For the Anniversary of My Death Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveler Like the beam of a lightless star Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at… Continue reading W.S. Merwin
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. — Ronald Reagan
If I have sung a lot, I have cried even more for you-oh my sublime parable of love! Remain in the brain, and in the immense myth of my heart! — César Vallejo, from “For the Impossible Soul of My Lover,” The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be. — Jean-Paul Sartre, from “No Exit,” No Exit and Three Other Plays. (Vintage; Reissue edition, October 23, 1989) Originally published 1947.
they thought I had guts they were wrong I was only frightened of more important things — Charles Bukowski, from “Wall Clock,” Open All Night: New Poems. (Black Sparrow Press, September 1, 2000)
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. — Jack Kerouac, The DharmaBums. (Penguin Books; Reissue edition May 27, 1976) Originally published 1958.
Each time the train slows, a man with our faces in the gold buttons of his coat passes through the cars muttering the name of a city. Each time we lose people. Each time I find you again between the cars, holding out a scrap of bread for me, something hot to drink, until there… Continue reading Carolyn Forché
To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. — Victor Hugo, Les Misérables. (A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie. 1862)
What if the heart does not pale as the body wanes, but is like the sun that blazes hotter each day on these immense, perishing fields? What then? — Jack Gilbert, from “Getting Ready,” Collected Poems. (Knopf; First Edition edition, March 13, 2012)
As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or the Whale. (Modern Library, 1992, originally published by Harper & Brothers, 1851)
The Vale of Soul-Making 