from WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?

Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long long dances,
On through the dark till the dawn-stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream
Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam
In the dim expanses?
-Euripides (from the Bacchae)
trs.by Gilbert Murray

Quite so.

"Today my young sisters dressed up and made me draw pictures of them (they all were in artistic moods) but none of them liked the noses I gave them. A sensitive issue, noses; one never quite knows how to properly point out the simple fact that all humans have them, some long some not, some flatter than wider, some cute and some noble.
After a weary bit of defending my representations of that small organ, I concluded that when faced with whether to admire someone's nose or not, always stick with eyebrows. Just say, "You have very exotic( or intriguing, or beautiful-arching, mysterious, ect.) eyebrows" and whoever it was that was fishing for gracious speech will almost always be extremely pleased, because that is not something one hears in one's general converstation."

Viola

For, sometimes at least, love
is vanity. Irises tarred with tears
& the slow death of admiration.
Other times, it is worse, for it is so true it dies itself to live;
is hidden when at ripest,
"Sure, my noble lord,
If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow
As it is spoke, she never will admit me..."
and all the while apples
of desire fall
softly
in the Duke's orchard.
Crows fly down and feast
as they ferment.
The odor of love is sometimes a difficult thing.



dry as a desert is my tongue in my throat
dry as a riverbed that can't float a boat
parched as a camel, gasping like a fish
Another diet coke is my only wish.

I reached rather slowly ,then grabbed for a can-
Gadzooks! They're both empty, I don't understand
I need it for life, for brutal survival
but Rachel drank it up. SHe's my bitterest rival.
Mr. Pibb would not sate her, nor Sprite fill her up
so she stole my heart's love, she drain'd my last cup!

I shall not let it die
though other loves intrude
or throng the green lawns that once were bare apart from you.
Forget the pain, the half-won smiles
given so freely? Do you see that river there, just through the trees?
It has been there since before the wild deer thirsted
or man admired the threads of moonsilk that play upon it in the dark.
So, so it will be with thou and I

did milton know he was going blind?
is that the same feeling as walking into a hospital with an infection in your right hand KNOWING they will cut it off and part of you will be gone?

IF ONLY PROFESSORS WOULD SAY SO

your bar chart
is a work of art
that rivals even
the dramatic art
of
Rene Descarte
at the marriage mart
when he tried to start
to enlarge his heart
with a woman who liked lobster tart,
a la carte.
For the most part,
take heart.
You've made a start

I'd offer back my cupped hands if they brimmed
with sincere water,
or if they sheltered some soft-winged thing from harm -
i really would, i swear.

But what I hold in these two palms is blackened with despair
and filth
and every kind of lie - I'd die before I'd bring it to you, most Beloved,
nor will I ever grieve you with my shame,
these hands that hold this heart cannot but maim the ritual greeting
friends offer friends.
Please let me go and
offer both broken hands to the jailor. He understands
the price I owe.

You shall not go.

You do not know how willingly I've burnt & charred & cut my chest apart...
You do not know my daily will to sin, you did not see my love depart...

I do. I did. I know your heart. Unclasp your hands and give it all to me.
Do you not know, dear friend, that I can set you free?

sometimes i get afraid all at once of the future.
What if I choose wrong,
what if I drape my days over the wrong bannister,
come up short in the half-mile sprint,
or drown in an ocean without mermaids?

woo me away from thoughts of myself, narrow airless empty;
plant the something that is me deep
into the ground
where i can die quietly
and nourish something small
that needs it.

I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;

to live,
so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
—Dawna Markova

In the Gallery with Death

"Excuse me, Sir. I hope
you don't find me rude,
but I think I have seen you here before.
Do you frequent this gallery often?
The art is lovely, I must say, though you missed a fine collection of murals, done of the War."

"Yes. I am
drawn back day after day, the Sunday not divided from the week,
nor the Monday from the Thursday, et cetera. Mark the
exquisite detail, the craftsmanship they all display -
meticulous to a fault. It would seem
as though even the imperfections were
proposed and executed by a master-painter,
some Renaissance Apollo obsessed with detail.
The colors riot
with such vivid personality
my mind is beside itself.
Perpetual astonishment - true genius
leaves a watermark, can't be forgotten or
brushed aside. This one
for instance,
this girl in the hat summons
visions. You can almost hear the laughter of
summer days caught in the curve of a May rainbow.
Look, how perfectly her eyes reflect an unseen Sun!
I think I need buy this one
today."

"Buy it? Ah, Sir, I fear this is a private collection
belonging to a most obstinate Señora. I do not wish
to trouble you, but Señora de la Vida does not sell.
You are smiling, Sir? Indeed, you do not know the
Lady if you think you shall persuade her otherwise."

"Friend, I thank you for your concern. But I will buy
the "Young Woman in Straw Hat" and the "Spinster Reading"
and several others too.
You see, I know Señora very well; she relies on me.
Her gallery is small, this edifice too diminutive by half,
to display each masterpiece she acquires.
She will sell.

"How happy a chance for you, then, with such friendship
to obtain such fine works. Perhaps the finest
is the painting of the old woman with
her prayer book open on her knee. How it softens the heart! Her very attitude
and attire reassures faith; I hope you
hang her in a place of honour, as well
as yon merry maiden.
I have been long in this hall
just to share the hour with such clear eyes and red lips!
She fills the quiet air with hope of better days."

"Yes, quite so. Well, they will have the same honour as the others, for I treat every canvas equally. Do not grow surly with me, friend.
Perhaps you are too young know this truth,
but all art, beauty, youth and vigor is destined
for a private collection somewhere or other.
And I am no crass collector,
but a connoisseur of almost
immortally classical taste.”

only once

He could remember not being able to handle the precision of black-on-white,
red-on-black-on-white;
only once before
in a different time when the world was his home. Her dress, the collar coming around her throat, and her throat beneath suddenly scarlet cheeks when he kissed her hand. One dance, slowly around the perameters of the room, the perameters of the universe, with her sharp and soft in front of him. He could not handle it; he gave her his heart.

black-on-white-on-red.

the long procession of mourners under the sky, the pages of the priest's book & the roses.

the whites of their eyes. the coffin. her crimson lips.

he could not handle the precision of dying, of black hats and the fact that it's all over in one day.

but it only takes one day of black-and-white to forget color.

The Ballad of Joy and Pain

peacock screams & starstruck dreams
(such pretty words and pretty birds)
drown in color, be my brother
(come take a chance and join the dance)
spin spin spin and break away
run the dawn 'til break of day

(oh we'll break it and we'll mend it come with me I know you'll spend it)

kiss the raindrop as it falls, laugh at Fortune when she calls
firewalk on Saturn's rings, we've the wonder breathing brings
brother, catch me but don't fetch me
from this blissful fountain font
Death can't change it or arrange it,
for our love was set in stone
gild the lily, go to France
or hide from me in pale Romance.
try to tear it, i can bear it

(i'm safe from lies, anchored wise,
in the harbor of your eyes)

you said to live like a living ghost and give to the uttermost

i'm trying.