Friday 21 February 2014

Monday 17 February 2014

"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories" by Haruki Murakami

"These days I just can’t seem to say what I mean. I just can’t.
Every time I try to say something, it misses the point.
Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean.
The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets.

Sometimes I can’t even remember what I was trying to say in the first place.
It’s like my body’s split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We’re running circles around it.
The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her."

Saturday 15 February 2014

Thoughts, by Walt Whitman

1. 

OF the visages of things--And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath; 
Of ugliness--To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty--And now the ugliness of human 
beings is acceptable to me; 
Of detected persons--To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than undetected 
persons--and are not in any respect worse than I am myself; 
Of criminals--To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal--and any reputable person is also--
and the President is also. 

2.

OF waters, forests, hills; 
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me; 
Of vista--Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, 
fulness, life, now attain'd on the journey; 
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;) 
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied--And of what will yet be 
supplied, 
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will yet be supplied. 

3. 

OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like; 
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them, except as it results to their 
Bodies and Souls, 
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked; 
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself, 
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the rotten excrement of maggots, 
And often, to me, those men and women pass unwittingly the true realities of life, and go toward 
false realities, 
And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has served them, but nothing more, 
And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules, walking the dusk. 

4. 

OF ownership--As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them 
into himself or herself; 
Of Equality--As if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself--As if it were 
not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same; 
Of Justice--As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by natural judges and 
saviors, 
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions. 

5. 

As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while the music is playing, 
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral, in mist, of a wreck at sea, 
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations, founder'd off the Northeast coast, and going 
down--Of the steamship Arctic going down, 
Of the veil'd tableau--Women gather'd together on deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that draws 
so close--O the moment! 
O the huge sob--A few bubbles--the white foam spirting up--And then the women gone, 
Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on--And I now pondering, Are those women indeed 
gone? 
Are Souls drown'd and destroy'd so? 
Is only matter triumphant? 

6. 

OF what I write from myself--As if that were not the resumé; 
Of Histories--As if such, however complete, were not less complete than my poems; 
As if the shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as my poems; 
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of all the lives of heroes. 

7. 

OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness; 
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men, 
following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

Friday 14 February 2014

Love's Philosophy, by Percy Bysshe Shelley


  


The fountains mingle with the river 

And the rivers with the ocean, 
The winds of heaven mix for ever 
With a sweet emotion; 
Nothing in the world is single, 
All things by a law divine 
In one another's being mingle-- 
Why not I with thine? 

See the mountains kiss high heaven, 
And the waves clasp one another; 
No sister-flower would be forgiven 
If it disdain'd its brother; 
And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
And the moonbeams kiss the sea--
What is all this sweet work worth 
If thou kiss not me?
 

Thursday 13 February 2014

My Childhood Home I See Again, by Abraham Lincoln



My childhood home I see again, 
And sadden with the view; 
And still, as memory crowds my brain, 
There's pleasure in it too. 

O Memory! thou midway world 
'Twixt earth and paradise, 
Where things decayed and loved ones lost 
In dreamy shadows rise, 

And, freed from all that's earthly vile, 
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, 
Like scenes in some enchanted isle 
All bathed in liquid light. 

As dusky mountains please the eye 
When twilight chases day; 
As bugle-notes that, passing by, 
In distance die away; 

As leaving some grand waterfall, 
We, lingering, list its roar-- 
So memory will hallow all 
We've known, but know no more. 

Near twenty years have passed away 
Since here I bid farewell 
To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 
And playmates loved so well. 

Where many were, but few remain 
Of old familiar things; 
But seeing them, to mind again 
The lost and absent brings. 

The friends I left that parting day, 
How changed, as time has sped! 
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 
And half of all are dead. 

I hear the loved survivors tell 
How nought from death could save, 
Till every sound appears a knell, 
And every spot a grave. 

I range the fields with pensive tread, 
And pace the hollow rooms, 
And feel (companion of the dead) 
I'm living in the tombs.
 

Friday 7 February 2014

Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe

.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Yann Martel: Life of Pi

“It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.”

Tuesday 4 February 2014

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

“O captain! My Captain!
Our fearful trip is done.
The ship has weather'd every wrack
The prize we sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear
The people all exulting
While follow eyes, the steady keel
The vessel grim and daring
But Heart! Heart! Heart!
O the bleeding drops of red

Where on the deck my captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.” 

Love In the Asylum, by Dylan Thomas


“And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars”