Everything the dead do not needaspirin orsorrow,I suppose. but they might needrain.not shoesbut a place towalk. not cigarettes,they tell us,but a place toburn. or we’re told:space and a place toflymight be thesame. the dead don’t needme. nor do theliving. but the dead might needeachother. in fact, the dead might needeverything weneed andwe need so muchif… Continue reading Charles Bukowski
Eat me, drink me; thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden, I go back and back to him to have his fingers strip the tattered skin away and clothe me in his dress of water, this garment that drenches me, its slithering odour, its capacity for drowning. ― Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (Vintage, January 1,… Continue reading Angela Carter
If I were another I would have belonged to the road,neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitarand we might sense the unknown and the route that temptsthe traveler to test gravity. I am onlymy steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.If I were another on the road, I would havehidden… Continue reading Mahmoud Darwish
Love is holy because it is like grace—the worthiness of its object is never really what matters. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition, November 15, 2004) Originally published October 28, 2004.
We do not notice the distant hills of our own breathing, — Conrad Hilberry, from “A Pleasant Conversation on the Roof,” Sorting the Smoke: New and Selected Poems (University of Iowa Press, 1990)
For some of us there is only the shadow we step behindthat turns always into night, a night that leaves no memory.Its galaxies constantly change shape because of the weightof dark matter. This too is only a question of belief. For us,there is no difference between the moon and its reflection.The earth releases the song… Continue reading Richard Jackson
We are cold, chattering with light, on the cusp of some bright shorewinter waterbirds shrieking a welcome: our hearts—math to math— willing, but not prepared. — Alisha Bruton, from “I Am Sorry I Compared You to a Cormorant When They Are Not Beautiful Birds,” Diagram (14.3)
As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.” — Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance (Kodansha USA Inc; 1st edition, January 1, 1994)
To stare at nothing is to learn by heartWhat all of us will be swept into, and baring oneselfTo the wind is feeling the ungraspable somewhere close by.Trees can sway or be still. Day or night can be what they wish.What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfortOf being strangers, at… Continue reading Mark Strand
When tendernessseems tired at last of its offices and sleep, the most uncertain vessel,still delays, when blue bursts fromyour eyes and searchesmine for steady seamanship, then it is I speak to you of wordsdesolate, derelict,transfixed by silence. — Eugénio de Andrade, “Silence,” Forbidden Words: Selected Poetry of Eugénio de Andrade. (New Directions, 2003)
The Vale of Soul-Making 