Random quote of the day:

“A man can’t always do as he likes, but he can always fancy what he likes.”

—John Ruskin, “Fairyland”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Orville and Wilbur, Katy Perry, or the Avengers. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The arc of the moral universe retreats and advances like a samba.”

—Teju Cole, Twitterfeed, June 26, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

“It’s all lagers and cigars here”
says the ancient postcard,
remembering a time when,
a long-gone long ago.

Lately, the Crone has slipped
me cryptic messages, all lagers
and cigars, remembering when,
whens that never were except in dreams.
I accept them all, those never-whens,
as absolute fact, an internal terrain
as real as terra firma.

Those dreams once meant something
more than fantasy, something realer
than real, a world burgeoning
in silence and sighs, forming on paper
and on screens, going forth into that
other world, the one most folks
mistake for real.

“When shall we two meet again,” she asks,
“over lagers and cigars?”

I have no answer except “soon”
and “someday.”

She laughs at that.
She recognizes the sound of dreams
disappearing into the mist,
like gorillas on the brink of
extinction.

*For the poetry project, phase one go here.

*For a definition of Phase 2, go here.

*To see all the poems in one place go here.

Random quote of the day:

“Insight is a breakthrough, requiring much intellectual dismantling and dislocation. It begins with a mental interim, with the cultivation of a feeling for the unfamiliar, unparalleled, incredible. It is in being involved with a phenomenon, being intimately engaged to it, courting it, as it were, that after much perplexity and embarrassment we come upon insight—upon a way of seeing the phenomenon from within.”

—Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Great art is the result of eccentric, individual passions, not test screenings, market research, and crowd sourcing.”

—Sherman Alexie, Twitterfeed, 1/26/12

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The silence doesn’t seem to care. It is simply there for anyone who has ears to hear. It is so huge and so intense. It has the sweetness of a balm and the heat of a fire.”

—Nicole Oxenhandler, The Wishing Year

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Sometimes my anger is an ice scalpel
cutting with pleasure, glorying
in slicing, hungering for deeper cuts.

Sometimes my anger is a bludgeon,
turned outward to smash and bully,
to get my way, to assuage my ego.
This anger never holds sway:
guilt beats me back as hard as I hit.

Sometimes my anger is a snake
devouring its own tail. But this
Ouroboros, instead of infinite wholeness,
destroys, particularizes, breaks apart.
It consumes me, digesting my own bloated
corpse, dissolving me to nothingness.

Sometimes my anger is a vision,
sweeping away denials and delusions,
forcing me to see things as they
truly stand: in dreamless clarity.

Sometimes my anger is a fire god,
burning me clean and truly righteous,
pulling me up from the pyre to stand
and speak, to do those needful things.
To change myself, and thus the world.

 

My friend Kevin, after reading in last week’s poem about rivers devouring children, said I was a real Metal poet. I agreed that sometimes I was a #FullMetalPoet. This week’s entry does nothing to dispel that notion, I suppose, but that’s why I love poetry. Like all the best things in the world, it doesn’t always have to be pretty.

 

 

*For the poetry project, phase one go here.

*For a definition of Phase 2, go here.

*To see all the poems in one place go here.

Random quote of the day:

“To know rapture is to have one’s whole life poisoned. If you will forgive a ridiculous analogy, a tincture of rapture is like a red bandana in the laundry that runs and turns all the white wash pink. We should just as soon stay away from any future ecstatic experiences which spoil everyday living by comparison.

—Philip Lopate, “Against Joie de Vivre,” Against Joie de Vivre: Personal Essays

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Magic is as old as man. It is found as far back as evidence of human existence runs and has influenced religion, art, agriculture, industry, science, government, and social institutions. The western tradition of magic was born in the Roman world at about the same time as Christ, but its ultimate ancestry is veiled in the mists and cloudbanks of prehistory.”

—Richard Cavendish, A History of Magic

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings.”

—Ernest Hemingway on F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Moveable Feast

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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