Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas

war.

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.

~Charles Sumner

chaos in art.

Tragically beautiful.

Doris Salcedo.

music.

"Music at its best...is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us--beyond language--to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence. "

~Cornel West

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

that.

if memories are things, like dreams,
and if dreams are intangible things...
it's unimaginable
as well as unnatural
to treat dreams as ordinary scenes.

for these scenes, that are in fact real things
at night-

Reign Supreme.

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We areBorn like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

~ Bukowski

I'm not a poet.

the man
the man deceived.

in all he’s perceived
in all that he’s achieved.

swallowed, consumed
sorrow resumed.

the man’s failed
the man has been derailed

from life
from love
from strife; all the above.

but there’s no doubt
but there can be nothing without

the man
the man deceived.

because
for all he’s “achieved”
that he is still me.

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

~ James Russel Lowell

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

~Henry David Thoreau

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

- Albert Einstein

meilleur.

Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win.

~ Lois McMaster Bujold

lost.

"You might be a big fish in a little pond, doesn't mean you've won, 'cause along may come a bigger one...and you'll be lost..."

~ Coldplay

call it self evident.

Mind is the Master-Power that molds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of thought, and, shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:--
He thinks in secret, and it come to pass:
Environment is but his looking glass...

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”

-William Shakespeare

A Poem by Anne Sexton...

"Earth, earth, riding your merry-go-round toward extinction. How fear-some must the headlines be about tomorrow before people change their ways today?"