To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal — to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.
...
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…”
And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.
...
The answer — and, in a sense, the tragedy of life — is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you.
...
Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.)* There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.
...
To put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.
But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors—but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.
As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal) he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).
In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.
...
A man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.”
And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know—is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.
...
I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life.
http://www . brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/
Thursday, 7 November 2013
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
from Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud
“My turn now. The story of one of my insanities.
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes-- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naive rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes-- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naive rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
Friday, 1 November 2013
Der Ister by Friedrich Holderlin
Now is the time for fire!
Impatient for the daylight,
We’re on our knees,
Exhausted with waiting.
It’s then, in that silence,
We hear the woods’ strange call.
Meanwhile, we sing from the Indus,
Which comes from far away, and
From the Alpheus, since we’ve
Long desired decorum.
It’s not without dramatic flourish
That one grasps
Straight ahead
What is closest
To reach the other side.
But here we want to build.
Rivers make the land fertile
And allow the foliage to grow.
And if in the summer
Animals gather at a watering place
People will go there, too.
This river is called the Ister.
It lives in beauty. Columns of leaves burn
And stir. They stand in the forest
Supporting each other; above,
A second dimension juts out
From a dome of stones. So I’m
Not surprised that the distantly gleaming river
Made Hercules its guest,
When in search of shadows
He came down from Olympus
And up from the heat of Isthmus.
They were full of courage there,
Which always comes in handy, like cool water
And a path for the spirit to follow.
That’s why the hero preferred
To come to the water’s source, its fragrant yellow banks
Black with fir trees, in whose depths
The hunter likes to roam
At noon and the resinous trees
Moan as they grow.
Yet the river almost seems
To flow backwards, and I
Think it must come
From the East.
Much could
Be said further. But why does
It hang so straight from the mountain? That other river,
The Rhine, has gone away
Sideways. Not for nothing rivers
Flow in dryness. But how? We need a sign,
Nothing more, something plain and simple,
To remind us of sun and moon, so inseparable,
Which go away — day and night also —
And warm each other in heaven.
They give joy to the highest god. For how
Can he descend to them? And like earth’s ancient greenness
They are the children of heaven. But he seems
Too indulgent to me, not freer,
And almost scornful. For when
Day begins in youth,
Where it commences growing,
Another is already there
To further enhance the beauty, and chafes
At the bit like foals. And if he is happy
Distant breezes hear the commotion;
But the rock needs engraving
And the earth needs its furrows;
If not, an endless desolation;
But what a river will do,
Nobody knows.
Impatient for the daylight,
We’re on our knees,
Exhausted with waiting.
It’s then, in that silence,
We hear the woods’ strange call.
Meanwhile, we sing from the Indus,
Which comes from far away, and
From the Alpheus, since we’ve
Long desired decorum.
It’s not without dramatic flourish
That one grasps
Straight ahead
What is closest
To reach the other side.
But here we want to build.
Rivers make the land fertile
And allow the foliage to grow.
And if in the summer
Animals gather at a watering place
People will go there, too.
This river is called the Ister.
It lives in beauty. Columns of leaves burn
And stir. They stand in the forest
Supporting each other; above,
A second dimension juts out
From a dome of stones. So I’m
Not surprised that the distantly gleaming river
Made Hercules its guest,
When in search of shadows
He came down from Olympus
And up from the heat of Isthmus.
They were full of courage there,
Which always comes in handy, like cool water
And a path for the spirit to follow.
That’s why the hero preferred
To come to the water’s source, its fragrant yellow banks
Black with fir trees, in whose depths
The hunter likes to roam
At noon and the resinous trees
Moan as they grow.
Yet the river almost seems
To flow backwards, and I
Think it must come
From the East.
Much could
Be said further. But why does
It hang so straight from the mountain? That other river,
The Rhine, has gone away
Sideways. Not for nothing rivers
Flow in dryness. But how? We need a sign,
Nothing more, something plain and simple,
To remind us of sun and moon, so inseparable,
Which go away — day and night also —
And warm each other in heaven.
They give joy to the highest god. For how
Can he descend to them? And like earth’s ancient greenness
They are the children of heaven. But he seems
Too indulgent to me, not freer,
And almost scornful. For when
Day begins in youth,
Where it commences growing,
Another is already there
To further enhance the beauty, and chafes
At the bit like foals. And if he is happy
Distant breezes hear the commotion;
But the rock needs engraving
And the earth needs its furrows;
If not, an endless desolation;
But what a river will do,
Nobody knows.
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
from the Divine Comedy
Then it replied: ‘A conscience that is clouded
By its own shame or by that of another,
Will certainly feel that your words are sharp.
But none the less, all lying set aside,
Make clear to everyone the whole vision;
And let them scratch wherever they may itch.
For if your words are objectionable
For the first taste, they will yield nourishment
Afterwards, once they have been digested.
This cry of yours will do as the wind does,
Strike hardest on the summits that are highest;
And that is no small argument of honor.'
Dante, Paradiso, XVII, 124-135.
http://www.notbored.org/censor.html
By its own shame or by that of another,
Will certainly feel that your words are sharp.
But none the less, all lying set aside,
Make clear to everyone the whole vision;
And let them scratch wherever they may itch.
For if your words are objectionable
For the first taste, they will yield nourishment
Afterwards, once they have been digested.
This cry of yours will do as the wind does,
Strike hardest on the summits that are highest;
And that is no small argument of honor.'
Dante, Paradiso, XVII, 124-135.
http://www.notbored.org/censor.html
Sunday, 27 October 2013
What I believe by J.G. Ballard
I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.
I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.
I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.
I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.
I believe in the beauty of all women, in the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions.
I believe in the death of tomorrow, in the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles of auto-route waitresses and the tired eyes of air-traffic controllers at out-of-season airports.
I believe in the genital organs of great men and women, in the body postures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di, in the sweet odors emanating from their lips as they regard the cameras of the entire world.
I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers, in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.
I believe in nothing.
I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali, Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer, Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon, and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the planet.
I believe in the impossibility of existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.
I believe in adolescent women, in their corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their disheveled bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby motels.
I believe in flight, in the beauty of the wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen and midwives.
I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon's knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
I believe in the light cast by video-recorders in department store windows, in the messianic insights of the radiator grilles of showroom automobiles, in the elegance of the oil stains on the engine nacelles of 747s parked on airport tarmacs.
I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.
I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.
I believe in the designers of the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, the Berlin Fuehrerbunker, the Wake Island runways.
I believe in the body odors of Princess Di.
I believe in the next five minutes.
I believe in the history of my feet.
I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.
I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
I believe in Tokyo, Benidorm, La Grande Motte, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Dealey Plaza.
I believe in alcoholism, venereal disease, fever and exhaustion.
I believe in pain.
I believe in despair.
I believe in all children.
I believe in maps, diagrams, codes, chess-games, puzzles, airline timetables, airport indicator signs.
I believe all excuses.
I believe all reasons.
I believe all hallucinations.
I believe all anger.
I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.
I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light.
I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.
I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.
I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.
I believe in the beauty of all women, in the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions.
I believe in the death of tomorrow, in the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles of auto-route waitresses and the tired eyes of air-traffic controllers at out-of-season airports.
I believe in the genital organs of great men and women, in the body postures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di, in the sweet odors emanating from their lips as they regard the cameras of the entire world.
I believe in madness, in the truth of the inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers, in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.
I believe in nothing.
I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali, Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer, Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon, and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the planet.
I believe in the impossibility of existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.
I believe in adolescent women, in their corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their disheveled bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby motels.
I believe in flight, in the beauty of the wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen and midwives.
I believe in the gentleness of the surgeon's knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
I believe in the light cast by video-recorders in department store windows, in the messianic insights of the radiator grilles of showroom automobiles, in the elegance of the oil stains on the engine nacelles of 747s parked on airport tarmacs.
I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.
I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.
I believe in the designers of the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, the Berlin Fuehrerbunker, the Wake Island runways.
I believe in the body odors of Princess Di.
I believe in the next five minutes.
I believe in the history of my feet.
I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.
I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
I believe in the perversions, in the infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
I believe in Tokyo, Benidorm, La Grande Motte, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Dealey Plaza.
I believe in alcoholism, venereal disease, fever and exhaustion.
I believe in pain.
I believe in despair.
I believe in all children.
I believe in maps, diagrams, codes, chess-games, puzzles, airline timetables, airport indicator signs.
I believe all excuses.
I believe all reasons.
I believe all hallucinations.
I believe all anger.
I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.
I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light.
Saturday, 26 October 2013
lines from the first Duino Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic
orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the
strength of his stronger existence. For beauty's nothing
but the beginning of terror we're still just able to bear
and why we adore it so is because it serenely
disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.
orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the
strength of his stronger existence. For beauty's nothing
but the beginning of terror we're still just able to bear
and why we adore it so is because it serenely
disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.
Thursday, 24 October 2013
October by Jean Sprackland
Skies, big skies, careening over in the wind
great shoals of cloud pitching and jostling
in their rush to be anywhere other than here
You hesitate on your doorstep, glance up
and something tugs in your chest, rips free like a leaf
and is sucked up and away. Everything’s
finished here: raw-boned sycamores,
fields scalped and sodden. The houses are shut
and dustbins roll in their own filth in the street
So you would take your chances, risk it all…
You stand for a moment with the keys in your hand
Feeling the hard pull of the sky and the moment passing
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
From the Inferno
You readers, who are of sound mind and memory,
Pay attention to the lessons woven into the fabric
Of these strange poetic lines
Pay attention to the lessons woven into the fabric
Of these strange poetic lines
Friday, 27 September 2013
1
Slow ebbing away
Of a languorous summer
Light begins to fade.
2
Slow falling of leaves
Bronze and russet drifting down
Autumn gift to Earth.
3
Darkness grows, cold creeps
Into life's interstices
Fading of the year
4
Cold sea-breeze morning
Atlantic hints in the air
Autumn leaves quiver
5
Encroaching darkness
Day penned into shrinking cage
Light flees South. Autumn
Sunday, 22 September 2013
This by Maitreyabandhu
There’s no law against my listening
to this thrush behind the barn,
the song so loud it echoes like a bell,
then it’s further off beyond the lawn.
Whatever else there is, there’s this as well.
There’s no law against this singing –
nesting I suppose – up in the silver birch,
even though we build a common hell,
have done, and will make it worse.
Whatever else there is, there’s this as well.
The Woodpigeon's Instruction by Maitreyabandhu
She’s been there so long,
a patch of ash grey on the bending branch,
head tucked in against the wind
as she rises and falls with it.
She steadies herself
as the smaller branches flick.
She says: This is the time of disappointment.
All the willows bow at once.
Rain pelts quietly into the soaking grass
Umbrian Summer by Maitreyabandhu
there were beech leaves
on the swimming pool-
chrome yellow
on a zone of blue,
like something Japanese.
The sun
had seemed to shine
through lemonade-
on the swimming pool-
chrome yellow
on a zone of blue,
like something Japanese.
The sun
had seemed to shine
through lemonade-
Thursday, 19 September 2013
Bible Study 71 BCE by Sharon Olds
After Marcus Licinius Crassus
defeated the army of Spartacus,
he crucified 6,000 men.
That is what the records say,
as if he drove in the 18,000
nails himself. I wonder how
he felt, that day, if he went outside
among them, if he walked that human
woods. I think he stayed in his tent
and drank, and maybe copulated,
hearing the singing being done for him,
the woodwind-tuning he was doing at one
remove, to the six-thousandth power.
And maybe he looked out, sometimes,
to see the rows of instruments,
his orchard, the earth bristling with it
as if a patch in his brain had itched
and this was his way of scratching it
directly. Maybe it gave him pleasure,
and a sense of balance, as if he had suffered,
and now had found redress for it,
and voice for it. I speak as a monster,
someone who today has thought at length
about Crassus, his ecstasy of feeling
nothing while so much is being
felt, his hot lightness of spirit
in being free to walk around
while other are nailed above the earth.
It may have been the happiest day
of his life. If he had suddenly cut
his hand on a wineglass, I doubt he would
have woken up to what he was doing.
It is frightening to think of him suddenly
seeing what he was, to think of him running
outside, to try to take them down,
one man to save 6,000.
If he could have lowered one,
and seen the eyes when the level of pain
dropped like a sudden soaring into pleasure,
wouldn’t that have opened in him
the wild terror of understanding
the other? But then he would have had
5,999
to go. Probably it almost never
happens, that a Marcus Crassus
wakes. I think he dozed, and was roused
to his living dream, lifted the flap
and stood and looked out, at the rustling, creaking
living field—his, like an external
organ, a heart.
defeated the army of Spartacus,
he crucified 6,000 men.
That is what the records say,
as if he drove in the 18,000
nails himself. I wonder how
he felt, that day, if he went outside
among them, if he walked that human
woods. I think he stayed in his tent
and drank, and maybe copulated,
hearing the singing being done for him,
the woodwind-tuning he was doing at one
remove, to the six-thousandth power.
And maybe he looked out, sometimes,
to see the rows of instruments,
his orchard, the earth bristling with it
as if a patch in his brain had itched
and this was his way of scratching it
directly. Maybe it gave him pleasure,
and a sense of balance, as if he had suffered,
and now had found redress for it,
and voice for it. I speak as a monster,
someone who today has thought at length
about Crassus, his ecstasy of feeling
nothing while so much is being
felt, his hot lightness of spirit
in being free to walk around
while other are nailed above the earth.
It may have been the happiest day
of his life. If he had suddenly cut
his hand on a wineglass, I doubt he would
have woken up to what he was doing.
It is frightening to think of him suddenly
seeing what he was, to think of him running
outside, to try to take them down,
one man to save 6,000.
If he could have lowered one,
and seen the eyes when the level of pain
dropped like a sudden soaring into pleasure,
wouldn’t that have opened in him
the wild terror of understanding
the other? But then he would have had
5,999
to go. Probably it almost never
happens, that a Marcus Crassus
wakes. I think he dozed, and was roused
to his living dream, lifted the flap
and stood and looked out, at the rustling, creaking
living field—his, like an external
organ, a heart.
Monday, 16 September 2013
the systems novel
The second-best way to begin defining the "systems novel" is to consider this passage from Fredric Jameson's thought-provoking early book, The Prison-House of Language:
"The deeper justification for the use of the linguistic model or metaphor [Jameson is writing about the 'linguistic turn' in 20th-century philosophy, specifically Structuralism] must, I think, be sought elsewhere, outside the claims and counterclaims for scientific validity and technological progress. It lies in the concrete character of the social life of the so-called advanced countries today, which offer the spectacle of a world from which nature as such has been eliminated, a world saturated with messages and information, whose intricate commodity network may be seen as the very prototype of a system of signs. There is therefore a profound consonance between linguistics as a method and that systematized and disembodied nightmare which is our culture today."
"The deeper justification for the use of the linguistic model or metaphor [Jameson is writing about the 'linguistic turn' in 20th-century philosophy, specifically Structuralism] must, I think, be sought elsewhere, outside the claims and counterclaims for scientific validity and technological progress. It lies in the concrete character of the social life of the so-called advanced countries today, which offer the spectacle of a world from which nature as such has been eliminated, a world saturated with messages and information, whose intricate commodity network may be seen as the very prototype of a system of signs. There is therefore a profound consonance between linguistics as a method and that systematized and disembodied nightmare which is our culture today."
Sunday, 15 September 2013
From 'The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View' by Ellen Meiksins Wood
"Marxists advocate bourgeois revolution to break the fetters of feudalism.
Capitalist market is only the most advanced form of exchange. Industrialization
was the inevitable outcome of human instincts.
Cyclical
recessions and meltdowns are inbred in capitalism. Capitalism recovers from
recurrent crisis at the cost of suffering of hundreds of millions of people.
Human
labor is a commodity for sale. Bulk of work is done by property less laborers
who create profit for those who purchase their labor.
The
capitalists exercise control by financing the election campaigns, obliging the
officials to do their bidding, purchasing the media so people hear only what
they want them to".
Piya Sutta
What follows behind you
like a shadow
that never leaves?
Both the merit & evil
that you as a mortal
perform here:
that's what's truly your own,
what you take along when you go;
that's what follows behind you
like a shadow
that never leaves.
So do what is admirable,
as an accumulation
for the future life.
Deeds of merit
are the support for beings
when they arise
in the other worldFriday, 13 September 2013
In Mid Life by Friedrich Holderlin
Laden with yellow pears
And full of wild roses
The land dips down to the lake,
You noble swans,
And drunk with kisses
You dip your heads
Into the pure hallowed waters.
Where, oh where, when it is winter
Will I find the flowers and where
The sunshine and shadow of earth?
The walls stand
Speechless and cold, in the wind
The weather-vanes clatter
And full of wild roses
The land dips down to the lake,
You noble swans,
And drunk with kisses
You dip your heads
Into the pure hallowed waters.
Where, oh where, when it is winter
Will I find the flowers and where
The sunshine and shadow of earth?
The walls stand
Speechless and cold, in the wind
The weather-vanes clatter
FALL IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN by Sam Riviere
much against everyone's advice
I have decided to live the life
I want to read about and write it
not by visiting the graves of authors
or moving to london to hear
in my sleep its gothic lullaby
not by going for coastal walks
or being from the north and lathing
every line as an approach it's
way outmoded I run a bath turn
off the lights I think only of
lathering the pale arms of my wife
for now a girl who dreads weekends
then I guess I might as well teach
squandering so as not to squander
this marvellous opportunity right?
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
EA: One of your characters says, "One has the moral obligation to be responsible for one's actions and for one's words but also for one's silence."
RB: One of my characters says that? It sounds so good it hardly seems written by me.
EA: Is it fair to say that about writers.
RB: No, for writers that isn't fair, but without a doubt, in predetermined moments, yes. If I'm walking down the street and see a paedophile molesting a kid and I stop and silently stare, not only am I responsible for my silence but I am also a complete son of a bitch. However, there is a certain type of silence in which -
EA: Are there literary silences?
RB: Yes, there are literary silences. Kafka's, for example, which is a silence that cannot be. When he asks for his papers to be burned, Kafka is opting for silence, opting for a literary silence, all in a literary era. That is to say, he was completely moral. Kafka's literature, aside from being the best work, the highest literary work of the twentieth century, is of an extreme morality and of an extreme gentility, things that do not that usually do not go together either.
EA: And what of (Juan) Rulfo's silence?
RB: Rulfo's silence, I think, is obedient to something so quotidian that explaining it is a waste of time. There are several versions: One told by Monterosso is that Rulfo had an uncle so-and-so who told him stories and when Rulfo was asked why he didn't write anymore, his answer was that uncle so-and-so had died. And I believe it too. Another explanation is simple and natural and that it is that everything has an expiration date. For example, I am more worried about Rimbaudian silence than I am about Rulfian silence. Rulfo stopped writing because he had already written everything he wanted to write and because he see's himself incapable of writing anything better, he simply stops. Rimbaud would probably have been able to write something much better, which is to say bringing his words up even higher, but his silence is a silence that raises questions for Westerners. Rulfo's silence doesn't raise questions; it is a close silence, quotidian. After dessert, what the hell else are you going to eat. There is a third literary silence - one doesn't seek it - of the shade which one is sure was there under the threshold and which has never been made tangible. There stands the silence of Georg Buchner, for example. He died at twenty five or twenty four years of age, he leaves behind three or four stage plays, masterworks. One of them is Woyzeck, an absolute masterwork. Another is about the death of Danton, which is an enormous masterwork, not absolute but quite notable. The other two - one is called Leonce y Lena, I can't remember the other one - are fundementally important. All before he turned twenty five. What might have happened had Buchner not died; what kind of writer might he have been? The kind of silence that isn't sought out is the silence of ... I do not dare call it destiny ... a manifestation of impotence. The silence of death is the worst kind of silence, because Rulfian silence is accepted and Rimbaudian silence is sought, but the silence of death is one that cuts the edge off what could have been and what never will be, that which we will never know. We'll never know if Buchner would have been bigger than Goethe. I think so, but we'll never know. We'll never know what he might have written at age thirty. And that extends across the whole planet like a stain, an atrocious illness that in one way or another puts our habits in check, our most ingrained certainties.
RB: One of my characters says that? It sounds so good it hardly seems written by me.
EA: Is it fair to say that about writers.
RB: No, for writers that isn't fair, but without a doubt, in predetermined moments, yes. If I'm walking down the street and see a paedophile molesting a kid and I stop and silently stare, not only am I responsible for my silence but I am also a complete son of a bitch. However, there is a certain type of silence in which -
EA: Are there literary silences?
RB: Yes, there are literary silences. Kafka's, for example, which is a silence that cannot be. When he asks for his papers to be burned, Kafka is opting for silence, opting for a literary silence, all in a literary era. That is to say, he was completely moral. Kafka's literature, aside from being the best work, the highest literary work of the twentieth century, is of an extreme morality and of an extreme gentility, things that do not that usually do not go together either.
EA: And what of (Juan) Rulfo's silence?
RB: Rulfo's silence, I think, is obedient to something so quotidian that explaining it is a waste of time. There are several versions: One told by Monterosso is that Rulfo had an uncle so-and-so who told him stories and when Rulfo was asked why he didn't write anymore, his answer was that uncle so-and-so had died. And I believe it too. Another explanation is simple and natural and that it is that everything has an expiration date. For example, I am more worried about Rimbaudian silence than I am about Rulfian silence. Rulfo stopped writing because he had already written everything he wanted to write and because he see's himself incapable of writing anything better, he simply stops. Rimbaud would probably have been able to write something much better, which is to say bringing his words up even higher, but his silence is a silence that raises questions for Westerners. Rulfo's silence doesn't raise questions; it is a close silence, quotidian. After dessert, what the hell else are you going to eat. There is a third literary silence - one doesn't seek it - of the shade which one is sure was there under the threshold and which has never been made tangible. There stands the silence of Georg Buchner, for example. He died at twenty five or twenty four years of age, he leaves behind three or four stage plays, masterworks. One of them is Woyzeck, an absolute masterwork. Another is about the death of Danton, which is an enormous masterwork, not absolute but quite notable. The other two - one is called Leonce y Lena, I can't remember the other one - are fundementally important. All before he turned twenty five. What might have happened had Buchner not died; what kind of writer might he have been? The kind of silence that isn't sought out is the silence of ... I do not dare call it destiny ... a manifestation of impotence. The silence of death is the worst kind of silence, because Rulfian silence is accepted and Rimbaudian silence is sought, but the silence of death is one that cuts the edge off what could have been and what never will be, that which we will never know. We'll never know if Buchner would have been bigger than Goethe. I think so, but we'll never know. We'll never know what he might have written at age thirty. And that extends across the whole planet like a stain, an atrocious illness that in one way or another puts our habits in check, our most ingrained certainties.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Proverbial by Jane Griffiths
Twice now, this road. So the sign
at the crossing has a familiar slant
and ashes are beside themselves under
a weight of leaves that last visit were
nerve-ends, the first lines in history.
You’ve settled here lightly, the way
a river runs together all the places
it’s passed. And if we correspond
it is as water parts into umber, lapis,
terracotta, all the colours of the earth –
as, looking back, you’ll see someone
catching the sun on a wide, amphibious
verandah, and see your way clear
to the inlet, the stepping stones, to taking
your life in your hands and crossing here.
And the way it is not the same river.
at the crossing has a familiar slant
and ashes are beside themselves under
a weight of leaves that last visit were
nerve-ends, the first lines in history.
You’ve settled here lightly, the way
a river runs together all the places
it’s passed. And if we correspond
it is as water parts into umber, lapis,
terracotta, all the colours of the earth –
as, looking back, you’ll see someone
catching the sun on a wide, amphibious
verandah, and see your way clear
to the inlet, the stepping stones, to taking
your life in your hands and crossing here.
And the way it is not the same river.
Amnesiac by Jane Griffiths
The night fog's come down.
The known edge of the world unselved,
the white-out against the window
and the radio histing the full
atmospheric scale between stations
comprehensively out of tune.
Someone's talking out there
but the night fog's come down:
a car comes and goes out of nowhere,
lighting the invisible and its afterglow.
Off, there's a town: its solids,
its muted soundings below
the sudden broadsides and dark
enormity of the nightlife,
the near miss of the eyes,
below the rough selvage of road
or cloud where you are seeing the wood
through the trees the fog has made
ragged, open-ended. Somewhere
in your house there is a forest.
Someone is talking there.
The known edge of the world unselved,
the white-out against the window
and the radio histing the full
atmospheric scale between stations
comprehensively out of tune.
Someone's talking out there
but the night fog's come down:
a car comes and goes out of nowhere,
lighting the invisible and its afterglow.
Off, there's a town: its solids,
its muted soundings below
the sudden broadsides and dark
enormity of the nightlife,
the near miss of the eyes,
below the rough selvage of road
or cloud where you are seeing the wood
through the trees the fog has made
ragged, open-ended. Somewhere
in your house there is a forest.
Someone is talking there.
bleeding edge
Maxine’s father explains that the Internet, her generation’s “magical convenience,” grew out of Defense Department research during the cold war, and he rants that it “creeps now like a smell through the smallest details of our lives, the shopping, the housework, the homework, the taxes, absorbing our energy, eating up our precious time.” He adds, darkly, that “as it kept growing, it never stopped carrying in its heart a bitter-cold death wish for the planet.”
Clear in September Light
A man stands under a tree, looking at a small house not far away. He flaps his arms as if he were a bird, maybe signaling someone we cannot see. He could be yelling, but since we hear nothing, he probably is not. Now the wind sends a shiver through the tree, and flattens the grass. The man falls to his knees and pounds the ground with his fists. A dog comes and sits beside him, and the man stands, once again flapping his arms. What he does has nothing to do with me. His desperation is not my desperation. I do not stand under trees and look at small houses. I have no dog.
Coming to This by Mark Strand
We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.
We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry
of each other, and we have welcomed grief
and called ruin the impossible habit to break.
And now we are here.
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.
The wine waits.
Coming to this
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.
We have no heart or saving grace,
no place to go, no reason to remain.
Breath by Mark Strand
When you see them
tell them I am still here,
that I stand on one leg while the other one dreams,
that this is the only way,
that the lies I tell them are different
from the lies I tell myself,
that by being both here and beyond
I am becoming a horizon,
that as the sun rises and sets I know my place,
that breath is what saves me,
that even the forced syllables of decline are breath,
that if the body is a coffin it is also a closet of breath,
that breath is a mirror clouded by words,
that breath is all that survives the cry for help
as it enters the stranger's ear
and stays long after the world is gone,
that breath is the beginning again, that from it
all resistance falls away, as meaning falls
away from life, or darkness fall from light,
that breath is what I give them when I send my love
tell them I am still here,
that I stand on one leg while the other one dreams,
that this is the only way,
that the lies I tell them are different
from the lies I tell myself,
that by being both here and beyond
I am becoming a horizon,
that as the sun rises and sets I know my place,
that breath is what saves me,
that even the forced syllables of decline are breath,
that if the body is a coffin it is also a closet of breath,
that breath is a mirror clouded by words,
that breath is all that survives the cry for help
as it enters the stranger's ear
and stays long after the world is gone,
that breath is the beginning again, that from it
all resistance falls away, as meaning falls
away from life, or darkness fall from light,
that breath is what I give them when I send my love
Lines for Winter by Mark Strand
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
Sunday, 8 September 2013
God's Window by Michael Blumenthal
They are gazing at God's windows.
—Czech proverb describing the easy
indolence of the loafing, vagabond
heroes of Czech folk songs
I sit in the garden listening
to my inner voice. What
could my inner voice be saying?
The birds are singing, says my inner voice,
the storks are nesting. My inner voice
looks up at the sky. The moon
is waning, it says, the sun
is setting. My inner voice
says nothing about ambition, nothing
about love. It's been a beautiful day,
it says, the moles are tunneling
through the earth. A scent of honeysuckle
wafts between the trees. It's getting dark,
says my inner voice. It's time
to go to bed.
—Czech proverb describing the easy
indolence of the loafing, vagabond
heroes of Czech folk songs
I sit in the garden listening
to my inner voice. What
could my inner voice be saying?
The birds are singing, says my inner voice,
the storks are nesting. My inner voice
looks up at the sky. The moon
is waning, it says, the sun
is setting. My inner voice
says nothing about ambition, nothing
about love. It's been a beautiful day,
it says, the moles are tunneling
through the earth. A scent of honeysuckle
wafts between the trees. It's getting dark,
says my inner voice. It's time
to go to bed.
Lucky by Michael Blumenthal
Off to the market to buy a lottery ticket,
I consider the possibilities of luck: good luck.
bad luck, beginner's luck, hard luck, the luck
of the draw, and I realize I am lucky, in fact,
to be here at all, on this benignly lit street
on a night in October, as luck would have it,
and I know that it's not just the luck of
the Irish, but any man's, to walk the streets
of his town, beneath the shapely moon,
and ponder the dumb luck that brought him here,
against all odds, into the vast lottery of minnow
and ovum, and to know he has once again lucked out,
this very night, spent as it has been without
accident or incident, a small testimonial
to the quietudes that are still possible,
the only half-felt wish for some grand stroke
of luck that will change everything, that will
change, really, nothing at all, our lives being,
in some sense, beyond the vicissitudes
of luck and yearning, the night being lovely,
the day finite, many of those we know whose luck
has already run out, and we not yet among them,
thank the beneficence of Lady Luck, our stars
just now flickering into flame
as the night lucks in.
I consider the possibilities of luck: good luck.
bad luck, beginner's luck, hard luck, the luck
of the draw, and I realize I am lucky, in fact,
to be here at all, on this benignly lit street
on a night in October, as luck would have it,
and I know that it's not just the luck of
the Irish, but any man's, to walk the streets
of his town, beneath the shapely moon,
and ponder the dumb luck that brought him here,
against all odds, into the vast lottery of minnow
and ovum, and to know he has once again lucked out,
this very night, spent as it has been without
accident or incident, a small testimonial
to the quietudes that are still possible,
the only half-felt wish for some grand stroke
of luck that will change everything, that will
change, really, nothing at all, our lives being,
in some sense, beyond the vicissitudes
of luck and yearning, the night being lovely,
the day finite, many of those we know whose luck
has already run out, and we not yet among them,
thank the beneficence of Lady Luck, our stars
just now flickering into flame
as the night lucks in.
How to Write a Poem by Michael Blumenthal
Forget, now, for a moment
that you were the blond boy
whose father jumped from the bridge
when you were only ten. Forget
that you are the broken-hearted,
the cuckolded, the windswept lover
alone beneath the dangling pines.
Forget that you are the girl
of the godless cry, that no one
took you into his hapless arms
during the cold night, that you have
cried from the fathomless depths
like a blue whale and the world
has called back to you only its oracles
of moonlight and relinquishment.
Forget, now, my young friends,
everything you can never forget,
and hear, in the untamed wind,
in the peroration of the ravishing ari,
the words for your life: omelette,
investiture, Prokofiev, stars.
Forget, even as you look up at them,
the astral bodies and the heavenly bodies,
forget, even, you own ravenous body
and call out, into the beckoning light,
the names of everything you have
never known: flesh and blood, stone
and interlude, marmalade and owl
those first syllables of your new world:
your clear and forgotten life.
that you were the blond boy
whose father jumped from the bridge
when you were only ten. Forget
that you are the broken-hearted,
the cuckolded, the windswept lover
alone beneath the dangling pines.
Forget that you are the girl
of the godless cry, that no one
took you into his hapless arms
during the cold night, that you have
cried from the fathomless depths
like a blue whale and the world
has called back to you only its oracles
of moonlight and relinquishment.
Forget, now, my young friends,
everything you can never forget,
and hear, in the untamed wind,
in the peroration of the ravishing ari,
the words for your life: omelette,
investiture, Prokofiev, stars.
Forget, even as you look up at them,
the astral bodies and the heavenly bodies,
forget, even, you own ravenous body
and call out, into the beckoning light,
the names of everything you have
never known: flesh and blood, stone
and interlude, marmalade and owl
those first syllables of your new world:
your clear and forgotten life.
Days We Would Rather Know by Michael Blumenthal
There are days we would rather know
than these, as there is always, later,
a woman we would rather have married
than whom we did, in that severe nowness
time push, imperfectly, to then. Whether,
standing in the museum before Rembrandt's "Juno,"
we stand before beauty, or only a consensus
about beauty, is a question that makes all beauty
suspect... and all marriages. Last night,
leaves circled the base of the gingko as if
the sun had shattered during the night
into a million gold coins no one had the sense
to claim. And now, there are days we would
rather know than these, days when to stand
before beauty and before "Juno" are, convincingly,
the same, days when the shattered sunlight
rests in the trees and the women we marry
remain interesting and beautiful both at once,
and their men. And though there are days
we would rather know than now, I am,
at heart, a scared and simple man. So I tighten
my arms around the woman I love, now
and imperfectly, stand before "Juno" whispering
beautiful beautiful until I believe it, and -
when I come home at night - run out
into the day's pale dusk with my broom
and my dustpan, sweeping the coins from the base
of the gingko, something to keep for a better tomorrow:
days we rather know that never come.
than these, as there is always, later,
a woman we would rather have married
than whom we did, in that severe nowness
time push, imperfectly, to then. Whether,
standing in the museum before Rembrandt's "Juno,"
we stand before beauty, or only a consensus
about beauty, is a question that makes all beauty
suspect... and all marriages. Last night,
leaves circled the base of the gingko as if
the sun had shattered during the night
into a million gold coins no one had the sense
to claim. And now, there are days we would
rather know than these, days when to stand
before beauty and before "Juno" are, convincingly,
the same, days when the shattered sunlight
rests in the trees and the women we marry
remain interesting and beautiful both at once,
and their men. And though there are days
we would rather know than now, I am,
at heart, a scared and simple man. So I tighten
my arms around the woman I love, now
and imperfectly, stand before "Juno" whispering
beautiful beautiful until I believe it, and -
when I come home at night - run out
into the day's pale dusk with my broom
and my dustpan, sweeping the coins from the base
of the gingko, something to keep for a better tomorrow:
days we rather know that never come.
What I Believe by Michael Blumenthal
I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.
I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.
I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.
I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.
I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.
I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.
I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.
I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.
And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.
so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.
I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.
I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.
I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.
I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.
I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.
I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.
I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.
And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.
so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
A Marriage by Michael Blumenthal
You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.
But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.
So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner's arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.
And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.
But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.
So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner's arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.
And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.
No Hurry by Michael Blumenthal
—For C.K. Williams
This morning waiting for the paint on the fence to dry
I realized there was no hurry, no hurry waiting
for the bus to come no hurry for the sun to set
or the moon to rise no hurry, even, to arrive at orgasm,
your own or anyone else's. There was no hurry,
certainly, for the protoplasm of decline to make its way
homewards, no hurry on the divorce decree no hurry
for the new marriage certificate no hurry for the blossoms
on the butterfly bush outside this window to bloom
or the apples to fall no hurry for the ant just now making
its way across this room to get to the other side, though
thousands of its little brethren are impatiently waiting.
There was no hurry, I realized, for these very fingers
to make their way over the keys no hurry for the brave
little homunculus of the day to reach afternoon no hurry
for the wrinkles around my eyes to widen no hurry
for impotence bladder problems mutating cancer cells
no hurry, darling, for anything to become or not become
of us no hurry for the plane to depart no hurry no hurry
no hurry since, sooner or later, everything will arrive
at breath's finish line and we will all be winners,
and all will be still, and everything we had always
been hurrying towards will finally be ours.
This morning waiting for the paint on the fence to dry
I realized there was no hurry, no hurry waiting
for the bus to come no hurry for the sun to set
or the moon to rise no hurry, even, to arrive at orgasm,
your own or anyone else's. There was no hurry,
certainly, for the protoplasm of decline to make its way
homewards, no hurry on the divorce decree no hurry
for the new marriage certificate no hurry for the blossoms
on the butterfly bush outside this window to bloom
or the apples to fall no hurry for the ant just now making
its way across this room to get to the other side, though
thousands of its little brethren are impatiently waiting.
There was no hurry, I realized, for these very fingers
to make their way over the keys no hurry for the brave
little homunculus of the day to reach afternoon no hurry
for the wrinkles around my eyes to widen no hurry
for impotence bladder problems mutating cancer cells
no hurry, darling, for anything to become or not become
of us no hurry for the plane to depart no hurry no hurry
no hurry since, sooner or later, everything will arrive
at breath's finish line and we will all be winners,
and all will be still, and everything we had always
been hurrying towards will finally be ours.
Manners by Michael Blumenthal
Just because a man pulls out your chair for you
and takes your coat at an elegant restaurant
is no guarantee that he really loves you. You know this,
and so whether he burps or farts over the dinner
like some sort of Chinese compliment
does not much matter to you, whether he subscribes
to the high sanctimony of the right thing
leaves you unmoved and lonely. Once,
like a Turkish princess, you were feted and dined
by all sorts of mannerly people, in a high castle
on the cliffs of Scotland. Now, so many thank-yous
and sincerelies later, it's the things unsaid,
the warm rudities of late night, that most move you
and you are wild for slurped sounds of the truly decent,
the I-chew-with-my-mouth-open look of the one
you will love forever. Whatever it is that might be said
for the predictable thing, the good manners
you were taught in childhood, it's more and more
the case of the auspicious oddity that excites you now,
the cool flippancy of the one who invents
his own decencies. Darling, I say to you,
fall to the floor all you want, I ain't pulling
chairs out for anyone. But what I'll whisper to you later,
in the orderly dark that comes every night like a good butler,
will be sweeter than all that, believe me,
something you can write home to mom about
as if I were the man who had sent you a, dozen roses
on Valentine's Day, or smiled in the pretty picture,
or paid you the most beautiful compliment in the world—
only more slovenly, baby, more kind.
and takes your coat at an elegant restaurant
is no guarantee that he really loves you. You know this,
and so whether he burps or farts over the dinner
like some sort of Chinese compliment
does not much matter to you, whether he subscribes
to the high sanctimony of the right thing
leaves you unmoved and lonely. Once,
like a Turkish princess, you were feted and dined
by all sorts of mannerly people, in a high castle
on the cliffs of Scotland. Now, so many thank-yous
and sincerelies later, it's the things unsaid,
the warm rudities of late night, that most move you
and you are wild for slurped sounds of the truly decent,
the I-chew-with-my-mouth-open look of the one
you will love forever. Whatever it is that might be said
for the predictable thing, the good manners
you were taught in childhood, it's more and more
the case of the auspicious oddity that excites you now,
the cool flippancy of the one who invents
his own decencies. Darling, I say to you,
fall to the floor all you want, I ain't pulling
chairs out for anyone. But what I'll whisper to you later,
in the orderly dark that comes every night like a good butler,
will be sweeter than all that, believe me,
something you can write home to mom about
as if I were the man who had sent you a, dozen roses
on Valentine's Day, or smiled in the pretty picture,
or paid you the most beautiful compliment in the world—
only more slovenly, baby, more kind.
Be Kind by Michael Blumenthal
Not merely because Henry James said
there were but four rules of life—
be kind be kind be kind be kind—but
because it's good for the soul, and,
what's more, for others, it may be
that kindness is our best audition
for a worthier world, and, despite
the vagueness and uncertainty of
its recompense, a bird may yet wander
into a bush before our very houses,
gratitude may not manifest itself in deeds
entirely equal to our own, still there's
weather arriving from every direction,
the feasts of famine and feasts of plenty
may yet prove to be one, so why not
allow the little sacrificial squinches and
squigulas to prevail? Why not inundate
the particular world with minute particulars?
Dust's certainly all our fate, so why not
make it the happiest possible dust,
a detritus of blessedness? Surely
the hedgehog, furling and unfurling
into its spiked little ball, knows something
that, with gentle touch and unthreatening
tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked
witches of our childhood have died and,
from where they are buried, a great kindness
has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course,
in the end so much comes down to privilege
and its various penumbras, but too much
of our unruly animus has already been
wasted on reprisals, too much of the
unblessed air is filled with smoke from
undignified fires. Oh friends, take
whatever kindness you can find
and be profligate in its expenditure:
It will not drain your limited resources,
I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable
and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws
to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses,
and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet.
there were but four rules of life—
be kind be kind be kind be kind—but
because it's good for the soul, and,
what's more, for others, it may be
that kindness is our best audition
for a worthier world, and, despite
the vagueness and uncertainty of
its recompense, a bird may yet wander
into a bush before our very houses,
gratitude may not manifest itself in deeds
entirely equal to our own, still there's
weather arriving from every direction,
the feasts of famine and feasts of plenty
may yet prove to be one, so why not
allow the little sacrificial squinches and
squigulas to prevail? Why not inundate
the particular world with minute particulars?
Dust's certainly all our fate, so why not
make it the happiest possible dust,
a detritus of blessedness? Surely
the hedgehog, furling and unfurling
into its spiked little ball, knows something
that, with gentle touch and unthreatening
tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked
witches of our childhood have died and,
from where they are buried, a great kindness
has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course,
in the end so much comes down to privilege
and its various penumbras, but too much
of our unruly animus has already been
wasted on reprisals, too much of the
unblessed air is filled with smoke from
undignified fires. Oh friends, take
whatever kindness you can find
and be profligate in its expenditure:
It will not drain your limited resources,
I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable
and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws
to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses,
and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet.
Friday, 6 September 2013
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest
Thursday, 5 September 2013
A Sunflower Seed's Line of Negation by Yang Lian
For Ai Weiwei
unimaginable that Du Fu’s little boat was once
moored on this ceramic river
I don’t know the moonlight see only the poem’s clarity
attenuated line by line to a non-person
to the symbols discussing and avoiding everything
I’m no symbol a sun dying under the sunflower seed’s hard shell
nor is the sun snow-white collapsed meat of children
nor have I disappeared daybreak’s horizon impossibly
forgot that pain bones like glass sliced by glass
I didn't scream, so must scream at each first light
an earthquake never stands still
no need to suffocate the dead planting rows of fences to the ends of the earth
handcuffing ever more shameful silence so I don’t fear
the young policewoman interrogating my naked body
it was formed by fire no different to yours
knowing no other way to shatter but a hundred million shatterings within myself
falling into no soil only into the river that can’t flow
that cares nothing for the yellow flower within the stone having to go on
to hold back like a drop of Du Fu’s old tears
refusing to let the poem sink into dead indifferent beauty
unimaginable that Du Fu’s little boat was once
moored on this ceramic river
I don’t know the moonlight see only the poem’s clarity
attenuated line by line to a non-person
to the symbols discussing and avoiding everything
I’m no symbol a sun dying under the sunflower seed’s hard shell
nor is the sun snow-white collapsed meat of children
nor have I disappeared daybreak’s horizon impossibly
forgot that pain bones like glass sliced by glass
I didn't scream, so must scream at each first light
an earthquake never stands still
no need to suffocate the dead planting rows of fences to the ends of the earth
handcuffing ever more shameful silence so I don’t fear
the young policewoman interrogating my naked body
it was formed by fire no different to yours
knowing no other way to shatter but a hundred million shatterings within myself
falling into no soil only into the river that can’t flow
that cares nothing for the yellow flower within the stone having to go on
to hold back like a drop of Du Fu’s old tears
refusing to let the poem sink into dead indifferent beauty
London by Yang Lian
reality is part of my nature
spring has accepted the overflowing green of the dead again
streets accept more funerals which are blacker yet beneath the flowers
red phone boxes in the rain like a warning
time is part of the internal organs bird voices
open every rusting face on the benches
watching night’s eyes a prolonged flying accident
when yet another day is blotted out London
write out all my madness lick out all the brown beer’s froth
the bell’s toll in a little bird’s brain vibrates like a gloomy verse unemployed
city is part of the word the most terrifying part of me
showing my insignificance accepting
blue mildewed sheepskin slip-cover outside the window
sheep meat’s memory diligently binding
its own death dying in the unconvulsing lens
when between two pages of newsprint is a grave behind the grave is the ocean
spring has accepted the overflowing green of the dead again
streets accept more funerals which are blacker yet beneath the flowers
red phone boxes in the rain like a warning
time is part of the internal organs bird voices
open every rusting face on the benches
watching night’s eyes a prolonged flying accident
when yet another day is blotted out London
write out all my madness lick out all the brown beer’s froth
the bell’s toll in a little bird’s brain vibrates like a gloomy verse unemployed
city is part of the word the most terrifying part of me
showing my insignificance accepting
blue mildewed sheepskin slip-cover outside the window
sheep meat’s memory diligently binding
its own death dying in the unconvulsing lens
when between two pages of newsprint is a grave behind the grave is the ocean
Sunlight by Ko Un
It's absolutely inevitable!
So just take a deep breath
and accept this adversity.
But look!
A distinguished visitor deigns to visit
my tiny north-facing cell.
Not the chief making his rounds, no,
but a ray of sunlight as evening falls,
a gleam no bigger than a screwed-up stamp.
A sweetheart fit to go crazy about.
It settles there on the palm of a hand,
warms the toes of a shyly bared foot.
Then as I kneel and, undevoutly,
offer it a dry, parched face to kiss,
in a moment that scrap of sunlight slips away.
After the guest has departed through the bars,
the room feels several times colder and darker.
This military prison special cell
is a photographer's darkroom.
Without any sunlight I laughed like a fool.
One day it was a coffin holding a corpse.
One day it was altogether the sea.
A wonderful thing!
A few people survive here.
Being alive is a sea
without a single sail in sight.
So just take a deep breath
and accept this adversity.
But look!
A distinguished visitor deigns to visit
my tiny north-facing cell.
Not the chief making his rounds, no,
but a ray of sunlight as evening falls,
a gleam no bigger than a screwed-up stamp.
A sweetheart fit to go crazy about.
It settles there on the palm of a hand,
warms the toes of a shyly bared foot.
Then as I kneel and, undevoutly,
offer it a dry, parched face to kiss,
in a moment that scrap of sunlight slips away.
After the guest has departed through the bars,
the room feels several times colder and darker.
This military prison special cell
is a photographer's darkroom.
Without any sunlight I laughed like a fool.
One day it was a coffin holding a corpse.
One day it was altogether the sea.
A wonderful thing!
A few people survive here.
Being alive is a sea
without a single sail in sight.
Indangsu sea, shine dark blue by Ko Un
Indangsu sea, shine dark blue,
come rising as a cloudlike drumbeat.
The waters, the sailors who know the waters, may know
the dark fate of the world beyond
that lies past the path that sometimes appears,
the weeping of children born into this world,
and the sailors may know my daughter's path.
How can the waters exist without the world beyond?
Full-bodied fear
has now become the most yearned-for thing in the world,
and my daughter's whimpering stillness in the lotus bud will be such;
might love be a bright world and my eyes be plunged in utter darkness?
Daughter, already now the waters' own mother,
advance over the waters,
advance over the waters
like the mists that come dropping over the waters.
My daughter, advance and travel through every world.
Shine dark blue, Indangsu. Weep dark blue.
come rising as a cloudlike drumbeat.
The waters, the sailors who know the waters, may know
the dark fate of the world beyond
that lies past the path that sometimes appears,
the weeping of children born into this world,
and the sailors may know my daughter's path.
How can the waters exist without the world beyond?
Full-bodied fear
has now become the most yearned-for thing in the world,
and my daughter's whimpering stillness in the lotus bud will be such;
might love be a bright world and my eyes be plunged in utter darkness?
Daughter, already now the waters' own mother,
advance over the waters,
advance over the waters
like the mists that come dropping over the waters.
My daughter, advance and travel through every world.
Shine dark blue, Indangsu. Weep dark blue.
A Smile by Ko Un
Shakyamuni held up a lotus
so Kashyapa smiled.
Not at all.
The lotus smiled
so Kashyapa smiled.
Nowhere was Shakyamuni!
so Kashyapa smiled.
Not at all.
The lotus smiled
so Kashyapa smiled.
Nowhere was Shakyamuni!
Two Beggars by Ko Un
Two beggars
sharing a meal of the food they've been given
The new moon shines intensely
sharing a meal of the food they've been given
The new moon shines intensely
Stories by Ko Un
There are stories.
There are people telling stories
and people listening to them.
The room is full
of the breath of the stories.
That is enough.
Eight months of winter at minus 40.
A weaned baby froze to death;
the grieving did not last long.
Soon there are stories.
Between prayers and more prayers
between one meal and the next
there are stories.
This kind of state is a perfect state.
There are people telling stories
and people listening to them.
The room is full
of the breath of the stories.
That is enough.
Eight months of winter at minus 40.
A weaned baby froze to death;
the grieving did not last long.
Soon there are stories.
Between prayers and more prayers
between one meal and the next
there are stories.
This kind of state is a perfect state.
The Himalayas by Ko Un
Recollection is short, fantasy long!
A place where I'd never been born,
must never be born—
the Himalayas.
On whose behalf
did I go there?
I went with all ten fingers trembling.
With so many kinds of foolishness left back home,
I gazed up toward a few peaks
brilliant at eight thousand meters, their golden blades piled high.
Before that, and after,
I could not help but be an orphan.
I had but one hope:
to stay as far from the Himalayas as humanly possible,
and from the world of troublesome questions.
Yes, that was it.
A place where I'd never been born,
must never be born—
the Himalayas.
On whose behalf
did I go there?
I went with all ten fingers trembling.
With so many kinds of foolishness left back home,
I gazed up toward a few peaks
brilliant at eight thousand meters, their golden blades piled high.
Before that, and after,
I could not help but be an orphan.
I had but one hope:
to stay as far from the Himalayas as humanly possible,
and from the world of troublesome questions.
Yes, that was it.
Your Pilgrimage by Ko Un
A slower pace, a somewhat slower pace will do.
Of a sudden, should it start to rain,
let yourself get soaked.
An old friend, the rain.
One thing alone is beautiful: setting off.
The world's too vast
to live in a single place,
or three or four.
Walk on and on
until the sun sets,
with your old accomplice,
shadow, late as ever.
If the day clouds over,
go on anyway
regardless.
Of a sudden, should it start to rain,
let yourself get soaked.
An old friend, the rain.
One thing alone is beautiful: setting off.
The world's too vast
to live in a single place,
or three or four.
Walk on and on
until the sun sets,
with your old accomplice,
shadow, late as ever.
If the day clouds over,
go on anyway
regardless.
August 1968 by WH Auden
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master Speech.
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master Speech.
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
F
Cast Hexagram:
38 - Thirty-Eight
K'uei / Estrangement
Fire distances itself from its nemesis, the Lake:
No matter how large or diverse the group, the Superior Person remains uniquely himself.
Small accomplishments are possible.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
You are working at cross-purposes with another.
The distance between you is very wide.
The gap can be closed, however, with no compromise of your integrity.
You are not adversaries in this case -- just two persons addressing individual needs.
Ask yourself: are these needs mutually exclusive?
Is there common ground here?
Must there be one winner and one loser?
Could you become partners in seeking a solution that would allow for two winners?
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
Suheir Hammad: What I Will
I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin beak for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin beak for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain’t
louder than this breath.
Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others
As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
(do not forget the pigeon’s food).
As you wage your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you express yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: If only I were a candle in the dark).
(do not forget the pigeon’s food).
As you wage your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you express yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: If only I were a candle in the dark).
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Stolen Days by Pier Paolo Pasolini
We who are poor have little time
for youth and beauty:
you can do well without us.
Our birth enslaves us!
butterflies shorn of all beauty,
buried in the chrysalis of time.
The wealthy don't pay for our time:
those days stolen from beauty
possessed by our fathers and us.
Will time's hunger never die?
for youth and beauty:
you can do well without us.
Our birth enslaves us!
butterflies shorn of all beauty,
buried in the chrysalis of time.
The wealthy don't pay for our time:
those days stolen from beauty
possessed by our fathers and us.
Will time's hunger never die?
Mystery by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Daring to lift my eyes
towards the dry treetops,
I don't see God, but his light
is immensely shining.
Of all the things I know
my heart feels only this:
I'm young, alive, alone,
my body consuming itself.
I briefly rest in the tall grasses
of a river bank, under bare
trees, then move along beneath
clouds to live out my young days.
towards the dry treetops,
I don't see God, but his light
is immensely shining.
Of all the things I know
my heart feels only this:
I'm young, alive, alone,
my body consuming itself.
I briefly rest in the tall grasses
of a river bank, under bare
trees, then move along beneath
clouds to live out my young days.
Song of the Church Bells by Pier Paolo Pasolini
When evening dips inside water fountains
my town disappears among muted hues.
From far away I remember frogs croaking,
the moonlight, the cricket's sad cries.
The fields devour the Vespers' church bells
but I am dead to the sound of those bells.
Stranger, don't fear my tender return
across mountains, I am the spirit of love
coming back home from faraway shores.
my town disappears among muted hues.
From far away I remember frogs croaking,
the moonlight, the cricket's sad cries.
The fields devour the Vespers' church bells
but I am dead to the sound of those bells.
Stranger, don't fear my tender return
across mountains, I am the spirit of love
coming back home from faraway shores.
Thursday, 1 August 2013
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
For it is I who am acquaintance: and lack of acquaintance.
It is I who am reticence: and frankness.
I am shameless: I am ashamed.
I am strong: and I am afraid.
It is I who am war: and peace.
It is I who am reticence: and frankness.
I am shameless: I am ashamed.
I am strong: and I am afraid.
It is I who am war: and peace.
Friday, 19 July 2013
The Egg by Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Evening by Anna Akhmatova
In the garden strains of music,
Full of inexpressible sadness.
Scent of the sea, pungent, fresh,
On an ice bed, a dish of oysters.
He said to me: ‘I’m a true friend!’
And then touched my dress.
How unlike an embrace
The closeness of his caress.
Thus, you stroke birds or cats, yes,
Thus you view shapely performers…
In his calm eyes only laughter,
Beneath pale-gold eyelashes.
And the voices of sad viols
Sang behind drifting vapour:
‘Give thanks to heaven, then –
You’re alone at last with your lover.’
Full of inexpressible sadness.
Scent of the sea, pungent, fresh,
On an ice bed, a dish of oysters.
He said to me: ‘I’m a true friend!’
And then touched my dress.
How unlike an embrace
The closeness of his caress.
Thus, you stroke birds or cats, yes,
Thus you view shapely performers…
In his calm eyes only laughter,
Beneath pale-gold eyelashes.
And the voices of sad viols
Sang behind drifting vapour:
‘Give thanks to heaven, then –
You’re alone at last with your lover.’
O Night by Giuseppe Ungaretti
Dall’ampia ansia dell’alba
From the deep anxiety of dawn
the grove of trees unveils.
Sad awakenings.
Leaves, sister leaves,
I hear your lament.
Autumns,
moribund sweetness.
O youth,
the hour of growth is barely past.
High skies of youth
impetuous freedom.
And I am already desert.
Caught on this melancholy arc.
But night scatters distances.
Oceanic silences,
astral nests of illusion,
O night.
From the deep anxiety of dawn
the grove of trees unveils.
Sad awakenings.
Leaves, sister leaves,
I hear your lament.
Autumns,
moribund sweetness.
O youth,
the hour of growth is barely past.
High skies of youth
impetuous freedom.
And I am already desert.
Caught on this melancholy arc.
But night scatters distances.
Oceanic silences,
astral nests of illusion,
O night.
Nostalgia by Giuseppe Ungaretti
Quando la notte è a svanire
When
night fades
a little before the springtime
and of a rarity
someone passes
a dark colour
of weeping
thickens over Paris
on a poem
of a bridge
I contemplate
the boundless silence
of a slender
girl
our
ills
flow together
and how, borne away,
she remains
When
night fades
a little before the springtime
and of a rarity
someone passes
a dark colour
of weeping
thickens over Paris
on a poem
of a bridge
I contemplate
the boundless silence
of a slender
girl
our
ills
flow together
and how, borne away,
she remains
Sky Song by Robert Desnos
The flower of the Alps told the seashell: "You're shining"
The seashell told the sea: "You echo"
The sea told the boat: "You're shuddering"
The boat told the fire: "You're glowing brightly"
The fire told me: "I glow less brightly than her eyes"
The boat told me: "I shudder less than your heart does when she appears"
The sea told me: "I echo less than her name does in your love-making"
The seashell told me: "I shine less brightly than the phosphorus of desire in your hollow dream"
The flower of the Alps told me: "She's beautiful"
I said: "She's beautiful, so beautiful, she moves me."
The seashell told the sea: "You echo"
The sea told the boat: "You're shuddering"
The boat told the fire: "You're glowing brightly"
The fire told me: "I glow less brightly than her eyes"
The boat told me: "I shudder less than your heart does when she appears"
The sea told me: "I echo less than her name does in your love-making"
The seashell told me: "I shine less brightly than the phosphorus of desire in your hollow dream"
The flower of the Alps told me: "She's beautiful"
I said: "She's beautiful, so beautiful, she moves me."
Epitaph by Robert Desnos
I lived in those times. For a thousand years
I have been dead. Not fallen, but hunted;
When all human decency was imprisoned,
I was free amongst the masked slaves.
I lived in those times, yet I was free.
I watched the river, the earth, the sky,
Turning around me, keeping their balance,
The seasons provided their birds and their honey.
You who live, what have you made of your luck?
Do you regret the time when I struggled?
Have you cultivated for the common harvest?
Have you enriched the town I lived in?
Living men, think nothing of me. I am dead.
Nothing survives of my spirit or my body.
I have been dead. Not fallen, but hunted;
When all human decency was imprisoned,
I was free amongst the masked slaves.
I lived in those times, yet I was free.
I watched the river, the earth, the sky,
Turning around me, keeping their balance,
The seasons provided their birds and their honey.
You who live, what have you made of your luck?
Do you regret the time when I struggled?
Have you cultivated for the common harvest?
Have you enriched the town I lived in?
Living men, think nothing of me. I am dead.
Nothing survives of my spirit or my body.
Spring Parting by Catullus
Now Spring returns mild and temperate,
now the wild equinoctial skies
are calmed by Zephyr’s happier breezes.
The fields of Phrygia will be forsaken,
Catullus, rich farms of hot Nicaea:
we’ll flee to Asia’s bright cities.
Now restless minds long for travel,
now the glad feet stir with pleasure.
O sweet crowd of friends farewell,
who came together from far places,
whom divergent roads must carry.
now the wild equinoctial skies
are calmed by Zephyr’s happier breezes.
The fields of Phrygia will be forsaken,
Catullus, rich farms of hot Nicaea:
we’ll flee to Asia’s bright cities.
Now restless minds long for travel,
now the glad feet stir with pleasure.
O sweet crowd of friends farewell,
who came together from far places,
whom divergent roads must carry.
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