Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
There is such loneliness in that gold. The moon of the nights is not the moon Who the first Adam saw. The long centuries Of human vigil have filled her With ancient lament. Look at her. She is your mirror. — Jorge Luis Borges, “The Moon,” Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
I have been Homer; shortly, I shall be No One, like Ulysses; shortly, I shall be all men; I shall be dead. — Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Immortal,” Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. (New Directions; Augmented edition 1964) Originally published 1962.
It only takes two facing mirrors to build a labyrinth. — Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights. (New Directions; First Edition edition October 1984) Originally published 1977.
Matthew XV:30 The first bridge, Constitution Station. At my feet the shunting trains trace iron labyrinths. Steam hisses up and up into the night, which becomes at a stroke the night of the Last Judgment. From the unseen horizon and from the very center of my being, an infinite voice pronounced these things— things, not… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
Not a single star will be left in the night. The night will not be left. I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe. I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions, the continents and faces. I shall erase the accumulated past. I shall make dust of history, dust of dust. Now… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges
You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened. — Jorge Luis Borges
