February 2012
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In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it “Because it is bitter, “And because it is my heart.”
— Stephen Crane, In the Desert
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January 2012
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Today in my heart I feel a vague tremor of stars, but my path is lost in the soul of the mist. The light clips my wings, and my sorrow is dipping memories in the fountain of idea.
- Federico García Lorca, Autumn Song. (November 1918, Granada) (first verse). transl. Catherine Brown in Federico García Lorca: A Bilingual Edition, p. 19.
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Between your love for me and mine for you —air of stars and tremor of plant— a thicket of anemones raises with a dark moan an entire year.
— Federico García Lorca, from Sonnet of the Garland of Roses, p. 831.
December 2011
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Then came the darker sooner, came the later lower. We were no longer a sweeter-here happily-ever-after. We were after ever. We were farther and further. More was the word we used for harder. Lost was our standard-bearer. Our gods were fallen faster, and fallen larger. The day was duller, duller was disaster. Our charge was error. Instead of leader we had louder, instead of lover, never....
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We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
Hamlet. Act V, sc. ii.
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You ask me how to pray to someone who is not. All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard, Above landscapes the color of ripe gold Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun. That Bridge leads to the shore of Reversal Where everything is just the opposite and the word ‘is’ Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned. Notice: I say...
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There will be something, later, that brims full with you and lifts up toward a mouth
Out of a shardstrewn craze I stand up and look upon my hand, how it draws the one and only circle.
Paul Celan, “Es wird etwas sein”, 13 December 1969 (GW 3:109). Translation from John Felstiner, Paul Celan: poet, survivor, Jew (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 278. For further...
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November 2011
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Emily Dickinson on the death of her dog, Carlo:
They say that “Time assuages” - Time never did assuage - An actual suffering strengthens As Sinews do, with Age -
Time is a Test of Trouble - But not a Remedy - If such it prove, it prove too There was no Malady -
- Emily Dickinson, 861, 1864 ed. R.W. Franklin, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition (Cambridge, Mass.:...
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—When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset. The true meaning, ready to be decoded. What never added up will add up, What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
—And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on a branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other? And on...
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One need not be a chamber - to be Haunted - One need not be a House - The Brain - has Corridors surpassing Material Place -
Far safer of a Midnight - meeting External Ghost - Than an Interior - confronting - That cooler - Host -
Far safer, through an Abbey - gallop - The Stones a’chase - Than moonless - One’s A’self encounter - In lonesome place -
Ourself - behind...
October 2011
7 posts
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