then to the great court with its marble yard Whose emptiness gave him the creeps, and… Continue reading Mark Strand
The soulless have no need of melancholia. — Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoevsky, The Salamander and Other Gothic Tales. (Northwestern University Press November 5, 1992)
as the poems go into the thousands you realize that you’ve created very little. it comes down to the rain, the sunlight, the traffic, the nights and the days of the years, the faces. leaving this will be easier than living it, typing one more line now as a man plays a piano through the… Continue reading Charles Bukowski
But sleep? On a night like this? What an idea! Just think of how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm. — Franz Kafka, Description of a Struggle and Other Stories. (Penguin Books, Great Britain 1982) Originally published 1934.
I like it best when we do not say a word. When we lie side by side Like two lovers after their passion is spent. Once again, day is breaking. A small bird in the trees is pouring her heart out At the miracle of the coming light. It hurts. The beauty of a night… Continue reading Charles Simic
Hell is the special pain that dwells in that loss which you yourself have caused. — Elliot Perlman, Seven Types of Ambiguity. (Riverhead Books December 6, 2005)
A warm and mild haze hung around the trees; the moon was going down in a west of gold and silk like some full and divine womb … My chest was thumping as if my heart were drunk … — Juan Ramón Jiménez, from “The Lamb Was Bleating Softly,” Lorca & Jimenez: Selected Poems (Beacon… Continue reading Juan Ramón Jiménez
He loved her, he loved her, and until he’d loved her she had never minded being alone. — Truman Capote, Summer Crossing. (Modern Library; Reprint edition June 27, 2006) Started in 1943, published posthumously.
Not often, but now and again there’s a moment when the heart cries aloud: yes, I am willing to be that wild darkness, that long, blue body of light. — Mary Oliver, from “Whelks,” New and Selected Poems: Vol. 1. (Beacon Press; Revised edition 1 July 2004)
The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self. ― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death. (Princeton University Press; unknown… Continue reading Søren Kierkegaard
The Vale of Soul-Making 