pay attention

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

-
Mary Oliver. A Thousand Mornings

The best people

Dana Baginska

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to 

take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for 

sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they 

are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

—Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell To Arms)

nice

Prayer

Prayer
by Jorie Graham
Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re- infolding, entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing motion that forces change-- this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself, also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go. I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never. It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

A chuva voltou hoje

A chuva voltou hoje,

depois de um longo estio

a chuva cai tristeza em gotas.

Ainda de manhã demorei a atravessar a rua

só para olhar melhor as pernas nuas

da rapariga que atravessava -  

por ora acabaram as pernas nuas

a partir de agora sombras, 

volumes a cobrir o frio.

Regatos correm ao longo dos passeios,

Outra música, outro tempo.

Sudden

 “People think of history in the long term, but history, in fact, is a very sudden thing.”

Phillip Roth’s  American Pastoral

 

 

 

 

 

The Unknown Citizen

 

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
   saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
   generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
   education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

 

(W.H. Auden) 

Write something

“Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. ”
― Gore Vidal

Nah...don't think so...

Clear-cut

"Xxxxxx's biography was in need of a plot and his worldview was in need of a moral."

found in Grand Old Marxists

Timothy Snyder - The New York Review of Books

Just at the beginning of Martha Gellhorn "The Face of war" she states that things with the Nazis were clear-cut : what they attacked we could very clearly support...Now in the days of the 50 or more shades of gray things get more complicated,  reality though is making a comeback and it's  costing us – but one has only to remember that in some parts of the world there was never gray, it was either black or white as always was, you couldn’t just stand on the wall, life always forces you to be in one of the sides of it…

Clear-cut : life will get rougher in Europe, just hope that somebody remembers the history of the XXth century and its wars…Hope that’s not the same path we’re following…Egg of the serpent looming in the shadow always.

Hugo

Hugo Cabret:
 I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know.They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine... I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.

I remain

After they all leave,
I remain alone with the poems,
some poems of mine, some of others.
I prefer poems that others have written.
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I remain.

#Dahlia Ravikovitch

VRSA

Burn

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

- Victor E. Frankl

take me home...

I’m about to leave. I ask him to take me home. […] The road home isn’t very long, and I know I’ll be getting off soon. But at this moment, I’m feeling such lovely warmth.

Orwell/Huxley

 

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.Neil Postman, interviewed on the McNeil/Lehrer Hour in 1995.

found in fette.tumblr.com

depois da maçã...

Adão e Eva Expulsos do Paraíso

Noite

A luz é só outro ruído na noite,
cúmplice o rio corre, carregando o seu silêncio
tudo o que nasce, desagua numa foz.

BARREN

¹bar·ren

adj \ˈber-ən, ˈba-rən\

 

Definition of BARREN

1

: not reproducing: as a: incapable of producing offspring —used especially of females or matings b: not yet or not recently pregnant c: habitually failing to fruit

2

: not productive: as a: producing little or no vegetation : desolate <barren deserts> b: producing inferior crops <barren soil> c: unproductive of results or gain : fruitless barren

scheme>

3

: devoid, lacking —used with of <barren of excitement>

4

: lacking interest or charm barren

routine>

5

: lacking inspiration or ideas barren

mind>

— bar·ren·lyadverb

— bar·ren·ness \-ə(n)-nəs\noun

A "Thank You" Note

There is much I owe
to those I do not love.

The relief in accepting
they are closer to another.

Joy that I am not
the wolf to their sheep.

My peace be with them
for with them I am free,
and this, love can neither give,
nor know how to take.

I don't wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love does not understand.
I forgive
what love would never have forgiven.

Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.

My trips with them always turn out well.
Concerts are heard.
Cathedrals are toured.
Landscapes are distinct.

And when seven rivers and mountains
come between us,
they are rivers and mountains
well known from any map.

It is thanks to them
that I live in three dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,
with a shifting, thus real, horizon.

They don't even know
how much they carry in their empty hands.

"I don't owe them anything",
love would have said
on this open topic.

MULHERES CORRENDO, CORRENDO PELA NOITE

    

Mulheres correndo, correndo pela noite. O som de mulheres correndo, lembradas, correndo como éguas abertas, como sonoras corredoras magnólias. Mulheres pela noite dentro levando nas patas grandiosos lenços brancos. Correndo com lenços muito vivos nas patas pela noite dentro. Lenços vivos com suas patas abertas como magnólias correndo, lembradas, patas pela noite viva. Levando, lembrando, correndo. É o som delas batendo como estrelas nas portas. O céu por cima, as crinas negras batendo: é o som delas. Lembradas, correndo. Estrelas. Eu ouço: passam, lembrando. As grandiosas patas brancas abertas no som, à porta, com o céu lembrando. Crinas correndo pela noite, lenços vivos batendo como magnólias levadas pela noite, abertas, correndo, lembrando. De repente, as letras. O rosto sufocado como se fosse abril num canto da noite. O rosto no meio das letras, sufocado a um canto, de repente. Mulheres correndo, de porta em porta, com lenços sufocados, lembrando letras, levando lenços, letras - nas patas negras, grandiosamente abertas. Como se fosse abril, sufocadas no meio. Era o som delas, como se fosse abril a um canto da noite, lembrando. Ouço: são elas que partem. E levam o sangue cheio de letras, as patas floridas sobre a cabeça, correndo, pensando. Atiram-se para a noite com o sonho terrível de um lenço vivo. E vão batendo com as estrelas nas portas. E sobre a cabeça branca, as patas lembrando pela noite dentro. O rosto sufocado, o som abrindo, muito lembrado. E a cabeça correndo, e eu ouço: são elas que partem, pensando. Então acordo de dentro e, lembrando, fico de lado. E ouço correr, levando grandiosos lenços contra a noite com estrelas batendo nas patas como magnólias pensando, abertas, correndo. Ouço de lado: é o som. São elas, lembrando de lado, com as patas no meio das letras, o rosto sufocado correndo pelas portas grandiosas, as crinas brancas batendo. E eu ouço: é o som delas com as patas negras, com as magnólias negras contra a noite. Correndo, lembrando, batendo.