And so you shudder now
and then from grief. The darkness, being real,
is clearly visible.
—Joseph Brodsky, from Gorbunov and Gorchakov in Collected Poems
Source: proustitute
Loss takes place
in the mouth first; the scream
possible only after
the mouth is empty.
If the veins on a man’s face
were to break free,
what would they touch first?
— Arlene Ang, from “Skin”
Source: awritersruminations
“In a Dark Time”
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Theodore Roethke (1964)
And so it was I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
An instant in the wind! (I know not whither hurled)
But not for long to hold each desperate choice.
My word I poured. But was it cognate, scored
Of that tribunal monarch of the air
Whose thigh embronzes earth, strikes crystal Word
In wounds pledged once to hope, —cleft to despair?
—From Hart Crane’s “The Broken Tower”
Blake struggled to teach us that the world is a perpetually renewed chaos; if this condition occasions our despair, we must learn to see in it our only possibilities for hope.
I should be much for open War, O Peers,
As not behind in hate; if what was urg’d
Main reason to persuade immediate War,
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success:
When he who most excels in fact of Arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope
Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
First, what Revenge? the Tow’rs of Heav’n are fill’d
With Armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering Deep
Encamp their Legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the Realm of night,
Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest Insurrection, to confound
Heav’n’s purest Light, yet our great Enemy
All incorruptible would on his Throne
Sit unpolluted, and the Ethereal mould
Incapable of stain would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire
Victorious. Thus repuls’d, our final hope
Is flat despair.
Belial in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book II
…I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire…I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
This was one of my favorite literary passages in high school.
(via evoketheforms)
Source: hateshiploveship
A Litany for Survival
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
Audre Lordre
Source: hateshiploveship
when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because
(via proustitute)
