The farther I stray, the more I know I must return.
....a yearning for that elusive sense of calm.

"Nunc scio quit sit amor." - "Now I know what love is."

"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human
loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade
through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to
be."

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved
for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."

"For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my
lips you kissed, but my soul."

"Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
My words echo
Thus, in your mind."

"Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy,
or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one
whole."

"Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you
continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the
sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of
the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain."

"We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when
alone together."

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot
live within."

"Ama me fideliter! - "Love me faithfully!
Fidem meam noto: - See how I am faithful:
De corde totaliter - With all my heart
Et ex mente tota, - And all my soul
Sum presentialiter - I am with you
Absens in remota." - Though I am far away."

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.




CLENCHED SOUL
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.




A Song of Despair
translated by w.s.merwin

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not
drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!





TONIGHT I CAN WRITE

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, `The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night, whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

(translated by W. S. Merwin)

* I do much wonder that one man seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behavior to love will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love.

As evening fell
A maiden stood
At the edge of a wood
In her hands lay the
Reins of a stallion
And ne'er I'd seen
A girl as fair
Heard a gentler voice anywhere
Whispered, alas
She belonged, belonged to another
Another Forever
Yes, she belonged to
The twilight and mist

I wanna have you
Cause you're all I've got
Don't wanna lose youCause it means a lot
All the joy this world can bring
Doesn't give me anything
When you're not here

Idiot me, stupid fool
How could you me so uncool?
To fall in love with someone who
Doesn't really care for you
It's so obscure

But I feel...Wonderful
Yes I feel...Wonderful

God it makes me be so blue
Everytime I think about you
All of the heat of my desire
Smokin like some crazy fire
Come on here, look at me
Where I stand
Cant you see my heart burning
In my hands?
Do you want me? Do you not?
Does it feel cold, baby?
Does it feel hot?

I wanna hold you
And be so held back
Don't wanna need you
But it's where I'm at
Thinkin bout you everyday
Hpw come I was made that way?
It's so surreal...

But I feel...wonderful
Yes I feel...wonderful

I feel the slow, steady ebb of a life
Flowing into the tide
Trickling like a stream
Then falling in torrents
As a waterfall
Into the deep, dark silence
Of a lake.

})i({

Amidst the noise and bustle
And this pollution
I would not let you grow up like this, child.

Amidst the clutter, and the rumors
And the foolishness
I would not train you into, my child.

Into this world we have brought you
Not into pain and suffering.
But love.

Into this world who'll know
The rise and fall of your every breath
The steady beat of your heart
Lulling you to sleep
I bring you

And into this life I raise you
Not amidst the chaos
For that is not for you, child.

})i({

Strangely, I have suddenly found myself.
Now I know you. With that one
Paragraph,
I have assessed the depth of your feelings,
Your soul.
I see you, feel you, and hear you
Say it.
And I know you.
I know your soul.

The day has seen me open my eyes
To the reality of you
And yet I doubt this
But my heart tells me otherwise
It continues to beat
No longer for you.
A slow and steady beat.

Patiently my heart waits
For the day when
It shall me awakened
By whom? When?
How?
I would not know.
Patiently I wait.

})i({

* Strangely, you strive to be something that someone will admire, even if that "someone" is theoretical or imagined. You try to live up to invisible expectations. And then a true person worthy of your admiration comes along and gives you every affirmation you could want, and for some idiotic reason you go "pfff!" just like that.

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down. Don't dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask, "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won't last.

Ever told your child, we'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch, Let a goodfriendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say "hi"
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short. The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry
through your day
It is like an unopened gift...
Thrown away
Life is not a race, do take it slower
Hear the music before the song is over.

When you know, that you know
Who you love, you can't deny it
Or go back, or give up
Or pretend
That you don't buy it

When it's clear this time
You've found the one
You never let him go
Cause you know
And you know, that you know

When you feel, in your skin
In your bones, and the hollows
Of your heart, there's no way
You can wait till tomorrow
When there isn't any doubt about it
Once you come this close
Cause you know
And you know, that you know

You can feel love surround you
Like the sky round the moon
This is how love has found you
Now you know what to do

When you know, that you know
Who you need you can't deny it
Or go back or give up
Or pretend that you don't buy it

When it's clear this time
You've found the one
You'll never let him go
Cause you know
And you know, that you know

And it's time you come in
From the cold
And you know, that you know.

In a dream felt your touch.
As a gentle breeze of wind,
And a face that eluded me.

I stray from the path
I am lost.
Going through the motions of life.

You found me
Took me away
Then I let you go

Only to wake up saying your name.

})i({

Swept away
By the tide that slowly rises
From the ocean floor
So your eyes follow her every footstep
She turns, and in her eyes there is longing
For approval, for love
The heart beats
A rolling thunder
A crescendo of drums.

Far away
She may be to you
Though you hold her close in your arms.
She seeks you.
With a glimpse
You see her love
Reflected.

Fly away
In the last vestiges of autumn
Leaves fall
Before winter's biting cold.
Leaving her whose heart you stole.
Instead, find her
To whom your heart belongs
And whose heart belongs to you.

})i({

It is duty that brought me here
Your duty to them, and for what?
You have brought this upon yourself.

})i({

- I have seen love that, through its willingness to sacrifice everything, brought hope to the world. I have seen love that tried to overcome pride and a lust of power, but failed. The world is darker for its failure, but is it only as a cloud dims the sun. The sun - the love, still remains. Finally I have seen love lost in darkness. Love misplaced, misunderstood, because the lover did not know his - or her - own heart.

* If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.

- Are you running towards something you want or are you running away from something you're afraid to want?

- Sometimes we are forced in directions that we ought to have found for ourselves.

- What we do does not define who we are. What defines us is how well we rise after falling.

* I'm in love and I have a job. These things make me very sad and very happy (they both do both). I don't know quite how they've got themselves so tangled up in my imaginary scheme of things, but right now the two seem inextricably linked in an intimate relation of extreme incompatibility. If I don't go to work, I can't live so I can't be in love. If I do go to work, I have to try to forget that I'm in love for long spells at a time. Because I'm in love I can't do my job properly when I start feeling overly emotional it seems like an absolute outrage to me that there are other things I have to do.

* Beethoven's 11th piano sonata. Beethoven as suffering from unrequited love. Coming across in the endlessly repeating, distorting phrases and the modulating harmonies. It's a musical equivalent of the ceaseless internal discussions you have when you're obsessively infatuated. You can't completely change the topic, so you just try to find as many variations as you can.

* I can see that the problem with the personal stuff is that most people's is quite hard to deal with and it's no wonder they want to keep it under wraps. But when it's someone you're trying to be in love with, it's not the same. If all they let you see of them is what everyone else sees, then it's pretty pointless to pretend that anything special is happening - apart from your imagination.

* It's more as though being in love throws everything into question. And, quite frankly, it scares me to death. It makes me want to keep checking that everything's okay…I love the manic fervor of falling in love, but it sort of tips me over to a point where I can't stand it any more that I have to either get out (by deciding that my chosen object is unworthy of such overpowering emotion), or I have to domesticate (read: castrate) them. It's awful. What do I do? What do you do? How does a person ever know what to do?

* This is the risk of not taking risks: if you aren't prepared to do the difficult things you may have to do in order to get what you want, you are very likely to end up with nothing.

* I think the moral of this story is that, if you don't start as you mean to go on, and keep going on in the manner of this bad start, you'll finish up in the way that you start wondering what on earth happened in between.

* Basically, it just drives you nuts when someone you have strong feelings about gives you the impression that they aren't quite so keen on you. It's one of those sublime injustices that you can't possibly get your head around even though it's a fairly common phenomenon.

* She made me feel very optimistic about the possibility of falling lastingly in love.

- I have learned to desire for others what I can never hope for myself, and try to find pleasure in their success, un-embittered by regrets for my own defeat.

i do not wish
to be with you
today.
too affected.
why me?
why you?

Poems thrown into the wind
Gone, but not forgotten
Who has them? I wonder
Where have I left it?
I cannot find it anywhere

Lost poetry. Mine.
Would I that part of my soul was lost
And that I cannot have it back
I have searched, but have not found
And now surrender it to the night.

Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.

Sigh no more ladies
Sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever
One foot in sea
And one in shore
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so
But let them go.

- Why do we always expect home will stay the same? Nothing else does.

Upon waiting I find myself
Thinking.
Once more of my life.
Thoughts.
While I wait, and wait.
It seems that all my life
is composed of time...
Wasted.
As I wait.
Whether for nothing at all.
Or for something so crucial.
And I wait.

})i{(

"i am nothing special, of this i am sure. i am a common man with common thoughts, and i've led a common life. there are no monuments dedicated to me, and my memory will soon be forgotten, but i've loved another with all my heart and my soul, and to me this has always been enough."

Fall. The crisp autumnal smell
of the morning air
The leaves turning yellow, then
gold and finally golden brown
Then falling gently
Floating, floating down
Playing with the wind.

I take a walk along the park
and find a path strewn with leaves of every color.
(unfinished)


})i({

* Whenever it wants, the past can come knocking the door down. And you never know where it's gonna take you. All you can do is hope it's a place you want to go.

- What did worry me was the degree to which I had become predictable even to myself, as if the range of my reactions had been analyzed, discussed and criticized to the point where I was readable as a graph.

- Psychology. It's a very simplistic whitewash to attempt to cover very deep and complicated people and things with very easy generalizations. Superficialities, you know. But I thinks it's just as simplistic to assume that everyone is complex and deep. I mean, I think Trumper really does operate on the surface...Maybe he is a surface, just a surface

"There was a silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate."

take this kiss upon the brow
and in parting from you now.
thus much let me avow -
you are not wrong, who deem
that my days have been a dream;
yet if hope has flown away
in a night or in a day,
in a vision or in none,
is it therefore the less gone?
all that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream.
i stand amid the roar
of a surf-tormented shore,
and i held within my hand
grains of the golden sand -
how few! yet how they creep
through my fingers to the deep,
while i weep, while i weep!
o god can i not grasp
them with a tighter clasp?
o god can i not save
one from the pitiless wave?
is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?

* Horace Walpole once said that the world is comic to those who think, and tragic, to those who feel.

* Death, it seems, does not like to wait until we are prepared for it. Death is indulgent and enjoys, when it can, a flair for the dramatic.

"When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together, that it is inconceivable that you shall ever part, because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not a desire to meet every second of the day, lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body....That is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves here. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But is it."

- There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me, only an entity.

- I simply am not there.

- But inside doesn't matter....There are no barriers to be crossed. My pain is constant and sharp. Catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me.