“
You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
”
”
Rosemarie Urquico
“
when I am feeling
low
all i have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns
”
”
Charles Bukowski
“
Sparrows and cats will live in my shoe,
Sooner than I will live with you.
Fish will come walking out of the sea,
Sooner than you will come back to me.
”
”
Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn)
“
In the great green room, there was a telephone
And a red balloon
And a picture of a cat jumping over the moon...
”
”
Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon)
“
...the wind has a purpose - to rattle the window panes, disturb the cat and make me miss you ...
”
”
John Geddes (A Familiar Rain)
“
LADY LAZARUS
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
-- written 23-29 October 1962
”
”
Sylvia Plath (Ariel)
“
From CATS ARE KIND
"A man said to the universe,
'Sir, I exist!'
'Excellent,' replied the universe,
'I've been looking for someone to take care of my cats.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Like delicate lace,
So the threads intertwine,
Oh, gossamer web
Of wond'rous design!
Such beauty and grace
Wild nature produces...
Ughh, look at the spider
Suck out that bug's juices!
”
”
Bill Watterson (Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes, #9))
“
I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;Her coat is one of the tabby kind,with tiger stripes and lepard spots.
”
”
T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats)
“
Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.
”
”
Rupert Brooke
“
See
it was like this when
we waltz into this place.
A couple of papish cats
is doing an Aztec two-step
And I says
Dad let's cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me see
and says
you and me could really exist
Wow I says
Only the next day
she has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry.
”
”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“
Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson
“
lying on marble
the lazy cat
gazes at dying stars
”
”
Elancharan Gunasekaran
“
I shall have twenty cats and talk to them all," she said, picking up the volume of poetry. "My cats and I shall have fish every day for dinner." Her imagination taking flight, she finished, dropping the book into the box, "And I shall memorize every line in this book and paint it in calligraphy on my living room walls.
”
”
Regina Doman (Waking Rose (A Fairy Tale Retold #3))
“
Treats and tricks.
Witch broomsticks.
Jack-o-lanterns
Lick their lips.
Crows and cats.
Vampire bats.
Capes and fangs
And pointed hats.
Werewolves howl.
Phantoms prowl.
Halloween’s
Upon us now.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
“
We got the spell exactly right. Except for the ingredients. And most of the poetry. And it probably wasn’t the right time. And Gytha took most of it home for the cat, which couldn’t of been proper.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches, #2))
“
I played God today
And it was fun!
I made animals that men had never seen
So they would stop and scratch their heads
Instead of scowling.
I made words that men had never heard
So they would stop and stare at me
Instead of running.
And I made love that laughed
So men would giggle like children
Instead of sighing.
Tomorrow, perhaps, I won't be God
And you will know it
Because you won't see any three-headed cats
Or bushes with bells on...
I wish I could always play God
So that lonely men could laugh!
”
”
James Kavanaugh (There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves)
“
Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.
There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means.
Every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout “Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!” I want us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun.
There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline.
There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches.
There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days.
Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.
”
”
Clementine von Radics
“
Mealtime
"A mousie squealing in a trap
Woke me from my morning nap.
Wasn't he so very sweet
To tell me it was time to eat?"
(From A CAT'S GARDEN OF VERSES)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
This tiger is sprawled
So still and so flat,
A question arises
When glancing thereat.
Is he asleep? to be
Perfectly frank,
He looks more as if
He was creamed by a tank!
”
”
Bill Watterson (Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbes, #9))
“
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable, passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
that they do not like fighting, will often display
Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray.
And they
Bark bark bark bark bark bark
Until you can hear them all over the park.
”
”
T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats)
“
You can never know where I am or what I am,
But I am good company to you nonetheless,
And really do regret I broke your inkwell."
(From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
I situate myself, and seat myself,
And where you recline I shall recline,
For every armchair belonging to you as good as belongs to me.
I loaf and curl up my tail
I yawn and loaf at my ease after rolling in the catnip patch."
(From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Behold the day-break!
I awaken you by sitting on your chest and purring in your face,
I stir you with muscular paw-prods, I rouse you with toe-bites,
Walt, you have slept enough, why don't you get up?"
(From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
On the edge of a laughing teacup
Did Kubla Kat decree
The the corn fritter festooned with medals
Shall make the brownies free
And so the walls turned to water
To let our sorrows drown
As the chairs burned themselves for warmth
So they need not face the clown
Then the spoons burst into song
And all the forks they understood
As I stared at my talking claws
Becasue this catnip is just that good
”
”
Francesco Marciuliano (I Could Pee on This: and Other Poems by Cats)
“
Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong.
How is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps, but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange?
Travellers at least have a choice. Those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home. Explorers are prepared. But for us, who travel along the blood vessels, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation. We who were fluent find life is a foreign language. Somewhere between the swamp and the mountains. Somewhere between fear and sex. Somewhere between God and the Devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (The Passion)
“
From CATS ARE KIND
"I saw a dog pursuing automobiles;
On and on he sped.
I was puzzled by this;
I accosted the dog.
'If you catch one,' I said
'What will you do with it?'
'Dumb cat,' he cried,
And ran on.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Spilling a Secret
What its size,
will have varying
consequences. It’s not
possible to predict
what will happen
if you
open the gunnysack,
let the cat escape.
A liberated feline
might purr on your lap,
or it might scratch
your eyes out. You can’t
tell
until you loosen the knot.
Do you chance losing
a friendship, if that
friend’s well-being
will
only be preserved
by betraying sworn-to
silence trust? Once
the seam is ripped, can
it be
mended again?
And if that proves
impossible, will you be
okay
when it all falls to pieces?
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Triangles)
“
No, Mo Ran. Think about it. Let go of your vicious hatred and look back properly. He once trained you in cultivation and martial arts, trained you in the art of self-defense. He once taught you how to read and write, taught you poetry and painting. He once learned how to cook just for you, even though he was so clumsy and got cuts all over his hands. He once… He once waited every day for you to come home, all alone by himself, from nightfall…till the break of dawn…
”
”
Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun (Novel) Vol. 1)
“
The noisy jay swoops by and reviles me, he complains of my meow and my malingering.
I too am not a bit subdued, I too am uncontrollable,
I sound my splenetic yowl over the roof of the house."
(From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
...at morning, I'm unruffled - I'll sit with my tea and Muse Cat beside me and listen to the soft chime of the grandfather clock...
”
”
John Geddes (A Familiar Rain)
“
Let us roam then, you and I,
When the evening is splayed out across the sky
[...]
Paths that follow like a nagging accusation
Of a minor violation
To lead you to the ultimate reproof ...
Oh, do not say, 'Bad kitty!'
Let us go and prowl the city.
In the rooms the cats run to and fro
Auditioning for a Broadway show."
(From The Love Song of J. Morris Housecat)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Miaow
Consider me.
I sit here like Tiberius,
inscrutable and grand.
I will let "I dare not"
wait upon "I would"
and bear the twangling
of your small guitar
because you are my owl
and foster me with milk.
Why wet my paw?
Just keep me in a bag
and no one knows the truth.
I am familiar with witches
and stand a better chance in hell than you
for I can dance on hot bricks,
leap your height
and land on all fours.
I am the servant of the Living God.
I worship in my way.
Look into these slit green stones
and follow your reflected lights
into the dark.
Michel, Duc de Montaigne, knew.
You don't play with me.
I play with you.
”
”
Mark Haddon (The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea)
“
Then I stay beside you for as long as we have." He kept stroking my hair. Cats like to be petted. Cait Sidhe like to pet. "October, I meant it when I told you I was not leaving you. I will never leave you while both of us are living. You were not quite this human when I met you, and you were far less human when I finally allowed myself to love you. But the essential core of your being has remained the same no matter what the balance of your blood."
"How is it that you always know the exact right stupid romance novel thing to say?" I asked, leaning up to kiss him.
He smiled against my lips. When I pulled back, he said. "I was a student of Shakespeare before the romance novel was even dreamt. Be glad I do not leave you horrible poetry on your pillow, wrapped securely around the bodies of dead rats.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Chimes at Midnight (October Daye, #7))
“
...at dawn, the grains of sleep turn to floating black spots, then out of focus the world tilts, and the cat scratches at the door...
”
”
John Geddes (A Familiar Rain)
“
It's 8a.m. and time to rest
It's 10a.m. and time to relax
It's noon and time for repose
It's 3p.m. and time for shut-eye
It's 6p.m. and time for siesta
It's 9p.m. and time to slumber
It's midnight and time to snooze
It's 4a.m. and time to hang upside down from your bedroom ceiling, screaming.
”
”
Francesco Marciuliano
“
The End of the Raven
"On a night quite unenchanting, when the rain was downward slanting
I awakened to the ranting of the man I catch mice for.
Tipsy and a bit unshaven, in a tone I found quite craven,
Poe was talking to a Raven perched above the chamber door.
'Raven's very tasty,' thought I, as I tiptoed o'er the floor.
'There is nothing I like more.'
[...]
Still the Raven never fluttered, standing stock-still as he uttered
In a voice that shrieked and sputtered, his two cents' worth -- 'Nevermore.'
While this dirge the birdbrain kept up, oh, so silently I crept up,
Then I crouched and quickly leapt up, pouncing on the feathered bore.
Soon he was a heap of plumage, and a little blood and gore --
Only this and not much more.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Abyssinias
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: A huge four-footed limestone form
Sits in the desert, sinking in the sand.
Its whiskered face, though marred by wind and storm,
Still flaunts the dainty ears, the collar band
And feline traits the sculptor well portrayed:
The bearing of a born aristocrat,
The stubborn will no mortal can dissuade.
And on its base, in long-dead alphabets,
These words are set: "Reward for missing cat!
His name is Abyssinias, pet of pets;
I, Ozymandias, will a fortune pay
For his return. he heard me speak of vets --
O foolish King! And so he ran away.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Ah, fish, there is no fare
Quite like a flounder! They surely will not miss
A piece or two from stacks of sole like this;
I'll steal a few, but leave the lion's share.
Look! the lamplight on the lane is pretty
They're back from walking out on Dover Beach.
I think I'll hide and spare myselpf the speech,
For we are in a world untouched by pity
Where ignorant humans curse the kitty."
(From Dover Sole)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Cruel, Clever Cat.
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.
”
”
Geoffrey Taylor
“
Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy
"To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the houselhold's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scraches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
I wake up
to my cats
judging me.
They stare
blankly
as if to say,
"Is this what
you had in mind
for your life?
If it is, you may
want to consider
sleeping pills or
a tall bridge
because in our view,
you're pathetic."
Or
they're hungry.
”
”
Pamela August Russell (B is for Bad Poetry)
“
To a Vase
"How do I break thee? Let me count the ways.
I break thee if thou art at any height
My paw can reach, when, smarting from some slight,
I sulk, or have one of my crazy days.
I break thee with an accidental graze
Or twitch of tail, if I should take a fright.
I break thee out of pure and simple spite
The way I broke the jar of mayonnaise.
I break thee if a bug upon thee sits.
I break thee if I'm in a playful mood,
And then I wrestle with the shiny bits.
I break thee if I do not like my food.
And if someone they shards together fits,
I'll break thee once again when thou art glued.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
The Dreamfence
kittens wait to jump into my dreams
each time I visit heaven
they jump over a dreamfence
red clouds are ready for loving
as I love
my love paints my cats
our minds are somehow stuck together
as we dream together
of our own heaven
amd after tjeu cir; i[
inside my sweater
we knit our own heavens.
”
”
Akiane Kramarik
“
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I shed?' and, 'Do I shed?'
Time to turn back and stretch out on the bed,
And give myself a bath before I'm fed --
(They will say: 'It's the short-haired ones I prefer.')
My flea collar buckled neatly in my fur,
My expression cool and distant but softened by a gentle purr --
(They will say: 'I'm allergic to his fur!')
Do I dare
Jump up on the table?
In an instant there is time
For excursions and inversions that will make me seem unstable."
(From The Love Song of J. Morris Housecat)
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
my god," they will say, "all Chinaski writes about
are cats!"
"my god," they used to say, "all Chinaski writes about
are whores!"
the complainers will complain and keep buying my
books: they love the way I irritate them.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (On Cats)
“
You are the Worst Kind of Animal. A Butcher by Day and a Pussy Cat by Night.
”
”
Monroe Ariel (Her OutSpoken Lips: A Collection of Poems Through the Eyes of a Woman Pushed to the Edge Part II (Book 2))
“
Dogs are loyal friends, and if they could talk, your secrets would still be safe. (If my cat could talk, I’d have to let the dog eat her.)
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
What you cannot lay to rest
Must therefore be laid aside
”
”
J.S. Watts (Cats and Other Myths)
“
A poem is about something the way a cat is about the house.
”
”
Allen R. Grossman
“
The fancy things I like are sheets. Pots and pans. And the things I really like aren't fancy at all: old aprons and hankies. Butter wrappers from one pound blocks. Peony bushes, hardback books of poetry. And I like things less than that; the sticky remains at the bottom of the apple crisp dish. The way cats sometimes run sideways. The presence of a rainbow in a puddle of oil. Mayonaise jars. Pussy willows. Wash on a line. The tick-tock of clocks, the blue of the neon sign at the local movie house. The fact that there is a local movie house.
”
”
Elizabeth Berg
“
GONE TO STATIC
it sounds better than it is,
this business of surviving,
making it through
the wrong place
at the wrong time
and living
to tell.
when the talk shows and movie credits
wear off, it's just me and my dumb
luck. this morning
I had that dream again:
the one where I'm dead.
I wake up and nothing's
much different. everything's gone
sepia, a dirty bourbon glass
by the bed, you're
still dead.
I could stumble
to the shower,
scrub the luck of breath off my skin
but it's futile.
the killer always wins.
it's just a matter
of time.
and I have
time. I have grief and liquor to
fill it. tonight, the liquor and I are
talking to you. the liquor says, 'remember'
and I fill in the rest, your hands, your smile.
all those times. remember.
tonight the liquor and I
are telling you about our day.
we made it out of bed. we miss you.
we were surprised by the blood between
our legs. we miss you. we made it to the video
store, missing you. we stopped
at the liquor store
hoping the bourbon would stop
the missing. there's always more
bourbon, more missing
tonight, when we got home,
there was a stray cat
at the door.
she came in.
she screams to be touched.
she screams
when I touch her.
she's right
at home.
not me.
the whisky is open
the vcr is on.
I'm running
the film backwards
and one by one
you come back to me,
all of you.
your pulses stutter to a begin
your eyes go from fixed to blink
the knives come out of your chests, the chainsaws
roar out
from your legs
your wounds seal over
your t-cells multiply, your tumors shrink
the maniac killer
disappears
it's just you and me
and the bourbon and the movie
flickering together
and the air breathes us and I
am home, I am
lucky
I am right
before everything
goes black
”
”
Daphne Gottlieb (Final Girl)
“
you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (The Last Night of the Earth Poems)
“
you
you’re a beast, she said
your big white belly
and those hairy feet.
you never cut your nails
and you have fat hands
paws like a cat
your bright red nose
and the biggest balls
I’ve ever seen.
you shoot sperm like a
whale shoots water out of the
hole in its back.
beast beast beast,
she kissed me,
what do you want for
breakfast?
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
“
Keep an eye out for her,
she tends to disappear
intermittently, leaving no
note for one to know,
as to where she is going
and if she'll be showing
up for supper that day,
or in the dark, wander away.
But soon she will map
her way back to your lap
timidly, in need for a warm,
caring body to conform.
She likes to play with things,
but often her mood swings.
To hurt is not her intention,
all she wants is your attention,
and if you give your love to her,
she’ll not smile but perhaps purr.
”
”
Akash Mandal
“
They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.
”
”
James Joyce (Pomes Penyeach and Other Verses)
“
Bat, fly high.
Pumpkin, sit.
Black cat, cry.
Spider, knit.
Wicken, chant.
Phantom, moan.
Mummy, rant.
Zombie, groan.
Werewolf, howl.
Owl, hoot.
Goblin, growl.
Pirate, loot.
Skeleton,
Frankenstein,
Curse the sun.
Poem, rhyme.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
I like bubbles in everything. I respect the power of silence. In cold or warm weather I favor a mug of hot cocoa. I admire cats―their autonomy, grace, and mystery. I awe at the fiery colors in a sunset. I believe in deity. I hear most often with my eyes, and I will trust a facial expression before any accompanying comment. I invent rules, words, adventures, and imaginary friends. I pretend something wonderful every day. I will never quit pretending.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
If you can try to nap where someone's sitting,
Although there is another empty chair,
Then rub against his ankle without quitting
Until he rises from your favorite lair;
If you can whine and whimper by a portal
Until the bolted door is opened wide,
Then howl as if you've got a wound that's mortal
Until he comes and lets you back inside;
If you can give a guest a nasty spiking,
But purr when you are petted by a thief;
If you can find the food not to your liking
Because they put some cheese in with the beef;
If you can leave no proffered hand unbitten,
And pay no heed to any rule or ban,
then all will say you are a Cat, my kitten.
And -- which is more -- you'll make a fool of Man!
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to my eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne
“
And there he would lie all day long on the lawn brooding presumably over his poetry, till he reminded one of a cat watching birds, when he had found the word, and her husband said, "Poor old Augustus--he's a true poet," which was high praise from her husband.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse)
“
Calico Kitty
My calico kitty
was painted and primed
she could prowl
the night away ~
without spending a dime...
”
”
Muse (Enigmatic Evolution)
“
I
dislike cute cat
poems
but I've written one
anyhow.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (On Cats)
“
Then one day I found my head when I wasn't even trying.
”
”
Cat Stevens
“
Come on cats, let's go.
Let's teach those old dog cheap trick beatniks some new kicks and bottle up and blow.
”
”
Harry Whitewolf (New Beat Newbie)
“
I am the dreamer and not the dream
”
”
J.S. Watts (Cats and Other Myths)
“
Sleep in my arms like a little cat; I love your snoring and your smell.
”
”
M.F. Moonzajer (A moment with God ; Poetry)
“
The Prologue to TERRITORY LOST
"Of cats' first disobedience, and the height
Of that forbidden tree whose doom'd ascent
Brought man into the world to help us down
And made us subject to his moods and whims,
For though we may have knock'd an apple loose
As we were carried safely to the ground,
We never said to eat th'accursed thing,
But yet with him were exiled from our place
With loss of hosts of sweet celestial mice
And toothsome baby birds of paradise,
And so were sent to stray across the earth
And suffer dogs, until some greater Cat
Restore us, and regain the blissful yard,
Sing, heavenly Mews, that on the ancient banks
Of Egypt's sacred river didst inspire
That pharaoh who first taught the sons of men
To worship members of our feline breed:
Instruct me in th'unfolding of my tale;
Make fast my grasp upon my theme's dark threads
That undistracted save by naps and snacks
I may o'ercome our native reticence
And justify the ways of cats to men.
”
”
Henry N. Beard (Poetry for Cats: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse)
“
You can't hold someone who
Wants to leave
You can't clutch a memory
As if it were today
You can't take an insult
Close to heart
You can't grasp for glory
From your chair
You can't seize life
Thinking only of loss
And you can't grab a laser pointer dot
On the wall
No matter how much you try
These hard-earned truths I give to you
”
”
Francesco Marciuliano (I Could Pee on This: and Other Poems by Cats)
“
A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a
panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.
The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged
by four winds of four directions.
The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken
tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break
what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a
few miles away.
He hears the death song of his approaching prey:
I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.
”
”
Joy Harjo (Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems)
“
Witches cackle.
Goblins growl.
Spectres boo,
And werewolves howl.
Black cats hiss.
Bats flap their wings.
Mummies moan.
The cold wind sings.
Ogre’s roar.
And crows, they caw.
Vampires bahahahaha.
Warlocks swish their moonlit capes.
Loch Ness monsters churn the lake.
Skeletons, they rattle bones
While graveyards crack the old headstones.
All the while the ghouls, they cry
To trick-or-treaters passing by.
Oh, the noise on Halloween;
It makes me want to scream!
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
“
I let all go,
let if flow.
I let it be.
Now it's me
that's here for me.
All the forests and the rains
that filled my heart
when there were pains,
all the cats and dogs and birds
that sang for me,
that held my hurts,
even God and even light,
all the lovers, all delights,
I let them go
to find within
the medicine
of my soul twin.
”
”
Petra Poje - Keeper of The Eye
“
The story of the rapper and the story of the hustler are like rap itself, two kinds of rhythm working together, having a conversation with each other, doing more together than they could do apart. It's been said that the thing that makes rap special, that makes it different both from pop music and from written poetry, is that it's built around two kinds of rhythm. The first kind of rhythm is the meter. In poetry, the meter is abstract, but in rap, the meter is something you literally hear: it's the beat. The beat in a song never stops, it never varies. No matter what other sounds are on the track, even if it's a Timbaland production with all kinds of offbeat fills and electronics, a rap song is usually built bar by bar, four-beat measure by four-beat measure. It's like time itself, ticking off relentlessly in a rhythm that never varies and never stops.
When you think about it like that, you realize the beat is everywhere, you just have to tap into it. You can bang it out on a project wall or an 808 drum machine or just use your hands. You can beatbox it with your mouth. But the beat is only one half of a rap song's rhythm. The other is the flow. When a rapper jumps on a beat, he adds his own rhythm. Sometimes you stay in the pocket of the beat and just let the rhymes land on the square so that the beat and flow become one. But sometimes the flow cops up the beat, breaks the beat into smaller units, forces in multiple syllables and repeated sounds and internal rhymes, or hangs a drunken leg over the last bap and keeps going, sneaks out of that bitch. The flow isn't like time, it's like life. It's like a heartbeat or the way you breathe, it can jump, speed up, slow down, stop, or pound right through like a machine. If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.
Just like beats and flows work together, rapping and hustling, for me at least, live through each other. Those early raps were beautiful in their way and a whole generation of us felt represented for the first time when we heard them. But there's a reason the culture evolved beyond that playful, partying lyrical style. Even when we recognized the voices, and recognized the style, and even personally knew the cats who were on the records, the content didn't always reflect the lives we were leading. There was a distance between what was becoming rap's signature style - the relentlessness, the swagger, the complex wordplay - and the substance of the songs. The culture had to go somewhere else to grow.
It had to come home.
”
”
Jay-Z (Decoded)
“
Jule was a poet—poetry was like psi, she said, like thought, a thing that compressed images to essence.
”
”
Joan D. Vinge (Psion (Cat, #1))
“
I, too, hope to be that confident in a love.
Someone who I know will still love me,
even if I do not run to them
every time they call.
”
”
Nikita Gill (Where Hope Comes From)
“
Better to humour them politely
Or to resign very quietly
But if you opt to fight like a cat
Bear in mind, you could die like a rat
”
”
Barry Jacob (The Lockdown Collection)
“
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
”
”
Cat Stevens
“
In Moonlight
No
Soft sweet paw on my cheek
No
Fur curled under my chin
Just
A sad space left behind -
Gray cat gone away.
[Ellie's poem]
”
”
Patricia MacLachlan (The Poet's Dog)
“
Ninja beats pirate. Pirate beats ghost.
Ghost beats zombie. Zombie beats most.
Werewolf beats vampire. Vamp beats Imp.
Imp beats fiend. Fiend beats wimp.
Wizard beats cyrborg. Cyborg surely beats troll.
Troll beats goblin. Goblin eats a hermit’s soul.
Hermit beats child. Child beats wagon.
Wagon beats moon snake. Moon snake beats dragon.
Dragon beats hydra. Hydra beats sailor.
Sailor beats teacher. Teacher beats tailor.
Tailor beats sun worm. Sun worm beats clown.
Clown beats robo-squid. Robo-squid beats town.
Town fights jackals. Town will win.
Town fights mummies. Town won’t fight again.
Zookeeper beats hell hound. Hell hound beats giant.
Giant beats accountant. Accountant beats client.
Client beats frog. Frog beats himself.
Knight beats Big Foot. Big Foot beats elf.
Elf beats pixie. Pixie beats specter.
Specter beats sea hag. Sea hag beats Hector.
Hector beats serpent. Serpent beats rat.
Rat beats Grandma. Grandma beats cat.
Lava beats demon. Demon beats warlock.
Warlock beats dinosaur. Dino beats Spock.
Spock beats Lando. Lando beats Qui-Gon.
Qui-Gon beats Jar-Jar. Jar-Jar beats none.
Rock beats scissors. Scissors beat paper.
Paper beats insect. Insect beats vapor.
Wood Woman beats Tree Man. Tree Man beats the dark.
The dark kills spider-fish. Spider-fish beats shark.
You beat me. I beat a dentist.
The dentist beats the barber. The barber is menaced.
These are the rules, and never forget.
Now hand over your money and place your bet.
”
”
Dan Bergstein
“
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name.
”
”
T.S. Eliot
“
Curiosity killed the cat, but not before teaching her that honey bees are not sweet, tweeting birds are slow to react, mice can serve as both toys and food, big dogs like to snuggle, falling isn’t flying, cream drips from lazy cows, water should be avoided at all costs, baths don’t require getting wet, kindness and cruelty often fall from the same hand, and engines remain comfortably warm long after the motor dies.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
“
We went too far when we put on the fur of lynxes,
Of weasels trapped in winter when they’ve lost their tan;
We went too far when we let the fox assist us
To warm the hide that houses the soul of Man.
The reek of the leopard and the stink of the inky cat
Striped handsomely with white, are in the concert hall;
We sleekly writhe from under them, and are above all that;
But, the concert over, back into our pelts we crawl.
”
”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (Collected Poems)
“
Where do you feel your soul inside you?"
Stretched between my mouth-hole and my asshole,
a white thread, not transparent mist,
cramped in some corner between two bones,
in pain.
When it is full it disappears, like a cat.
”
”
Yehuda Amichai (The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai)
“
And so the space
Of my still consciousness
Is full of gilded snow,
The which, no cat has eyes enough
To see the brightness of.
— Ezra Pound, from “Middle-Aged,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 1912–22. Edited by Harriet Monroe. (Chicago, 1912–22)
”
”
Ezra Pound
“
I have lived nine lives, and that which I have done
May Cat within Himself make fur! But thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Purr for my soul. More things are wrought by purrs
Than this world dreams of…
But now farewell. I am going a long way…
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Old Babes in the Wood: Stories)
“
Nothing felt like mine anymore, not after you. All those little things that defined me; small sentimental trinkets, car keys, pin codes, and passwords. They all felt like you. And more than anything else, my number - the one you boldly asked for that night, amidst a sea of people, under a sky of talking satellites and glowing stars.
You said no matter how many times you erased me from your phone, you would still recognize that number when it flashed on your screen. The series of sixes and nines, like the dip of my waist to the curves of my hips, your hands pressed into the small of my back. Nines and sixes that were reminiscent of two contented cats, curled together like a pair of speech marks. You said if you could never hold me or kiss me again, you could live with that. But you couldn't bear the thought of us not speaking and asked, at the very least, could I allow you that one thing?
I wonder what went through your mind the day you dialed my number to find it had been disconnected. If your imagination had raced with thoughts of what new city I run to and who was sharing my bed. Isn't it strange how much of our lives are interchangeable, how little is truly ours. Someone else's ring tone, someone else's broken heart. These are the things we inherit by choice or by chance.
And it wasn't my choice to love you but it was mine to leave. I don't think the moon ever meant to be a satellite, kept in loving orbit, locked in hopeless inertia, destined to repeat the same pattern over and over - to meet in eclipse with the sun - only when the numbers allowed.
”
”
Lang Leav (Memories)
“
when it’s time to break down and you’re lying in bed fighting off the urge to scream, when you’re lying there shivering, it’s not the memories that keep you going. instead it’s the dreams and the cats blaring evil and godlike into the blankness. at times like this, it’s best just to sit back and let what is be.
”
”
Scott C. Holstad (Distant Visions, Again and Again)
“
These dreams are disappearing
Speak and be misunderstood
Or be silent and good
and as how far as it look
These dreams are disappearing..
Put hopes in a box and tie
It's either protect it or die
Maintain the truth or talk a lie
These dreams are disappearing..
Mountains of gold and a lovely cat
a house by a lake and a lovely chat
a day in paradise and all of that
These dreams are disappearing..
Chase a purpose of life and do
and be the one you wanted to
and be with who have always wanted you
These dreams are disappearing..
Run in pace and catch the sun
Raise a family and have a son
Build a home, not only one
These dreams are disappearing..
In daily wars like on regular bases
In daily problems a puzzled mazes In daily issues and complications
These dreams are disappearing..
Nothing is lost but nothing is healing
All is gone and all is leaking
Some hope to hold on to and keep dreaming
Although these dreams are disappearing...
Ahmed Adel Hassona
”
”
Ahmed Adel Hassona
“
Arthur said brightly, “Actually I quite liked it.” Ford turned and gaped. Here was an approach that had quite simply not occurred to him. The Vogon raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his nose and was therefore no bad thing. “Oh good …” he whirred, in considerable astonishment. “Oh yes,” said Arthur, “I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.” Ford continued to stare at him, slowly organizing his thoughts around this totally new concept. Were they really going to be able to bareface their way out of this? “Yes, do continue …” invited the Vogon. “Oh … and, er … interesting rhythmic devices too,” continued Arthur, “which seemed to counterpoint the … er … er …” he floundered. Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding “… counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the … er …” He floundered too, but Arthur was ready again. “… humanity of the …” “Vogonity,” Ford hissed at him. “Ah yes, Vogonity—sorry—of the poet’s compassionate soul”—Arthur felt he was on the homestretch now—“which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other”—he was reaching a triumphant crescendo—“and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into … into … er …” (which suddenly gave out on him). Ford leaped in with the coup de grace: “Into whatever it was the poem was about!” he yelled. Out of the corner of his mouth: “Well done, Arthur, that was very good.” The Vogon perused them. For a moment his embittered racial soul had been touched, but he thought no—too little too late. His voice took on the quality of a cat snagging brushed nylon. “So what you’re saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved,” he said. He paused, “Is that right?” Ford laughed a nervous laugh. “Well, I mean, yes,” he said, “don’t we all, deep down, you know … er …” The Vogon stood up. “No, well, you’re completely wrong,” he said, “I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!” “What?” shouted Ford. A huge young Vogon guard stepped forward and yanked them out of their straps with his huge blubbery arms. “You can’t throw us into space,” yelled Ford, “we’re trying to write a book.” “Resistance is useless!” shouted the Vogon guard back at him. It was the first phrase he’d learned when he joined the Vogon Guard Corps.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1))
“
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan Poe (Complete Poems and Tales, Over 150 Works, including The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat Book 8))
“
Tonight, he began to think of words, words came from some well in him, lists of words that arranged themselves into poems, "The Death Mask," "The Fairfax Wall," "A Number of Cats." He could hear, or feel, or even almost see, the patterns made by a voice he didn't yet know, but which was his own. The poems were not careful observations, nor yet incantations, nor yet reflections on life and death, though they had elements of all these. He added another, "Cats' Cradle," as he saw he had things to say which he could say about the way shapes came and made themselves. Tomorrow he would buy a new notebook and write them down. Tonight he would write down enough, the mnemonics.
He had time to feel the strangeness of before and after; an hour ago there had been no poems, and now they came like rain and were real.
”
”
A.S. Byatt (Possession)
“
G took her hand in his and traced his finger over the delicate skin of her arm. What she didn't realize was that he was scrawling the words of a poem he had recently written. It was inspired by his lady and he had spent many long hours trying to find the words that adequately conveyed the feelings of his heart.
There were many false starts, because at first he tried to capture the moment a horse fell in love with a ferret.
Shall I compare thee to a barrel to apples?
Thou art more hairy, but sweeter inside.
Rough winds couldn't keep me from taking you to chapel,
When finally a horse would take a bride...
And then he tried to wax poetic about the ferret alone ...
Shall I compare thee to a really large rat?
Thou art more longer, with less disease.
One would never mistake you for a listless cat ...
Nor a filthy dog, because my dog has fleas.
He could never confess his passion for poetry with those poetry examples.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (My Lady Jane (The Lady Janies, #1))
“
VISIONS OF GRANDEUR
I'm walking through a sheet of glass instead of the door,
Flying over a giant candlestick lighting up Central Park,
Repeating two courses at Hard Knock's College,
And swimming through the Red Sea with silky jelly fish.
I'm hopping over an empty row house in Philadelphia,
Getting a seventy dollar manicure on a gondola in Venice,
Wearing a white pearl necklace stolen from Goodwill,
And running my first New York City marathon.
I'm discussing the meaning of life with my late cat Charlie.
Dating John Doe- the thirty-third chef at the White House,
Running non-stop on a broken leg through a bomb-blasted city,
And keeping a multi-lingual monkey named Alfredo as my pet.
I'm spying on two hundred and twenty-two homegrown terrorists from Iowa,
Worshiped by a red-headed gorilla named Salamander,
Sleeping with a giant teddy bear dressed in black leather,
And wearing hot pink lipstick over a shade of midnight blue.
”
”
Giorge Leedy (Uninhibited From Lust To Love)
“
St. Clair tucks the tips of his fingers into his pockets and kicks the cobblestones with the toe of his boots. "Well?" he finally asks.
"Thank you." I'm stunned. "It was really sweet of you to bring me here."
"Ah,well." He straightens up and shrugs-that full-bodied French shrug he does so well-and reassumes his usual, assured state of being. "Have to start somewhere. Now make a wish."
"Huh?" I have such a way with words. I should write epic poetry or jingles for cat food commercials.
He smiles. "Place your feet on the star, and make a wish."
"Oh.Okay,sure." I slide my feet together so I'm standing in the center. "I wish-"
"Don't say it aloud!" St. Clair rushes forward, as if to stop my words with his body,and my stomach flips violently. "Don't you know anything about making wishes? You only get a limited number in life. Falling stars, eyelashes,dandelions-"
"Birthday candles."
He ignores the dig. "Exactly. So you ought to take advantage of them when they arise,and superstition says if you make a wish on that star, it'll come true." He pauses before continuing. "Which is better than the other one I've heard."
"That I'll die a painful death of poisoning, shooting,beating, and drowning?"
"Hypothermia,not drowning." St. Clair laughs. He has a wonderful, boyish laugh. "But no. I've heard anyone who stands here is destined to return to Paris someday. And as I understand it,one year for you is one year to many. Am I right?"
I close my eyes. Mom and Seany appear before me. Bridge.Toph.I nod.
"All right,then.So keep your eyes closed.And make a wish."
I take a deep breath. The cool dampness of the nearby trees fills my lungs. What do I want? It's a difficult quesiton.
I want to go home,but I have to admit I've enjoyed tonight. And what if this is the only time in my entire life I visit Paris? I know I just told St. Clair that I don't want to be here, but there's a part of me-a teeny, tiny part-that's curious. If my father called tomorrow and ordered me home,I might be disappointed. I still haven't seen the Mona Lisa. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.Walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
So what else do I want?
I want to feel Toph's lips again.I want him to wait.But there's another part of me,a part I really,really hate,that knows even if we do make it,I'd still move away for college next year.So I'd see him this Christmas and next summer,and then...would that be it?
And then there's the other thing.
The thing I'm trying to ignore. The thing I shouldn't want,the thing I can't have.
And he's standing in front of me right now.
So what do I wish for? Something I'm not sure I want? Someone I'm not sure I need? Or someone I know I can't have?
Screw it.Let the fates decide.
I wish for the thing that is best for me.
How's that for a generalization? I open my eyes,and the wind is blowing harder. St. Clair pushes a strand of hair from his eyes. "Must have been a good one," he says.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
Del tuo timido gatto
che scendeva la scala
dell'orto la mattina
con la sua ombra fina
lungo le terrecotte
che cosa è rimasto? Nulla
fuor che l'impronta impressa
dalle sue zampe nella
gettata di cemento
dove annusava incerto
Fra le tue grida : "Via,
via di lì, stupidino!"
Era luglio, era aperto
il cielo. Pensai: "Certo
rimarrà sempre un segno."
Ora il cemento è pietra
alle piogge d'ottobre.
Ostinate lo coprono
le foglie senza forma.
Toglile e potrai leggere
l'orma di quegli unghioli.
”
”
Franco Fortini
“
By love, I mean filling herself
with small right intentions. By life,
I mean she looks at you from the railings.
A kind of dare is in her, her tail curled
like a bass clef, or mutant fern.
You won't catch her. She's scrolling
from scent to sound to slightest motion.
However the light moves
might be ruin, or rich enough to rob.
The way she ransacks, hoards, loses,
lashes, bluffs the crouched cat,
the unleashed dog, her death,
a dozen times a day, is what I mean
by hopeless how she loves this life.
”
”
Max Garland (The Word We Used For It (Wisconsin Poetry Series))
“
The opposite of spare time is, I guess, occupied time. In my case I still don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.
An increasing part of living, at my age, is mere bodily maintenance, which is tiresome. But I cannot find anywhere in my life a time, or a kind of time, that is unoccupied. I am free, but my time is not. My time is fully and vitally occupied with sleep, with daydreaming, with doing business and writing friends and family on email, with reading, with writing poetry, with writing prose, with thinking, with forgetting, with embroidering, with cooking and eating a meal and cleaning up the kitchen, with construing Virgil, with meeting friends, with talking with my husband, with going out to shop for groceries, with walking if I can walk and traveling if we are traveling, with sitting Vipassana sometimes, with watching a movie sometimes, with doing the Eight Precious Chinese exercises when I can, with lying down for an afternoon rest with a volume of Krazy Kat to read and my own slightly crazy cat occupying the region between my upper thighs and mid-calves, where he arranges himself and goes instantly and deeply to sleep. None of this is spare time. I can’t spare it. What is Harvard thinking of? I am going to be eighty-one next week. I have no time to spare.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters)
“
How To Make A Human
Take the cat out of the sphinx
and what is left? Riddle Me That.
Take the horse from the centaur
and you take away the sleek grace,
the strength of harnessed power.
What is left can still run across fields,
after a fashion, but is easily winded;
what is left will therefore erect buildings
to divide the open plains so he no longer
must face the wide expanse where once
his equine legs raced the winds
and, sometimes, won.
Take the bull from the Minotaur
but what is left will still assemble
a herd for the sake of ruling over it.
What is left will kill for sport,
in an arena thronged with spectators
shouting "Ole" at each deadly thrust.
Take the fish from the Merman:
What is left can still swim,
if only with lots of splashing; gone
is the sleek sliding through the waves,
alert to the subtle changes in the current.
What is left will build ships
so he can cross the oceans without
getting his feet wet, what is left won't care
if his boats pollute the seas he can no
longer breathe so long as their passage
can keep him from sinking.
Take the goat from the satyr
but what is left will dance out of reach
before you have the chance
to get that Dionysian streak of myschief,
the love of music and wine, the rutting parts
that like to party all the day through.
What is left will still be stubborn and refuse
to give way; what is left will lock horns
and butt heads with anyone who challenges him.
Take the bird from the harpy,
but the memory of flying, a constant yearning ache for skies so tantalizingly distant,
will still remain, as will the established pecking orders, the bitter squabbling over food and territory, and the magpie eye that lusts for shining objects.
What is left will cut down the whole forest
to feather his sprawling urban nest.
At the end of these operations,
tell me: what is left? The answer: Man, a creature divorced from nature,
who's forgotten where he came from.
”
”
Lawrence Schimel
“
The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links. The short short, however, doesn't as a rule have even that much - you don't speak of a chain when there's only one link. ...
Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a quantity of suggestion. A single incident, a mere anecdote - these form the spine of the short short.
Everything depends on intensity, one sweeping blow of perception. In the short short the writer gets no second chance. Either he strikes through at once or he's lost. And because it depends so heavily on this one sweeping blow, the short short often approaches the condition of a fable. When you read the two pieces by Tolstoy in this book, or I.L. Peretz's 'If Not Higher,' or Franz Kafka's 'The Hunter Gracchus,' you feel these writers are intent upon 'making a point' - but obliquely, not through mere statement. What they project is not the sort of impression of life we expect in most fiction, but something else: an impression of an idea of life. Or: a flicker in darkness, a slight cut of being. The shorter the piece of writing, the more abstract it may seem to us. In reading Paz's brilliant short short we feel we have brushed dangerously against the sheer arbitrariness of existence; in reading Peretz's, that we have been brought up against a moral reflection on the nature of goodness, though a reflection hard merely to state.
Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The lyric does not seek meaning through extension, it accepts the enigmas of confinement. It strives for a rapid unity of impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy. And so too with the short short. ...
Writers who do short shorts need to be especially bold. They stake everything on a stroke of inventiveness. Sometimes they have to be prepared to speak out directly, not so much in order to state a theme as to provide a jarring or complicating commentary. The voice of the writer brushes, so to say, against his flash of invention. And then, almost before it begins, the fiction is brought to a stark conclusion - abrupt, bleeding, exhausting. This conclusion need not complete the action; it has only to break it off decisively.
Here are a few examples of the writer speaking out directly. Paz: 'The universe is a vast system of signs.' Kafka in 'First Sorrow': The trapeze artist's 'social life was somewhat limited.' Paula Fox: 'We are starving here in our village. At last, we are at the center.' Babel's cossack cries out, 'You guys in specs have about as much pity for chaps like us as a cat for a mouse.' Such sentences serve as devices of economy, oblique cues. Cryptic and enigmatic, they sometimes replace action, dialogue and commentary, for none of which, as it happens, the short short has much room.
There's often a brilliant overfocussing.
("Introduction")
”
”
Irving Howe (Short Shorts)
“
wonder if Mr. Alec Davis would come back and ha'nt me if I threw a stone at the urn on top of his tombstone," said Jerry. "Mrs. Davis would," giggled Faith. "She just watches us in church like a cat watching mice. Last Sunday I made a face at her nephew and he made one back at me and you should have seen her glare. I'll bet she boxed HIS ears when they got out. Mrs. Marshall Elliott told me we mustn't offend her on any account or I'd have made a face at her, too!" "They say Jem Blythe stuck out his tongue at her once and she would never have his father again, even when her husband was dying," said Jerry. "I wonder what the Blythe gang will be like." "I liked their looks," said Faith. The manse children had been at the station that afternoon when the Blythe small fry had arrived. "I liked Jem's looks ESPECIALLY." "They say in school that Walter's a sissy," said Jerry. "I don't believe it," said Una, who had thought Walter very handsome. "Well, he writes poetry, anyhow. He won the prize the teacher offered last year for writing a poem, Bertie Shakespeare Drew told me. Bertie's mother thought HE should have got the prize because of his name, but Bertie said he couldn't write poetry to save his soul, name or no name." "I suppose we'll get acquainted with them as soon as they begin going to school," mused Faith. "I hope the girls are nice. I don't like most of the girls round here. Even the nice ones are poky. But the Blythe twins look jolly. I thought twins always looked alike, but they don't. I think the red-haired one is the nicest." "I liked their mother's looks," said Una with a little sigh. Una envied all children their mothers. She had been only six when her mother died, but she had some very precious memories, treasured in her soul like jewels, of twilight cuddlings and morning frolics, of loving eyes, a tender voice, and the sweetest, gayest laugh. "They say she isn't like other people," said Jerry. "Mrs. Elliot says that is because she never really grew up," said Faith. "She's taller than Mrs. Elliott." "Yes, yes, but it is inside—Mrs. Elliot says Mrs. Blythe
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Rainbow Valley (Anne of Green Gables #7))