I have this vision: That I would finally come and find you. Scattered pieces of distance would not stand in my way. Not needing words; the barest of glimpses would suffice for you and me. – Franz Kafka, Letters To Milena (Schocken; Rev Upd edition April 7, 1990)
Remind me again—together wetrace our strange journey, findeach other, come on laughing.Some time we’ll cross where lifeends. We’ll both look backas far as forever, that first day.I’ll touch you—a new world then.Stars will move a different way.We’ll both end. We’ll both begin. Remind me again. – William Stafford, “Our Story,” Stories That Could Be True:… Continue reading William Stafford
She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be. — Charles Bukowski, Factotumn ( Ecco, May 31, 2002) Originally t published 1975.
I leave the number and a shortmessage on every green Volvoin town Is anything wrong? I miss you. 213-799-3701 The phone rings constantly.One says, are you bald?Another, how tall are you inyour stocking feet? Most just reply, Nothing’s wrong.I miss you, too. Come quick. — Ronald Koertge, “The Ubiquity Of The Need For Love,”… Continue reading Ronald Koertge
I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for. — Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (KNOPF.; First Edition edition 1997)
A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight.I watched you tremble, washed in all that silver. Love, the stars have fallen into the gardenAnd turned to frost. They have opened like a hand.It is the color that breaks out of the bedsheets. —Thomas James, from “Tom O’Bedlam Among the Sunflowers,” Letters to a Stranger (Graywolf… Continue reading Thomas James
I have… a terrible need… shall I say the word?… of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. —Vincent van Gogh
They’re at that stage where so much desire streams between them, so much frank need and want,so much absorption in the other and the self and the self-admiring entity and unity they make—her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back so far in her laughter at his laughter,he so solid, planted, oaky, firm,… Continue reading C.K. Williams
A breath of music or of a dream, of something that would make me almost feel, something that would make me not think. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics, 2002)
Black Sea One clear night while the others slept, I climbedthe stairs to the roof of the house and under a skystrewn with stars I gazed at the sea, at the spread of it,the rolling crests of it raked by the wind, becominglike bits of lace tossed in the air. I stood in the long,whispering… Continue reading Mark Strand
The Vale of Soul-Making 