fallslikesnow

Whanganui Bay, Lake Taupo, New Zealand

(An Old Persian Legend) to C. E. H. It started with a stabbing at a well Below the minarets of Isfahan. The widow took her son to see them kill The officer who'd murdered her old man. The child looked up and saw the hangman's work -- The man who'd killed his father swinging high, The mother said: 'My child, now be at peace. The wolf has had the fruits of all his crime.' From felony to felony to crime From robbery to robbery to loss From calumny to calumny to spite From rivalry to rivalry to zeal All this was many centuries ago -- The kind of thing that couldn't happen now -- When Persia was the empire of the Shah And many were the furrows on his brow. The peacock the symbol of his throne And many were the jewels and its eyes And many were the prisons in the land And many were the torturers and spies. From tyranny to tyranny to war From dynasty to dynasty to hate From villainy to villainy to death From policy to policy to grave The

The lizard on the wall, engrossed, The sudden silence from the wood Are telling me that I have lost The possibility of good. I know this flower is beautiful And yesterday it seemed to be, It opened like a crimson hand. It was not beautiful to me. I know that work is beautiful. It is a boon. It is a good. Unless my working were a way Of squandering my solitude. And solitude was beautiful When i was sure that I was strong. I thought it was a medium In which to grow, but I was wrong. The jays are swearing in the wood. The lizard moves with ugly speed. The flower closes like a fist. The possibility recedes. by James Fenton

by Charles W. Bartlett , 1919

You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart -like something dead- lies buried. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally." You won't find a new country, won't find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You'll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses. You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere: there's no ship for you, there's no road. Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. Constantine P. Cavafy via languagehat

"I'm rising five" he said "Not four" and the little coils of hair Un-clicked themselves upon his head. His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He'd been alive Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more; Not four But rising five. Around him in the field, the cells of spring Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot And stem shook out the creases from their frills, And every tree was swilled with green. It was the season after blossoming, Before the forming of the fruit: Not May But rising June. And in the sky The dust dissected the tangential light: Not day But rising night; Not now But rising soon. The new buds push the old leaves from the bough. We drop our youth behind us like a boy Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower, But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit, But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed

" The fourth volume of my four-volume novel Aegypt is going to see print at last. It will be published by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link's Small Beer Press in hardcover. The title is: Endless Things and it will have an epigraph as follows: "But then,” I said, by now a little distraught, “would we have only to eat again from the Tree of Knowledge, in order to fall back into the state of innocence?” “Of course,” he answered. “That is the last chapter of the history of the world.” — Heinrich von Kleist, On the Marionette Theatre Publication date -- SPRING 2007. I am delighted at this. All those who have been waiting for the appearance of this volume with eager interest, then impatience, then irritation, then waning interest, then vague resignation, should herald its arrival (and I mean all two dozen of you! Names will be taken!) by immediately rushing out and buying Small Beer Press books of every description. Labor is also underway to bring back into print

"Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaimonians..." We can very well imagine how completely indifferent the Spartans would have been to this inscription. "Except the Lacedaimonians"-- naturally. The Spartans weren't to be led and ordered around like precious servants. Besides, they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition without a Spartan king in command was to be taken very seriously. Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable. So, "except the Lacedaimonians" at Granikos, then at Issus, then in the decisive battle where the terrible army the Persians mustered at Arbela was wiped out: it set out for victory from Arbela, and was wiped out. And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition, triumphant, brilliant in every way, celebrated on all sides, glorified incomparable, we emerged: the great new Hellenic world. We the Al

Tell me what youre thinking baby Your hearts beating faster than mine And I know somethings going on in your life In your life.. in your life You were the girl I wanted to cry with You were the girl I wanted to die with And you were the boy who turned into the man Broke my heart and let go off my hand Our bed is empty, the fire is out And all the love weve got to give has all spurted out Theres no more blood and no more pain In our kingdom of rain You think you know about life You think you know about love But when you put your hands inside me It doesnt even feel like Im being touched, and You were the boy I wanted to cry with You were the boy I wanted to die with Youve moved further from my side, year by year, While still making love dutifully sincere But as silent as the car lights that move across this room As cold as our bodies silhouetted by the moon And I would lie awake and wonder Is it just me or this the way love is supposed to be? Tell me what

AND if ever thou shalt come to this cloud and dwell and work therein as I bid thee, thee behoveth as this cloud of unknowing is above thee, betwixt thee and thy God, right so put a cloud of forgetting beneath thee; betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever be made. Thee thinketh, peradventure, that thou art full far from God because that this cloud of unknowing is betwixt thee and thy God: but surely, an it be well conceived, thou art well further from Him when thou hast no cloud of forgetting betwixt thee and all the 86 creatures that ever be made. As oft as I say, all the creatures that ever be made, as oft I mean not only the creatures themselves, but also all the works and the conditions of the same creatures. I take out not one creature, whether they be bodily creatures or ghostly, nor yet any condition or work of any creature, whether they be good or evil: but shortly to say, all should be hid under the cloud of forgetting in this case. For although it be full profitable som

Really, absolutely extraordinary! I'm astonished at some of the stuff they have here, although it probably won't seem as amazing to you unless you're British and over 35 years old. Bagpuss! (stop motion animated kids show) Citizen Smith! (the comical misadventures of the Trotskyist Tooting Peoples Front) Sapphire and Steel! ("All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Trans-uranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life.") Do yourselves a favour and download White Horses - it's beautiful. via

When I was 12 I wanted to be a real man — an old man with a beard, sitting at a table with a huge book full of wisdom. And what did society hold up to me for my admiration? A golfer, a boxer, a man who ran quickly; a soldier, a lawyer, a tycoon; a motorist, a pop star; a footballer. Into what kind of madhouse had I been born? And what have I become? A child, witlessly pouring out whatever enters my head. I am a madman and people gather to listen to me make a fool of myself. I am not a role model. This is my protection and security. I still long for the table and the book, the smell of an old man and an old book; the afternoon light fading. Ivor Cutler — from South American Bookworms. via

"[Turner’s work was] a grey picture , beautiful but true, but with no positive colour in any part of it. Constable’s ‘Waterloo’ seemed as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while [Constable] was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind him looking from the ‘Waterloo’ to his own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where he was touching another picture, and putting a round daub of red lead, somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his grey sea, went away without saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. [C.R. Leslie] came into the room just as Turner left. ‘He has been here,’ Constable said, ‘and fired a gun.’ . . . The great man did not come again into the room for a day and a half; and then, in the last moments that were allowed for paintin

* This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it! * Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. * This place is not a place of honor...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. * What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. * The danger is in a particular location... it increases toward a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. * The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. * The danger is to the body, and it can kill. * The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. * The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear - fucking - weapons. by Ken MacCleod

The neon's and the cigarettes Rented rooms and rented cars The crowded streets, the empty bars Chimney tops and trumpets The golden lights, the loving prayers The coloured shoes, the empty trains I'm tired of crying on the stairs The downtown lights

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. As for the Greek theatrical tradition Which represents that summer's expedition Not as a mere reconnaisance in force By three brigades of foot and one of horse (Their left flank covered by some obsolete Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet) But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt To conquer Greece - they treat it with contempt; And only incidentally refute Major Greek claims, by stressing what repute The Persian monarch and the Persian nation Won by this salutary demonstration: Despite a strong defence and adverse weather All arms combined magnificently together. -- Robert Graves

I have brought the great ball of crystal; ............................Who can lift it? Can you enter the great acorn of light? ..............But the beauty is not the madness Tho' my errors and wrecks lie about me. And I am not a demigod, I cannot make it cohere. (Canto 116) Ezra Pound

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurped town, to another due, Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end. Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captived, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, But am betrothed unto your enemy: Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. John Donne,

via MeFi