Diving Into The Wreck Quotes

I don't trust them but I'm learning to use them.

...you look at me like an emergency

These scars bear witness but whether to repair or to destruction I no longer know.

I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes...are maps...I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail

We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

I am the androgyne, I am the living mind you fail to describe in your dead language the lost noun, the verb surviving only in the infinitive the letters of my name are written under the lids of the newborn child

Nothing can be done but by inches. I write out my life hour by hour, word by word . . . imagining the existence of something uncreated this poem our lives.

I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets. The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

The day I bought my cane, I realized I was through with the burden of feet. Instead, I am going to become a mermaid. I have always liked the ocean, the promise of depth. I am tired of this dry world, all of this dust and sickness, these barren fields. I want to dive without drowning. I want to kiss sharks. I want men to carve me into the bows of their ships like a prayer, before I lure them into the depths with my fishnet mouth. I want the beauty, the gorgeous mutation, the fairytale of half body. All the wisdom of a woman, without the failures of sex. I am plunging. I am not coming up for air. I do not want all this human, my legs move like they resent being legs, my body is wrecked by all this gravity. I cannot face another morning waking up with no hope of a fairytale. Here on land, I am always drowning. Here on land, I cannot move.

I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.

When I try to speak my throat is cut and, it seems, by his hand The sounds I make are prehuman, radical the telephone is always ripped-out and he sleeps on Yet always the tissue grows over, white as silk hardly a blemish maybe a hieroglyph for scream Child, no wonder you never wholly trusted your keepers

[[diving into the wreck]] First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade [...] And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here... [...] the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. [...] We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

the thing I came for: [...] the thing itself and not the myth

Every act of becoming conscious (it says here in this book) is an unnatural act

in every room, the furniture reflects you larger than life, or dwindling

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten, his hand types out the details and he wants them all but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.

I suddenly see the world as no longer viable: you are out there burning the crops with some new sublimate This morning you left the bed we still share and went out to spread impotence upon the world I hate you. I hate the mask you wear, your eyes assuming a depth they do not possess, drawing me into the grotto of your skull the landscape of bone I hate your words they make you think of fake revolutionary bills crisp imitation parchment they sell at battlefields. Last night, in this room, weeping I asked you: what are you feeling? do you feel anything? Now in the torsion of your body as you defoliate the fields we lived from I have your answer.

Rain presses up onto her toes at the same moment that I dive for her parted lips, and our mouths collide like the train wreck that we are.

If I'm lonely it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore in the last red light of the year that knows what it is, that knows it's neither ice nor mud nor winter light but wood, with a gift for burning

If I’m lonely it must be the loneliness of waking first, of breathing dawns’ first cold breath on the city of being the one awake in a house wrapped in sleep If I’m lonely it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore in the last red light of the year that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither ice nor mud nor winter light but wood, with a gift for burning from “Song

The words are purposes. The words are maps. ADRIENNE RICH, “Diving into the Wreck

The words are purposes.       The words are maps. ADRIENNE RICH, “Diving into the Wreck”       Will you take me as I am?       Will you? JONI MITCHELL, “California

3. The lovely landscape of southern Ohio betrayed by strip mining, the thick gold band on the adulterer’s finger the blurred programs of the offshore pirate station are causes for hesitation. Here in the matrix of need and anger, the disproof of what we thought possible failures of medication doubts of another’s existence —tell it over and over, the words get thick with unmeaning— yet never have we been closer to the truth of the lies we were living, listen to me: the faithfulness I can imagine would be a weed flowering in tar, a blue energy piercing the massed atoms of a bedrock disbelief. 1971

I do not know who I was when I did those things or who I said I was or whether I willed to feel what I had read about or who in fact was there with me or whether I knew, even then that there was doubt about these things

The Stranger Looking as I’ve looked before, straight down the heart of the street to the river walking the rivers of the avenues feeling the shudder of the caves beneath the asphalt watching the lights turn on in the towers walking as I’ve walked before like a man, like a woman, in the city my visionary anger cleansing my sight and the detailed perceptions of mercy flowering from that anger if I come into a room out of the sharp misty light and hear them talking a dead language if they ask me my identity what can I say but I am the androgyne I am the living mind you fail to describe in your dead language the lost noun, the verb surviving only in the infinitive the letters of my name are written under the lids of the newborn child

Diving Into the Wreck,”14 There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner ... I go down ... I came to explore the wreck ... I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail ...

There is a cop who is both prowler and father: he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers, had certain ideals. You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge, on horseback, one hand touching his gun. You hardly know him but you have to get to know him: he has access to machinery that could kill you. He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash, his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud from between his unsmiling lips. And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him, the maniac’s sperm still greasing your thighs, your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess to him, you are guilty of the crime of having been forced. And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten, his hand types out the details and he wants them all but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best. You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you: he has taken down you worst moment on a machine and filed it in a file. He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined; he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted. He has access to machinery that could get you put away; and if, in the sickening light of the precinct, and if, in the sickening light of the precinct, your details sound like a portrait of your confessor, will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?

While Terry joined the others in the pool, I subjected myself to a dreadful thing called musical chairs, another cruel game. There's one chair short, and when the music stops you have to run for a seat. The life lessons never stop at a children's party. The music blares. You never know when it's going to stop. You're on edge the whole game; the tension is unbearable. Everyone dances in a circle around the ring of chairs, but it's no happy dance. Everyone has his eyes on the mother over by the radio, her hand poised on the volume control. Now and then a child wrongly anticipates her and dives for a chair. He's shouted at. He jumps off the seat again. He's a wreck. The music plays on. The children's faces are contorted in terror. No one wants to be excluded. The mother taunts the children by pretending to reach for the volume. The children wish she were dead. The game is an analogy for life: there are not enough chairs or good times to go around, not enough food, not enough joy, nor beds nor jobs nor laughs nor friends nor smiles nor money nor clean air to breathe...and yet the music goes on.

I would have loved to live in a world of women and men gaily in collusion with green leaves, stalks, building mineral cities, transparent domes, little huts of woven grass each with its own pattern— a conspiracy to coexist with the Crab Nebula, the exploding universe, the Mind—

I am a shadow. I walk the wet roads under the dim light of the pale lamps, in the darkest hour of the cold dull nights. I walk past the silent graveyard of the dead memories, towards the city of chaos plagued with gloom. I do not exist, but in the eyes of the shattered souls. In the chapter of an old book. In the poem. In the smile of a wrecked and in the tear of a broken spirit. Listen me in the songs told in the times long forgotten. Search for me in the churchs and temples, bars and brothels,pitch black nights and the colorless days. Dive down in your deepest part of your soul. And you will find my home. I have many faces but I have no face of my own. I am a shadow.

I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element.

The Underworld guards the secrets. It's got the skeletons in the closet, and any other skeletons you might wish to get your hands on. It's got the stories, or quite a few of them. 'There is something down there and you want it told,' as poet Gwendolyn MacEwen says. The swimmer among the jewelled dead — double-gendered, like the seer Tiresias — in Adrienne Rich's poem 'Diving Into the Wreck' has a similar motive: There is a ladder. The ladder is always there ...

I came to explore the wreck The words are purposes The words are maps I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail... the thing I come for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling Traveling, traveling, traveling Looking for something, what can it be Oh I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some Oh I love you when I forget about me I want to be strong I want to laugh along I want to belong to the living Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive Do you want - do you want - do you want to dance with me baby Do you want to take a chance On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby Well, come on All I really really want our love to do Is to bring out the best in me and in you too All I really really want our love to do Is to bring out the best in me and in you I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you I want to renew you again and again Applause, applause - Life is our cause When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws Do you see - do you see - do you see how you hurt me baby So I hurt you too Then we both get so blue. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling Looking for the key to set me free Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling It's the unraveling And it undoes all the joy that could be I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun I want to be the one that you want to see I want to knit you a sweater Want to write you a love letter I want to make you feel better I want to make you feel free I want to make you feel free

Song You’re wondering if I’m lonely: OK then, yes, I’m lonely as a plane rides lonely and level on its radio beam, aiming across the Rockies for the blue-strung aisles of an airfield on the ocean. You want to ask, am I lonely? Well, of course, lonely as a woman driving across country day after day, leaving behind mile after mile little towns she might have stopped and lived and died in, lonely If I’m lonely it must be the loneliness of waking first, of breathing dawn’s first cold breath on the city of being the one awake in a house wrapped in sleep If I’m lonely it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore in the last red light of the year that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither ice nor mud nor winter light but wood, with a gift for burning.

The boat driver reminded me that just because it was sunk didn’t mean someone couldn’t still steal it. After all, this is why there are “sea scrappers,” he said. Of course he was quite right, I admitted. I’d learned about these underworld characters when I was reporting in Indonesia. In that country, sea scrappers came mostly from the Madurese ethnic group and were renowned for their efficiency in stripping sunken ships of their valuable metals. They paddled their wooden boats out a couple miles from shore, equipped with crowbars, hammers, hatchets, and a diesel-powered air compressor tethered to what looked like a garden hose for breathing. Diving sometimes deeper than fifty feet, the men chopped away huge chunks of metal from the wreck, attaching them to cables for hoisting. In boom times, the metal and parts from a bigger ship, though rusty and barnacled, could sell for $1 million.

Dan who was cringing wide-eyed against the rusty, barnacle encrusted side of the wreck. “What’s wrong now?” I wondered. A large menacing shadow passed over me. I looked up to see the pale belly of a giant shark. It slowly passed over me like the Imperial Star Destroyer in the opening scene of Star Wars. Dan and I cowered out of sight in the rusting derelict, temporarily safe from the monster shark. From the look of its saucer-sized black eyes and triangular-shaped razor teeth, I guessed the shark was a rare species of sharpimus toothimus gigantus. We were trapped, reduced to nervously monitoring our dwindling air supply while we waited for the fearsome shark to leave. Finally, the sea monster left and we warily swam to the surface and scrambled onto the deck of our barge. We ordered an immediate to return to port and hoped the shark didn’t sink our vessel on the way back. Once we were safe on dry land, we celebrated our survival by drinking twenty-five cent Lone Star beers and rehashing our adventure. Our entire dive had been spent eluding sea monsters; it was a good day.

It’s their eyes that give the worms away. Those eyes aren’t black or milky white or anything like that. They don’t glow or wriggle around on stalks like some he’s burned on the frontier. Fact is they don’t look wrong at all, but there ain’t nothing right about the way they look at you. They’re full of hunger and contempt for the blind, which is everybody except Argo Mace. The worms love messing with the blind. Sometimes its terminal stuff, like making folks cut their own throats or go skin diving into the void, but mostly it’s longer-lasting hurt they like—things that’ll leave their victims torn up inside, like making ’em screw over a mate or act like head cases. He’s seen good men turned into the animals then set free, leaving them believing the sin was always in them and there’s no way back. The worms enjoy playing with their prey. Prey? Yeah, that’s about right, Argo reckons, coz wrecking lives is how they feed. He feels that in his gut. Killing might be part of it, but it’s not the point. It’s suffering that really gets them off.

we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held a course

even you, fellow creature, sister sitting across from me, dark with love, working like me to pick apart working with me to remake this trailing knitted thing, this cloth of darkness, this woman’s garment, trying to save the skein

هذه العين ليست للبكاء,فلابد الا يشوش ابصارها شيئا,رغم ان الدمع على وجهي,فغايتها الوضوح وعليها الاتنسى شيئا

Jesus Christ, woman,” he muttered, coming toward me. I was fighting tears, and when I looked up at him, it was through watery eyes and a curtain of drenched hair. “I think I need help.” “No shit,” he said in wry amusement and leaned over to help me out of the tub. “Are there any women here who could help me?” “Nope. It’s me or no help at all. It’s nothin’ I haven’t seen before, darlin’. “I don’t even know you.” “That didn’t stop you from approaching me at Dive Bar.” I sighed. “That was out of necessity.” “And this isn’t necessity? You nearly drowned yourself trying to save your pride.

A fast, seaworthy, very mobile diving boat with echo-sounder. Slack water for small area searches, but use fast tides and mobility of aqualung gear supported by small mobile diving boat to cover the large areas, especially in delimitation. Divers and boat handlers to be practised in working together; all divers to have practical underwater archaeological experience and to be well briefed for each separate wreck; land archaeologists with some understanding of the special problems to be carried in the boat whenever possible, and ultimately expected to dive. Basic assumption that the most important part of a wreck search is to go where there is no wreck, so that the characteristics of the natural seabed surrounding

the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth

Some old spacers stay away from wrecks. These old-timers believe the wrecks are haunted—not by the dead crew, but by old science, the kind that could kill us because we don’t understand it.

Over and over, starting to wake I dive back to discover you

She tries to dribble past him, but—" Todd leaped onto the blanket and dived for Elizabeth, tackling her to the ground. "He bumps her to the floor! It's a foul for Wilkins! Free shot for the beautiful forward." Todd smothered her face in tiny kisses. "Your shot, Liz," Todd whispered. Elizabeth fended him off, but she couldn't help laughing. "Todd, sometimes you can be so idiotic." "That's just because I'm so happy," Todd said, picking up his plate and taking a bite of salad. "Last week I was a wrecked man. My girlfriend was leaving me, and I was out for the season. Now I've got the two most important things in the world back again: basketball and my girlfriend." Elizabeth feigned hurt. "You mean I'm only as important as basketball?" Todd paused, pretending to be deep in thought. "Hmm, which is more important?" "Todd, that's not funny," Elizabeth said, picking up her champagne flute and taking a sip of apple cider. Todd nodded solemnly. "You're right, basketball is obviously more important." Elizabeth whacked him in the arm, sending his fork flying out of his hand. Todd put his plate down and his expression turned serious. "Liz, you know you're the most important thing in the world to me." He turned and looked at her, his coffee-colored eyes warm with love. Elizabeth's stomach fluttered at the intensity of his gaze. "Liz, it's so nice to have you back again," Todd said in a husky voice, taking the glass out of her hand and setting it down. "For good." He took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Elizabeth closed her eyes and returned the embrace with ardor, wrapping her arms around his neck.

So, doing nothing, he simply remained on the alert, careful to preserve his failing memory against the decay that consumed everything around him, much as he had done from the moment that he — once the closing of the estate had been announced and he personally had decided to stay behind and survive on what remained until “the decision to reverse the closure should be taken” — had gone up to the mill with the elder Horgos girl to observe the terrible racket of the abandonment of the place, with everyone rushing round and shouting, the trucks in the distance like refugees fleeing the scene, when it seemed to him that the mill’s death-sentence had brought the whole estate to a condition of near collapse, and from that day on he felt too weak to halt by himself the triumphal progress of the wrecking process, however he might try, there being nothing he could do in the face of the power that ruined houses, walls, trees and fields, the birds that dived from their high stations, the beasts that scurried forth, and all human bodies, desires and hopes, knowing he wouldn’t, in any case, have the strength, however he tried, to resist this treacherous assault on humanity; and, knowing this, he understood, just in time, that the best he could do was to use his memory to fend off the sinister, underhanded process of decay, trusting in the fact that since all that mason might build, carpenter might construct, woman might stitch, indeed all that men and women had brought forth with bitter tears was bound to turn to an undifferentiated, runny, underground, mysteriously ordained mush, his memory would remain lively and clear, right until his organs surrendered and “conformed to the contract whereby their business affairs were wound up,” that is to say until his bones and flesh fell prey to the vultures hovering over death and decay.

glanced around the tree to get a good look at the vehicle. “That’s one of Hassanzai’s men from the warehouse.”  The passenger door opened and one of the men got out and eased toward their wrecked car with his weapon trained. She recognized him—the Caucasian man she’d seen at the warehouse.   “We should keep moving, Kaiden.” They headed deeper into the woods while Sidney pushed branches out of their way, her injured wrist throbbing with pain. “There’s no one here,” the Caucasian man standing near their car shouted to the driver. He spoke in the Afghanistan language of Pashto. Shock ripples charged through Sidney’s body. Who was this man? “Let’s find them.”  Where was their backup? Sidney tried to shut off her troubled thoughts and keep up the fast pace. They couldn’t be captured.  “Up ahead. I see them!” the same man yelled. Seconds later, a bombardment of bullets whizzed past their heads. Sidney hit the ground next to Kaiden. Both returned fire, forcing the man to retreat.  “Others will be coming. We have to get out of here. Now.” A second man announced with a thick accent. The man who fired on them didn’t budge. His partner turned and headed back toward their vehicle. After another second’s hesitation, he followed.  “We can’t let them get away,” Sidney said. “There’s a chance we might be able to convince them to talk.” She slipped from behind the tree coverage and aimed at the fleeing men. “Stop right there.” Both men whirled with weapons drawn. Kaiden opened fire forcing them to dive for cover. “Drop your guns,” Sidney ordered. “Put your hands in the air.” One of the men’s weapons peeked out

we move together like underwater plants

Whatever science has done to destroy the world, it has unquestionably saved the lives of women and their babies. Nature is not gentle with us when left to her own devices. Now we survive childbirth and face the dilemma turning fifty. Mary Wollstonecraft never trod this path. Greedy for more and more life, we seldom appreciate what we have. Many of my friends have become mothers in their forties and their babies are beautiful and smart. We have extended the limits of life, yet we dare to rage at growing old. It seems damned ungrateful. But then we baby boomers are a damned ungrateful bunch. Nobody gave us limits. So we are good at squandering and complaining, bad at gratitude. And when we discover life has limits, we try to wreck ourselves in anger before we learn the importance of surrender. We are the AA kids, the qualification generation. We have to be hurled to the bottom again and again before we come to understand that life is about surrender. And if the bottom doesn't rise to meet us, we dive into it, carrying our loved ones with us. Only a lucky few swim back up to air and light.

Be scared,” he begged, eyes wild and hair on end. “Be scared but brave and wonderfully daring and all the things I love most about you, because if you take that wall down I’ll prove to you we’re different. That you never needed it in the first place. Spirits, I’ll demolish the damn thing if you let me. Be scared, but dive right in, head first and eyes open. Dammit, destroy me if you must, Alabath—I don’t give a damn. Rip my heart from my chest and trample it. Leave me wrecked and ruined, but don’t hold back because you’re afraid.