I have been updating my journal, just not this one. Or any of my myriad online blogs, for that matter. See, I found my favourite fountain pen.. Needless to say, paper has priority for now. (And no Sue, I haven't forgotten the promised letter - I've been selfishly absorbed and haven't gotten around to attempting coherency in written form. Soon, though.)

My life has been routine. You've read it all here before and I'm not a fan of redundancy (a victim, yes.. but not a fan) and none of it bears repeating. I'm pretty certain that only a slim minority was even worth writing/reading the first time 'round. Ah well.

---

I've been purging. A pre-emptive spring cleaning. We have less stuff now. Still too much but less all the same. I rid myself of tangible memories - some sweet, some not, all difficult to let go of - and wonder if I've erased future recollections of my own personal history. Maybe I hope so. Or not.

The garbage men hate me.

---

Spring cleaning continues even here. Emptying Text folder into recycle bin. It's easier, though - I just cut/paste stuff to here that I don't need to hold on to. Shut up. Denial doesn't have to be such a negative thing.

Poems, quotes and crap follow. At this point, you may wish to move on to other websites. I encourage you to do so.

-----

Michael Ondaatje

[...]
ix

An old book on the poisons
of madness, a map
of forest monasteries,
a chronicle brought across
the sea in Sanskrit slokas.
I hold all these
but you have become
a ghost for me.

I hold only your shadow
since those days I drove
your nature away.

A falcon who became a coward.

I hold you the way astronomers
draw constellations for each other
in the markets of wisdom

placing shells
on a dark blanket
saying 'these
are the heavens'

calculating the movement
of the great stars


x

Walking through rainstorms to a tryst,
the wet darkness of her aureoles

the Sloka, the Pada, the secret Rasas

the curved line of her shadow

bare feet down ironwood stairs

A confluence now
of her eyes,
her fingers, her teeth
as she tightens the hood
over the gaze of a falcon

Love arrives and dies in all disguises
and we fear to move
because of old darkness
and childhood danger

So our withdrawing words
our skating hearts


xi

Life before desire,
without conscience.
Cities without rivers or bells.

Where is the forest
not cut down
for profit or literature

whose blossoms instead
will close the heart

Where is the suitor
undistressed
one can talk with

Where is there a room
wihout the damn god of love?

from "The Nine Sentiments" in Handwritng


Algernon Charles Swinburne

[...]
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

from "The Garden of Prosperine"


Jelena Stefulic

Adoration is a unique lingering
Those who pray for love with blind anticipation
folded into an origami bird with a thousand wings and no eyes
Those who seek, search by dream
Sailing down any/many waters
Water to fly in melt or die in
Seeking again some warm flow of love
Current that flowers into an abyss
In the middle of the night I scream
I will be your pleasure vessel
A goddess empty of will
I will bend
Desire, a particular kind of madness
Holds so well and the night is otherwise too long and narrow
Wearing nothing in sleep, only the pulsation inside bones
Want to love and love, want to love
Here we are, want to love
Finding impulse to love and all the night as dream spread over our bed
I spoke, I want to love like a tree want to love and love
The act of memory filters the past
The only love, which is alive, is the one born and born again
Uttering want to love
The beginning, a gasp into infinite directions of curiosity
The bed is full of lovers and flowers
Good morning again and again.


Michael Chabon

"When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness--and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything."

from The Mysteries of Pittsburgh


Salman Rushdie

Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at first in the back row, and gradually moving up, row by row, until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions; the illusion dissolves - or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality.

from Midnight's Children


Thoureau

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost: that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.