Poems Are Made By Fools Like Me

"Poems  are made by fools like me
But only god can make a tree
And only god who makes the tree
Also makes the fools like me
But only fools like me you see
Can make a god who makes a tree."


E. Y. Harburg

Inside Bags of Skin

"How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god?"

"This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin."

"This is no more saying that we ought not to fear death than I was saying that we ought to be unselfish. Suppressing the fear of death makes it all the stronger. The point is only to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that "I" and all other "things" now present will vanish, until this knowledge compels you to release them—to know it now as surely as if you had just fallen off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Indeed, you were kicked off the edge of a precipice when you were born, and it's no help to cling to the rocks falling with you. If you are afraid of death, be afraid. The point is to get with it, to let it take over—fear, ghosts, pains, transience, dissolution, and all. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise: you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are. All this comes much more easily with the collaboration of friends. When we are children, our other selves, our families, friends, and teachers, do everything possible to confirm us in the illusion of separateness—to help us to be genuine fakes, which is precisely what is meant by "being a real person." For the person, from the Latin persona, was originally the megaphone-mouthed mask used by actors in the open-air theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, the mask through (per) which the sound (sonus) came. In death we doff the persona, as actors take off their masks and costumes in the green room behind the scenes. And just as their friends come behind the stage to congratulate them on the performance, so one's own friends should gather at the deathbed to help one out of one's mortal role, to applaud the show, and, even more, to celebrate with champagne or sacraments (according to taste) the great awakening of death."

Alan Watts in The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The World Breaks Everyone

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell To Arms

Verão

«Só o Verão vale a pena ser vivido»

Rilke

 

"Vejo: caminhas até à borda da água e o reflexo da luz na água torna confusa a tua

silhueta, como se fossem duas pessoas que caminhassem num só corpo. Mas quando

mergulhas e desapareces dentro de água, as duas pessoas fundem-se numa só e tudo se

torna nítido de repente. Sei o que sentes, agora. Posso fechar os olhos e sinto-o também: a

leveza da água sobre os ombros, a consistência das coisas que tocas com as mãos, as pedras

e a areia grossa do fundo. Os peixes que passam diante do teu olhar, a certeza de que a vida

existe quando, por um instante, descemos a este mundo submerso que não é o nosso e

depositamos o peso que trazemos do mundo que é o nosso e assim nos reconstruímos,

porque a água tudo limpa.

Não vejo: fechou-se a marca da água que se abrira à tua entrada, um abismo líquido

interpôs-se entre nós, um prenúncio de catástrofe manchou a luz sem sombras de um dia

que julgávamos eterno.

Posso ficar deitado a olhar um céu absolutamente azul, posso procurar a luz do sol e

olhá-lo sem medo até que ele se transforme em milhares de pontos vermelhos, como

lágrimas em desordem. E posso fechar os olhos sabendo que agora nada mais acontecerá,

para sempre.

Enquanto o Verão passa e não regressam os que mergulharam no fundo do mar, a

praia é como um tempo suspenso, difuso e pouco nítido, atravessado por sons familiares

como os gritos das crianças à borda da água ou a voz cantada do vendedor de gelados.

Qualquer outro ruído estranho tornaria claro o que queremos fluido, perturbaria a única

paz que se tornou possível, a que advém do irreal.

Em Setembro virão as marés vivas e depois o Outono começará a despir as árvores,

antes que um céu plúmbeo se abata sobre nós e uma chuva sem remorsos varra da nossa

pele os últimos vestígios de sal. A partir daí, ficamos à espera, outra vez. Pelos céus azuis,

pelos peixes prateados, pela limpidez da água, pelos risos das crianças. Não quero que

desesperes na espera: haverá sempre Verão, sempre, para além de nós mesmos, e por mais

demorado que seja o regresso."



Miguel Sousa Tavares

To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
   The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry."


Robert Herrick

The Doors Of Perception

"When we feel ourselves to be sole heirs of the universe, when the sea flows in our veins and the stars are our jewels, when all things are perceived as infinite and holy, what motive can we have to covetousness or self-assertion, for the pursuit of power of the drearier forms of pleasure?

Contemplatives are not likely to become gamblers, or procurers, or drunkards; they do not as a rule preach intolerance or make war; do not find it necessary to rob, swindle or grind the faces of the poor."


"Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist, all our education is predominantlyverbaland therefore fails to accomplish what it is supposed to do. Instead of transforming children into fully developed adults, it turns out students of the natural sciences who are completely umaware of Nature as the primary fact of experience, it inflicts upon the world studentsof the humanities who know nothing of humanity, their own or anyone else's."


"But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

He will never be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend."


Aldous Huxley - The Doors Of Perception

Cette Fois C'est La Femme

   "Cette fois, c'est la Femme que j'ai vue dans la ville, et à qui j'ai parlé et qui me parle.


    J'étais dans une chambre sans lumière. On vint me dire qu'elle était chez moi: et je la vis dans mon lit, toute à moi, sans lumière ! Je fus très ému, et beaucoup parce que c'était la maison de famille: aussi une détresse me prit ! j'étais en haillons, moi, et elle, mondaine, qui se donnait; il lui fallait s'en aller ! Une détresse sans nom, je la pris, et la laissai tomber hors du lit, presque nue; et dans ma faiblesse indicible, je tombai sur elle et me traînai avec elle parmi les tapis sans lumière. La lampe de la famille rougissait l'une après l'autre les chambres voisines. Alors la femme disparut. Je versai plus de larmes que Dieu n'en a pu jamais demander.

    Je sortis dans la ville sans fin. O Fatigue ! Noyé dans la nuit sourde et dans la fuite du bonheur. C'était comme une nuit d'hiver, avec une neige pour étouffer le monde décidément. Les amis auxquels je criais: où reste-t-elle, répondaient faussement. Je fus devant les vitrages de là où elle va tous les soirs: je courais dans un jardin enseveli. On m'a repoussé. Je pleurais énormément, à tout cela. Enfin je suis descendu dans un lieu plein de poussière, et assis sur des charpentes, j'ai laissé finir toutes les larmes de mon corps avec cette nuit. - Et mon épuisement me revenait pourtant toujours

    J'ai compris qu'elle était à sa vie de tous les jours; et que le tour de bonté serait plus long à se reproduire qu'une étoile. Elle n'est pas revenue, et ne reviendra jamais, l'Adorable qui s'était rendue chez moi, - ce que je n'aurais jamais présumé. - Vrai, cette fois, j'ai pleuré plus que tous les enfants du monde. "


Arthur Rimbaud - Les Déserts De L'Amour