β
She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. 'Time' for her isnβt something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Why did the mushroom go to the party?
Because he's a fungi!
β
β
One Direction (One Direction: Forever Young: Our Official X Factor Story)
β
You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
I was an adventurer, but she was not an adventuress. She was a 'wanderess.' Thus, she didnβt care about money, only experiences - whether they came from wealth or from poverty, it was all the same to her.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Liam, shut up. I'm trying to do an interview
β
β
Niall Horan
β
Γ, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Dreams are like stars,
you may never catch them
but if you follow them
they will lead you to your destiny.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
Itβs not that we have to quit
this life one day, but itβs how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains... if only one
could leave this life slowly!
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
You know I'll be
Your Life
Your Voice
Your Reason To Be
My Love
My Heart
Is Breathing For this
Moment in Time
I'll Find the words to say
Before You leave me Today
β
β
One Direction
β
Itβs not that we have to quit this life one day, itβs how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains... If only one could leave this life slowly!
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
Payne looked back through the glass at the human on the bed. "Yes. I am in love with him. And if you try to dissuade me by the fact that I have not lived yet enough to judge, I say unto you...fuck off.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
β
Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
When she was a child, my love carried a road-map in her hand the way other girls carried handkerchiefs. She always knew the way. Her feet were little wings. And her beautiful head was a compass.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Harry: Where's Louis?
(Louis suddenly appears.)
Zayn: Louis, where you been?
Liam: How did you get there?
Louis: I don't know.
Liam: Magic carpet, gotta be.
Louis: I don't know.
β
β
One Direction
β
As for you girls, you must risk everything for Freedom, and give everything for Passion, loving everything that your hearts and your bodies love. The only thing higher for a girl and more sacred for a young woman than her freedom and her passion should be her desire to make her life into poetry, surrendering everything she has to create a life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in her imagination.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity. Where one city will rise a certain individual to glory, it will destroy another who is not suited to its personality. Only through travel can we know where we belong or not, where we are loved and where we are rejected.
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
Let's go crazy, crazy, crazy 'til we see the sun. I know we only met but lets pretend its love. And never, never, never stop for anyone. Tonight lets get some and live when we're young! β«
β
β
One Direction
β
I would make Harry my personal slave and would make him drive me places.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She never cried because she was afraid that something 'would' happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, 'would not' happen.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
The βMuseβ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
If I were to look in you ferigerator....refridgefreetorator...fridge....what would I find?
β
β
Louis Tomlinson
β
I'd make Liam my slave and I would make him be my uh personal trainer!
β
β
Zayn Malik
β
Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of natureβs course.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Γ, Wanderess, Wanderess
When did you feel your
most euphoric kiss?
Was I the source
of your greatest bliss?
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I've always had a strange fear of spoons.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
In life, more than in anything else, it isnβt easy to end up alive.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
I like the posture, but not the yoga.
I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sleeping.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
When I touched her body,
I believed she was God.
In the curves of her form
I found the birth of Man,
the creation of the world,
and the origin of all life.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Just as a painter paints,
and a ponderer ponders,
a writer writes,
and a wanderer wanders.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Payne nailing him in the face woke him up.
George brought him back his independence.
But Beth handed him his crown.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #7))
β
You are perfect for a female."
"Not where I come from."
"Then they're using the wrong standard.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
β
Made a lot of changes
But not forgetting who i was
β
β
One Direction
β
We were hooked when we woke.
We had arms for each other.
But I yearned to resume
My dreams of another.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I'd be a birthday cake!
β
β
Liam Payne
β
To wander is to be alive.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition (Only the First Chapters))
β
I would... learn how to drive... have a nice car... and drive it.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
Oh, I think not,β Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. βPower is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?β
βIt has crossed my mind a time or two,β Tyrion admitted. βThe king, the priest, the rich manβwho lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? Itβs a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.β
βAnd yet he is no one,β Varys said. βHe has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.β
βThat piece of steel is the power of life and death.β
βJust soβ¦ yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?β
βBecause these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.β
βThen these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?β Varys smiled. βSome say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelorβs Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Orβ¦ another?β
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. βDid you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?β
Varys smiled. βHere, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.β
βSo power is a mummerβs trick?β
βA shadow on the wall,β Varys murmured, βyet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.β
Tyrion smiled. βLord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think Iβd feel sad about it.β
βI will take that as high praise.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heartβs affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive, as feeling, as fickle and uncertain as people. Their degrees of love and devotion are as varying as with any human relation. Just as one is good, another is bad.
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. Iβve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because itβs the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.
β
β
Roman Payne (Crepuscule)
β
The male's diamond eyes locked on Payne, and though she hadn't seen him in forever, she knew who he was. Sure as if she was staring at her own reflection. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes for last she had known, he breathed no longer. "Vishous," she whispered desperately. "Oh, brother mine...
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
β
There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. Itβs the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different.
β
β
Piper Payne
β
Whenever I'm sad I just imagine if babies were born with mustaches.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
In my experience, when a woman's cruelty is combined with love and devotion, it is almost always without exception an act performed not out of treachery, but as a painful self-sacrifice for the good of her beloved, to obtain for him a future bounty where he would not know how to obtain it for himself, or have the courage, patience, or foresight to obtain it. Womankind always seems to be able to see a dozen steps into the future, far ahead of what men are able to see. And they have strength where we do not.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Independence isn't doing your own thing; it's doing the right thing on your own.
β
β
Kim John Payne
β
Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homerβs 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
All I want in this life are three...
a moonlit beach on the starlit sea,
a breath of opium,
and thee.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
She was a free bird: queen of the world and laughing.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
She was so delicate that, while we sat beneath the linden branches, a leaf would fall and drift down and touch her skin, and it would leave a bruise. So as we sat in the afternoon hour, beneath that fragrant linden bower, I had to chase all of the leafs that fell away.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Iβve decided the act that cannot wait / is the important will to create / But, ah, if my belly is ignored / the pantry door I shall implore / But Iβve been known to reach the bed / ideas still famished in my head.
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent. It can only be squandered.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I care not that this momentβs lot was thin and sparsely dealt; all pleasures sweet can be forgot the instant they are felt.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
She called herself an angel, and wandered the world from girlhood till death. She lived every kind of life and dreamt every kind of dream. She was wild in her wandering, a drop of free water. She believed only in her life and in her dreams. She called herself an angel, and her god was Beauty.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Wine gives one 'ideas,' whereas champagne gives one 'strategies.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
What a face this girl possessed!βcould I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I'm a wanderess
I'm a one night stand
Don't belong to no city
Don't belong to no man
(Note: These lyrics were inspired by Roman Payne's quote from his novel "The Wanderess".)
β
β
Halsey
β
It's On Like Donkey Kong.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
The strongest people arenβt always the people who win, but the people who donβt give up when they lose
β
β
Liam Payne
β
With her enchanting songs, her rare beauty, and clever tricks, this wild 'wanderess' ensnared my soul like a gypsy-thief, and led me foolish and blind to where you find me now. The first time I saw her, fires were alight. It was a spicy night in Barcelona. The air was fragrant and free.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I'm not perfect.
Never have been.
Never will be.
~ Louis Tomlinson
β
β
Louis Tomlinson
β
In my errant life I roamed
To learn the secrets of women and men,
Of gods and dreams.
I've known all the countries of our world,
I've lived a thousand lives:
Many lives I lived in love,
Other lives I squandered.
For in my life I never traveled,
All I did was wander.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Our lips were for each other and our eyes were full of dreams. We knew nothing of travel and we knew nothing of loss. Ours was a world of eternal spring, until the summer came.
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
Wandering is the activity of the child, the passion of the genius; it is the discovery of the self, the discovery of the outside world, and the learning of how the self is both "at one with" and "separate from" the outside world. These discoveries are as fundamental to the soul as "learning to survive" is fundamental to the body. These discoveries are essential to realizing what it means to be human. To wander is to be alive.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition (Only the First Chapters))
β
I know a girl from whose body sunbeams rose to the clouds as if theyβd fallen from the sun.
Her laugh was like a bangle of bells.
βYour hair is wet,β I told her one day, βDid you take a bath?β
βIt is dew!β she laughed, βIβve been lying in the grass. All morning long, I lay here waiting for the dawn.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
If I got to you once, I can do it again. And maybe next time I wonβt waste my breath trying to prove the fact that Iβm your equal.β
βI am the King, you realize.β
βAnd Iβm the daughter of a deity, motherfucker.
β
β
J.R. Ward (The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12))
β
We look up to see if it is day or night. If stars burn cool and moon does shine, we take to smoke divine and wine.
If breath of sun does belch its heat,
we boil coffee and prepare to eat.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I was forced to wander, having no one, forced by my nature to keep wandering because wandering was the only thing that I believed in, and the only thing that believed in me.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
She wakes in a puddle of sunlight.
Her hands asleep beside her.
Her hair draped on the lawn
like a mantle of cloth.
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
A woman must prefer her liberty over a man. To be happy, she must.
A man to be happy, however, must yearn for his woman more than his liberty.
This is the rightful order.
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
Sexual frenzy is our compensation for the tedious moments we must suffer in the passage of life. 'Nothing in excess,' professed the ancient Greeks. Why if I spend half the month in healthy scholarship and pleasant sleep, shouldn't I be allowed the other half to howl at the moon and pillage the groins of Europe's great beauties?
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Some people see the glass as half-empty, while others see it as half-full. But Jones stares at it and tries to figure out who drank the damn water.
β
β
Chris Kuzneski (Sign of the Cross (Payne & Jones, #2))
β
When she was a child,
my love carried a road map in her hand
the way other girls carried handkerchiefs.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
To wish a healthy man to die is the wish from a mind of sickness. To wish an ailing man to die is the wish of the ambitious.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Do you suppose the human race invented boredom to make the prospect of death more palatable?
β
β
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
β
She called herself Europa, and wandered the world from girlhood till death. She believed only in her life and in her dreams. She called herself Europa, and her god was Beauty.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I would do anything for you. Anything."
With that, he pushed his way out...and as the door eased shut, she realized that I love you could indeed be said without actually uttering the phrase.
Actions did mean more than words.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
β
Dreams are like stars,
you may never catch them
but if you follow them
they will lead you to your
destiny
β
β
Liam Payne
β
Vas happening Selene?
β
β
Liam Payne
β
Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belongs to no man and to no city. She knows nothing of borders and invents her own rules and customs. 'Time' for her isnβt something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I have found that people who can successfully resist temptation invariably lead depressingly stunted lives.
β
β
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
β
The lot of the bride
to be wed before bed
desired until rotten.
The lot of the author
to be read before bed
admired then forgotten.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
SAUL: 'We made love outdoors, my favorite place to make love, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and dripping with sweat.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer?
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Why do we mortals wonder if it is through 'human chaos' or through 'divine perfection' when the world guides us to some magical event? In either case, is not the result the same? Is the result not 'divine perfection?
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Sarah Payne, the day she told us to go to the page without judgment, reminded us that we never knew, and never would know, what it would be like to understand another person fully.
β
β
Elizabeth Strout (My Name Is Lucy Barton)
β
Champagne arrived in flΓ»tes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that lifeβs bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
We all die in the middle of something.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
They say Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I have never led an army, I am a wanderer. During the waning moon, I cradle Homerβs 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
When I met a truly beautiful girl, I would tell her that if she spent the night with me, I would write a novel or a story about her. This usually worked; and if her name was to be in the title of the story, it almost always worked. Then, later, when we'd passed a night of delicious love-making together, after sheβd gone and Iβd felt that feeling of happiness mixed with sorrow, I sometimes would write a book or story about her. Sometimes her character, her way about herself, her love-making, it sometimes marked me so heavily that I couldn't go on in life and be happy unless I wrote a book or a story about that woman, the happy and sad memory of that woman. That was the only way to keep her, and to say goodbye to her without her ever leaving.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Spanish rain,
A maidenβs dress,
Apothecary pills
And ancient thrills;
Melancholy kills
A girlβs caress.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Sister," he murmured, not as an inquiry, but a statement of fact. "Brother mine," she groaned... before her consciousness slipped from her grasp and she drifted away. But she would come back to him. One way or the other, she would not leave her twin ever again.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
β
In the boundaryless forests,
thereβre dancers of nude.
Yet in the confines of pasture,
thereβs promise of food.
On which is your side?
Γ, but tarry and bide,
ere you decide,
in both do confide.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Women are extraordinary creatures!
β
β
Roman Payne
β
When Vishous pushed open the door to the exam room, he got a gander at the kind of seating arrangement that made him think fondly of castration.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
β
Iβve seen knives pierce the chest,
Children dying in the road
Crawling things hooked and baited,
Rapists bound and then castrated,
Villains singed in public square.
Yet none these sights did make me cringe
Like when my Love cut all her hair.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Consider, if you will, the morning boner. What a metaphor of hope and renewal! How can anyone give way to despair when oneβs groin greets each day with such a gala spectacle of physical optimism?
β
β
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
β
The youthful body untouched decays the fastest, for no living hands record its splendor; and here youth and time are wasted.
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
I fear it is my lot, to bide my days in hunchbacked thought, to find what I forgot.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
The day came when she discovered sex, sensuality, and literature; she said, 'I submit! Let my life be henceforth ruled by poetry. Let me reign as the queen of my dreams until I become nothing less than the heroine of God.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
When a Wanderess has been caged,
or perched with her wings clipped,
She lives like a Stoic,
She lives most heroic,
smiling with ruby, moistened lips
once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
You are like a god, like an immortal one,' she whispered to me one night in our bed, her naked body pressed to mine, our sweat golden and glistening in the candlelight. 'Oh, my love,' I whispered back to her, 'I am more mortal than all. It seems that a part of me dies every night that I lie with you.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
From all that I saw,
and everywhere I wandered,
I learned that time cannot be spent,
It only can be squandered.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
I took her to bed with silk and song
'Lay still, my love, I wonβt be long,
I must prepare my body for passion.'
'O, your body you give, but all else you ration...
β
β
Roman Payne
β
When he nodded, the physician disappeared into thin air, and then a moment later, Payne felt a warm palm encompass hers. It was Vishous's un-gloved hand against her own and the connection between them eased her in ways she couldn't name. Verily, she had lost her mother . . . but if she lived through this, she still had family. On this side.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
β
I once had a love who folded secrets between her thighs like napkins
and concealed memories in the valley of her breasts.
There was no match for the freckles on her chest,
and no one could mistake them for a field of honeysuckles.
Upon her lips, a thousand lies were spread in sweet gloss.
Her kiss was like a storybook from ancient history.
She was at home with the body of a man inside her, beside her.
At night, when she lay in bed crying,
no one could mistake the tears she wept for a summer shower
She is gone, my love. She was a wanderess, a wildflower.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
We look up to see if it is day or night.
If stars burn cool and moon does shine,
We take to smoke divine and wine.
If breath of sun does belch its heat,
we boil coffee and prepare to eat.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Favoring 'resolution' the way we do, it is hard for us men to write great love stories. Why?, because we want to tell too much. We arenβt satisfied unless at the end of the story the characters are lying there, panting.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Be there a picnic for the devil,
an orgy for the satyr,
and a wedding for the bride.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Basement Trains (a 21st century poem) (English and French Edition))
β
A girl without braids is like a city without bridges.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Being comfortable with who you are is the ultimate threat.
β
β
Sean Beaudoin (You Killed Wesley Payne)
β
She is my morning, she is my evening; we have a love that blooms over and again, more beautifully each time than the last. You will see that we are not lovers like others, for whom love is both a punishment and a gift⦠Our love has never punished, only rewarded. Such love therein lies the eudaimonic life.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkennessβ(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
When she was a child, my love carried a road-map in her hand the way other girls carried handkerchiefs.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Apollinaire said a poet should be 'of his time.' I say objects of the Digital Age belong in newspapers, not literature. When I read a novel, I donβt want credit cards; I want cash in ducats and gold doubloons.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
As for girls, they must risk everything for freedom, and give everything for passion... loving everything that their hearts and their bodies love. The only thing higher for a girl and more sacred for a young woman than her freedom and her passion should be her desire to make her life into poetry, surrendering everything she has to create a life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in her imagination.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Did I live the spring Iβd sought?
Itβs true in joy, I walked along,
took part in dance,
and sang the song.
and never tried to bind an hour
to my borrowed garden bower;
nor did I once entreat
a day to slumber at my feet.
Yet days arenβt lulled by lyric song,
like morning birds they pass along,
oβer crests of trees, to none belong;
oβer crests of trees of drying dew,
their larking flight, my hands, eschew
Thus Iβll say it once and trueβ¦
From all that I saw,
and everywhere I wandered,
I learned that time cannot be spent,
It only can be squandered.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
May a man live well-enough and long-enough, to leave many joyful widows behind him.
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
Dreams are like stars. you may never touch them, but if you follow them, they will lead you to your destiny.
β
β
Liam Payne
β
Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, Iβve no regrets.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Iβm so sorry weβll never meet,β she whispered, laying her posy atop the late Lord and Lady Payneβs grave. βBut thank you. For him. I promise, Iβll love him as fiercely as I can. Kindly send down some blessings when you can spare them. Weβll probably need them, from time to time.
β
β
Tessa Dare (A Week to be Wicked (Spindle Cove, #2))
β
In the tapestry of childhood, what stands out is not the splashy, blow-out trips to Disneyland but the common threads that run throughout and repeat: the family dinners, nature walks, reading together at bedtime, Saturday morning pancakes.
β
β
Kim John Payne
β
Wanderess, Wanderess, weave us a story of seduction and ruse. Heroic be the Wanderess, the world be her muse.'
...I jot this phrase of invocation in my old leather-bound notebook on a bright, cold morning at the CafΓ© **** in Paris, and with it Iβm inspired to take the reader back to the time I first met and became acquainted with the girl I call The Wanderessβas well as a famous adventurer named Saul, the Son of Solarus.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.
Her hands asleep beside her.
Her hair draped on the lawn
like a mantle of cloth.
I give her my life
for our love is whole
I sing her beauty
in my soul.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
A girl without braids
is like a city without bridges.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
When no possessions keep us, when no countries contain us, and no time detains us, man becomes a heroic wanderer, and woman, a wanderess.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Γ, Muse of the Heartβs Passion,
let me relive my Loveβs memory,
to remember her body, so brave and so free,
and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me,
and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me,
Γ, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy!
β
β
Roman Payne
β
After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my headβfor creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Γ, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,
more perfect than all that a man can invent.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition (Only the First Chapters))
β
For shitβs sake, it wasnβt like there was a twelve-step for being the Scribe Virginβs kid:
Hi, Iβm Vishous. Iβm her son and Iβve been her son for three hundred years.
HI, VISHOUS.
Sheβs done a head job on me again, and Iβm trying not to go to the Other Side and scream bloody murder at her.
WE UNDERSTAND, VISHOUS.
And on the bloody note, Iβd like to dig up my father and kill him all over again, but I canβt. So Iβm just going to try to keep my sister alive even though sheβs paralyzed, and attempt to fight the urge to find some pain so I can deal with this Payne.
YOUβRE A STRAIGHT-UP PUSSY, VISHOUS, BUT WE SUPPORT YOUR SORRY ASS.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #9))
β
Rest in Peace?β Why that phrase? Thatβs the most ridiculous phrase Iβve ever heard! You die, and they say βRest in Peace!β β¦Why would one need to βrestβ when theyβre dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne dβArc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and Iβm only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly wonβt need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
It was a time I slept in many rooms, called myself by many names. I wandered through the quarters of the city like alluvium wanders the river banks. I knew every kind of joy, ascents of every hue. Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
She is my morning, she is my evening; we have a love that blooms over and again, more beautifully each time than the last.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
So the nymphs they spoke,
we kissed and laid.
By noontimeβs hour
our love was made.
Like braided chains of crocus stems,
we lay entwined, I laid with them.
Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea,
our bodies draping wearily,
we slept, I slept so lucidly,
with hopes to stay this memory.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
I will always know the glory of the beautiful and rare, as they will know security from labour and prayer. As they will hear the laughter of the children they gave life, I will know the torments of the song born under knife.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I met Anne in the autumn... Autumn, that wild season when rural men rack orchard trees with sticks and weep with the desire to kiss faraway Demeterβs supple breastsβto set lips to her travel-swollen eyes. They seek goddesses, but I desired only Anne.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Opium: that terrible truth serum. Dark secrets guarded for a lifetime can be divulged with carefree folly after a sip of the black smoke.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I prefer peace, but if trouble must come, let it be in my time that my children may know peace.
β
β
Thomas Paine
β
A glorious death would be in my
final breath to take before I die, to hear
one final time on my belovèd's mouth
the sound of her eternal sigh.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Confession can be good for the soul, but it can exact a heavy toll on friendships.
β
β
C.D. Payne (Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One)
β
The season was waning fast
Our nights were growing cold at last
I took her to bed with silk and song,
'Lay still, my love, I wonβt be long;
I must prepare my body for passion.'
'O, your body you give, but all else you ration.'
'It is because of these dreams of a sylvan scene:
A bleeding nymph to leave me serene...
I have dreams of a trembling wench.'
'You have dreams,' she said, 'that cannot be quenched.'
'Our passion,' said I, 'should never be feared;
As our longing for love can never be cured.
Our want is our way and our way is our will,
We have the love, my love, that no one can kill.'
'If night is your love, then in dreams youβll fulfill...
This love, our love, that no one can kill.'
Yet want is my way, and my way is my will,
Thus I killed my love with a sleeping pill.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Whoβs to say what a βliterary lifeβ is? As long as you are writing often, and writing well, you donβt need to be hanging-out in libraries all the time.
Nightclubs are great literary research centers. So is Ibiza!
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
You hand fits in mine like its made to be but bear this in mind it was meant to be and im joining up the dots with the freckles on you cheeks and it all makes sense to me. I know you've never loved the crinkles by your eyes when you smile you've never loved your stomach or your thighs and the dimples in your back at the bottom of your spine but I love them endlessly.I won't let these little things slip out of my mouth but if i do its you oh its you they add up to and Im in love with you and all your little thing. You can't go to bed without a cup of tea and maybe thats the reason that you talk in you sleep and all those conversations are the secrets that I keep though it makes no sense to me. I know you've never loved the sound of your voice on tape you never want to know how much you weigh you still have to squeeze into to your jeans but you're perfect to me. I won't let these little things slip out of my mouth but if its true its you its these they add up to and Im in love with you and all you little things. You'll never love yourself half as much as I love you and you'll never treat yourself right darlin' but I want you to if I let you know I'm here for you then maybe you'll love yourself like I love you ohhhhh. And I've just let these little things slip out of my mouth cause its you oh its you its you they add up to and Im in love with you and all your little things I wont let these little things slip out of my mouth but if its true its you its you they add up to and im in love with you and all your little things. <3
β
β
One Direction
β
Intoxication, like sexual euphoria, is the privilege of the human animal.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
If you can love all who've betrayed you... you can taste sweetness in everything.
β
β
Holly Lynn Payne (DAMASCENA - The Tale of Roses and Rumi)
β
I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, Iβd seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common sight that will come again to oneβs eyes ad-infinitum, the value of life is diminished and life goes by uncherished. βThis may be my last moon,β I sighed, feeling a sudden sweep of sorrow; and went back to reading more of The Odyssey.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heartβs affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive and feeling, as fickle and uncertain as people. Their degrees of love and devotion are as varying as with any human relation. Just as one is good, another is bad.
β
β
Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)
β
A girl without braids is like a mountain without waterfalls.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
I sat up in the strange bed fearing it had been a dream, afraid I would never see her again. Not because I wanted anything from her, only her presence. The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Basement Trains (a 21st century poem) (English and French Edition))
β
May a man live well-, and long-enough, to leave many joyful widows behind him.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
The tragedy of Dionysus: Wear a black robe at night, and white youβll wear by morning; but wear a purple robe to the midnight feast, and when you wake youβll dress in black to mourn your soul deceased.
β
β
Roman Payne (Crepuscule)
β
Without knowing why or how, I found myself in love with this strange Wanderess. Maybe I was just in love with the dream she was selling me: a life of destiny and fate; as my own life up until we met had been so void of enchantment. Those things: mystery, fate, enchantment... they are things that young people offer us as soon as we get close to them. And if we're not careful, we can be seduced by, and drawn back into, the youthful world they preside over.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Γ, wine!, the truth-serum so potent that all those who wish to live happy lives should abstain from drinking it entirely!... except of course when they are alone.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
The worst thing a boy could do to a girl is ignore her while she is loving you with all her heart
β
β
Liam Payne
β
What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; it's dearness only that gives everthing its value.
β
β
Thomas Paine
β
Somewhere Iβd heard, or invented perhaps, that the only pleasures found during a waning moon are misfortunes in disguise. Superstition aside, I avoid pleasure during the waning or absent moon out of respect for the bounty this world offers me. I profit from great harvests in life and believe in the importance of seasons.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Sometimes I can feel my darkness, like a fragment of nerves inside of me somewhere, sparking my hate. I picture it moving throughout my body, the other cells letting it pass by, yielding to its master. It moves to my tongue when it wants me to spew beautiful, damaging words, it moves to my hands when it wants me to feel all it can take away, and it moves to my eyes to blind me from truly seeing the destruction Iβve done.
β
β
Piper Payne (Breathing Black (The Black and White Duet, #1))
β
I used to be a poet.
My words were traded in marketplaces like pieces of gold.
Merchants bought my verses for as much as they paid for saffron and Indian jade.
Now I am old...
drunk on wine and candle fumes.
Alone in this barren room, I speak my psalms to the night air
so as to entertain moths before they go off to die.
I used to be a poet
and my words were gold.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
It is possible that God is the way Annie Payne used to lean her old head against my shoulder...Drew's arms holding me...Ron Dunham walking out of the woods hand in hand with a child lost, then found. It is possible that God is my neighbor with her pan of brownies standing on my doorstep. It is entirely possible, that is, that the God I serve and worship with all my body, all my mind, all my soul, and all my spirit is love...It's enough. It's all the God I need.
β
β
Kate Braestrup (Here If You Need Me)
β
Intoxication, like sexual euphoria, is the privilege of the human animal. Sexual frenzy is our compensation for the tedious moments we must suffer in the passage of life. βNothing in excessβ professed the ancient Greeks. Why, if I spend half the month in healthy scholarship and pleasant sleep, shouldnβt I be allowed the other half to howl at the moon and pillage the groins of Europeβs great beauties?
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Womankind always seems to be able to see a dozen steps into the future, far ahead of what men are able to see. And they have strength where we do not.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
The birthing wolf,
Her heart fed with tenderness,
Gave forth from ripe brown nipples,
Food to feed the universe.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
The moment her hymen was plucked from her body in the wilderness,
Her soul was taken from sanity.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Ah, youth!
It was a beautiful night...
The moon was out of orbit.
The stars were awry.
But everything else was exactly
as it should have been.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
The word "travel" comes from the Old French word "travail" (or "travailler"), which means "to work, to labor; a suffering or painful effort, an arduous journey, a tormenting experience." ("Travel," thus, is "a painful and laborious journey"). Whereas "to wander" comes from the West Germanic word "wandran," which simply means "to roam about." There is no labor or torment in "wandering." There is only "roaming." Wandering is the activity of the child, the passion of the genius; it is the discovery of the self, the discovery of the outside world, and the learning of how the self is both "at one with" and "separate from" the outside world. These discoveries are as fundamental to the soul as "learning to survive" is fundamental to the body. These discoveries are essential to realizing what it means to be human. To wander is to be alive.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition (Only the First Chapters))
β
He found Podrick Payne asleep in a chair outside the door of the solar, and shook him by the shoulder. "Summon Bronn, and then tun down to the stables and have two horses saddled." (Tyrion).
The squire's eyes were cloudy with sleep. "Horses". (squire)
"Those big brown animals that love apples, I'm sure you've seen them. Four legs and a tail. But Bronn first." (Tyrion)
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β
What a face this girl possessed!βcould I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender PsychΓ© and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air!βalmost foul, with so many odors. Γ, that and the spicy night! β¦Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl tooβthe moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Γ, the wine of a woman
from heaven is sent,
more perfect than all
that a man can invent.
When she came to my bed and begged me with sighs
not to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise,
I told her Iβd spare her and kissed her closed eyes,
then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise.
While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fine
I devoured her mouth, tender lips divine;
and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine.
Γ, the wine of a woman
from heaven is sent,
more perfect than all
that a man can invent.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and Iβll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Alexander the Great slept with
'The Iliad' beneath his pillow.
Though Iβve never led an army,
I am a wanderer. I cradle
'The Odyssey' nights while the
moon is waning, as if it were
the sweet body of a woman.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Napoleon was just a general of forgotten battles compared with the queen who paid for Shakespeare's meals and beer in the tavern. The statesman who in his time freed the slaves, even he has a few enemies in posterity, whereas the literary patron has none. We thank Gaius Maecenas for the nobility of soul we attribute to Virgil; but he isnβt blamed for the selfishness and egocentricity that the poet possessed. The patron creates 'literature through altruism,' something not even the greatest genius can do with a pen.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
This was the first time I thought of Sβ that day. Her music was beautiful, her voice was beautiful, her body was beautiful. Even the dirty little pads of her feet were beautiful. I cursed myself then. For once, heaven had sent me Beauty in its most perfected form and I abandoned it. She might not have been a girl after all but an angel: a force to guide me on this hazardous path of life I hurry down. How can life be hazardous if it can only end in death?
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Itβs not that we have to quit
this life one day, but itβs how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains... if only one
could leave this life slowly!
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
The green-eyed angel came in less than a half hour and fell docile as a lamb into my arms. We kissed and caressed, I met no resistance when I unlaced the strings to free her dress and fill myself in the moist and hot bed nature made between her thighs. We made love outdoorsβwithout a roof, I like most, without stove, my favorite place, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and dripping with dew, and our love for each other was seen. Our love for the world was new.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
Iβm afraid youβre going to break me, Quinn.β
βDonβt let me.β The challenge in his eyes intensified, heating up and pouring strength into me. βDonβt you let me fucking do that, Emilie. Donβt let anyone break you. Youβre stronger than that.
β
β
Lyla Payne (Broken at Love (Whitman University, #1))
β
I just wish moments werenβt so fleeting!' Isaac called to the man on the roof, 'They pass so quickly!'
'Fleeting?!' responded the tilling man, 'Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly?' And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the dejected Isaac continued wandering.
'Stupid fool!' Isaac muttered quietly to himself as soon as he was far enough away not to be heard.
β
β
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
β
She called herself an angel, and wandered the world from girlhood till death. She lived every kind of life and dreamt every kind of dream. She was wild in her wandering, a drop of free water. She believed only in her life, and only in her dreams. She called herself an angel, and her god was Beauty.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
In my errant life I roamed
to learn the secrets of women and men,
of gods and dreams.
I lived in wealth and poverty,
in fame and calamity.
I saw every country of our world,
I lived a thousand lives.
Many lives I spent, other lives I squandered,
for in my life I never traveled, all I did was wander.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
We made love outdoorsβwithout a roof, I like most, without stove, my favorite place, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and dripping with dew, and our love for each other was seen. Our love for the world was new.
β
β
Roman Payne
β
She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She was brave, and I never once saw her cry out of fear. She never cried because she was afraid that something would happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, would not happen⦠She believed if I gave in to make her fortune become realized, the world would be ultimately profound and beautiful. I guess I held out because I feared the realization of her fortune would mean the destruction of us together. And each time she cried, I fell a little more deeply in love with her.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
I knelt and locked the door. I locked the door locking the world and time outside. I stretched my body across the mattress and Saskia drew in close to me and placed her open hand on my chest, her mouth near my shoulder; her breath, my breath blew out the candle, and I held my lost Wanderess with tenderness until sweet sleep overcame us.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death⦠And they should! ...For they are 'in' life.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, βLook at my beautiful home! Isnβt it fine?β And not, βLook at the home so-and-so has built.β Thus we shouldnβt cry, βLook what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!β But rather, βLook at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?
β
β
Roman Payne
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When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy-girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death... And they should! ...For they are in life.
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Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
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I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnationβnone other than an interest in being born again as somebody elseβsuggests that he is not happy!
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Roman Payne
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Not to waste the spring
I threw down everything,
And ran into the open world
To sing what I could sing...
To dance what I could dance!
And join with everyone!
I wandered with a reckless heart
beneath the newborn sun.
First stepping through the blushing dawn,
I crossed beneath a garden bower,
counting every hermit thrush,
counting every hour.
When morning's light was ripe at last,
I stumbled on with reckless feet;
and found two nymphs engaged in play,
approaching them stirred no retreat.
With naked skin, their weaving hands,
in form akin to Calliope's maids,
shook winter currents from their hair
to weave within them vernal braids.
I grabbed the first, who seemed the stronger
by her soft and dewy leg,
and swore blind eyes,
Lest I find I,
before Diana, a hunted stag.
But the nymphs they laughed,
and shook their heads.
and begged I drop beseeching hands.
For one was no goddess, the other no huntress,
merely two girls at play in the early day.
"Please come to us, with unblinded eyes,
and raise your ready lips.
We will wash your mouth with watery sighs,
weave you springtime with our fingertips."
So the nymphs they spoke,
we kissed and laid,
by noontime's hour,
our love was made,
Like braided chains of crocus stems,
We lay entwined, I laid with them,
Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea,
Our bodies draping wearily.
We slept, I slept so lucidly,
with hopes to stay this memory.
I woke in dusty afternoon,
Alone, the nymphs had left too soon,
I searched where perched upon my knees
Heard only larks' songs in the trees.
"Be you, the larks, my far-flung maids?
With lilac feet and branchlike braids...
Who sing sweet odes to my elation,
in your larking exaltation!"
With these, my clumsy, carefree words,
The birds they stirred and flew away,
"Be I, poor Actaeon," I cried, "Be deadβ¦
Before they, like Hippodamia, be gone astray!"
Yet these words, too late, remained unheard,
By lark, that parting, morning bird.
I looked upon its parting flight,
and smelled the coming of the night;
desirous, I gazed upon its jaunt,
as Leander gazes Hellespont.
Now the hour was ripe and dark,
sensuous memories of sunlight past,
I stood alone in garden bowers
and asked the value of my hours.
Time was spent or time was tossed,
Life was loved and life was lost.
I kissed the flesh of tender girls,
I heard the songs of vernal birds.
I gazed upon the blushing light,
aware of day before the night.
So let me ask and hear a thought:
Did I live the spring Iβd sought?
It's true in joy, I walked along,
took part in dance,
and sang the song.
and never tried to bind an hour
to my borrowed garden bower;
nor did I once entreat
a day to slumber at my feet.
Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song,
like morning birds they pass along,
o'er crests of trees, to none belong;
o'er crests of trees of drying dew,
their larking flight, my hands, eschew
Thus I'll say it once and trueβ¦
From all that I saw,
and everywhere I wandered,
I learned that time cannot be spent,
It only can be squandered.
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Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)