"Going to an intellectual place when dealing with emotional issues is like trying to do grocery shopping at an auto parts store."

-Michael Rios

This quote struck me squarely today.  I think I may write about it soon.

For now it's a scribble tossed in the drawer.

Sonnet 16 by Richard Barnfield

Long have I longed to see my love againe,
Still I have wisht, but never could obtaine it;
Rather than all the world (if I might gaine it)
Would I desire my love's sweet precious gaine.
Yet in my soule I see him everie day,
See him, and see his still sterne countenaunce,
Where majestie and beautie beares the sway?
Sometimes, when I imagine that I see him,
(As love is full of foolish fantasies)
Weening to kisse his lips, as my love's fees,
I feele but aire: nothing but aire to bee him.
Thus with Ixion, kisse I clouds in vaine:
Thus with Ixion, feele I endles paine.


Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (Pearson, 2006)
The Poetry Foundation

Lifting a Favorite Word from the Muck

Cunt.

It’s slang for vagina.

It begins with a hard-c. It rhymes with punt, stunt and front.

Use it lovingly, “that flower is opening up like a beautiful crimson cunt.”

Use it with edge, “that little fucking cunt just cut me off.”

Use it absurdly, “there’s a certain oaky cuntiness to this Merlot.”

Use it frequently.

And when someone balks or is morally offended, tell them it’s just a fucking word, lifted from a whore street in Old London and first used in print by James Joyce. Then gaze at them with judgmental disdain and tell them perhaps they’re the ones who need a morality check.

Cunts.

— Kurt Sutter, “A LITTLE BIT OF MY SEMANTIC THEORY OF SLURS AND HOW THAT RELATES TO MY AFFECTION FOR THE USE OF ‘SEE YOU AND TEA’”

Swimming in the Dark Ink

Primordium

"The whole of Le Cirque des Re'ves is formed by series of circles.  Perhaps it is a tribute to the origin of the word "circus," deriving from the Greek kirkos meaning circle, or ring.  There are many such nods to the phenomenon of the circus in a historical sense, though it is hardly a traditional circus.  Rather than a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contains clusters of tents like  pyramids, some large and others quite small.  They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence.  Looping and continuous.

-Friedrick Thiessen, 1892

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

- Oscar Wilde, 1888

(And so, Part I of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern begins...)

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I am captivated by this book already.  It contains so many lines, so many singular words so much that strikes chords inside of me... individual chords that barely begin to vibrate, to quiver in anticipation of the inspiring words that will spill from my pen later.  Already I've been jotting those words and phrases into my notebook.  There is no music yet, but it is coming - these chords will keep trembling and eventually lend their voices to sweet harmonic inspiration -- and I can't wait to set it down in inky black words, lined up properly, one after another.  

It may be quite a fantastic tale.  It may lend itself to another essay about my own darkness, and how I am chasing it with glee; or perhaps it will weave itself into some dark poem that beats with a life and rhythm all it's own.  All I know is that for now, this reading -- this soaking up of the dark rich imagery and language -- is good for me. 

So very good for the ink in my veins.  

This I need.

A Poem I Found

The Quiet World - Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
I proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Kindle the Fire

“The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, ommunicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”

-Voltaire

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”

— Carlos Fuentes

Vulnerable

I found the following quote today. It moved me. I cannot comment further, but if you could see my face, you might notice tears caught in the corners of my eyes, threatening to fall if I'm not mindful of them.

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“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
- C.S. Lewis

Let Me Find Myself in Darkness

An amazing quote that found me today:

"Let me guide myself with the blue,
forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs,
where blue is darkened on blueness
even where Persephone goes, just now,
from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is
awake upon the dark ".

-DH Lawrence, Bavarian Gentians (1932)

Isn't it lovely?

A Sonnet to Fall In Love With

Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you with knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Marvelous

Absolutely amazing. I have no words to add to this:

"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

- Anais Nin