Wounded Tiger Quotes

How poor are they that have no patients! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?'" "Shakespeare isn't going to save you this time, Superman. Your time's run out." He scowled. "Perhaps I should have been studying The Taming of the Shrew!

A wounded tiger is a dangerous beast.

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today - the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.

And Ren cracked open a jewelry box. Two strands of tiny beads wound around each other in gold and blue. Small diamond and sapphire flowers ran down the length of the chain and in the center hung a diamond lotus flower with a ruby center. I pressed trembling fingertips to my lips as I recognized Kishan's ring reworked into a new form....... I turned back to him and as he touched the beads along the edge, he spoke quietly, "Gold and blue tiger's eyes to remember what was found." His finger trailed down to the lotus ruby in the center. "A diamond lotus and red ruby to remember what was lost". He slid two fingers up the length of the chain over the dozens of tiny blue flowers. "And sapphire flowers that symbolize what will be.

Tigers, except when wounded or when man-eaters, are on the whole very good-tempered...Occassionally a tiger will object to too close an approach to its cubs or to a kill that it is guarding. The objection invariably takes the form of growling, and if this does not prove effective itis followed by short rushes accompanied by terrifying roars. If these warnings are disregarded, the blame for any injury inflicted rests entirely with the intruder"- Jim Corbett

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

Everyone knows that a wounded tiger is a dangerous beast.

I was the daughter of my father's wife. I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill, and more thin. I let myself become a wounded animal. I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi , the spirit that caused me so much pain. Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

Sometimes a savage beauty lured me into the sun and I would start to love the danger a little. On these occasions I felt the reluctant love drained painfully from me as blood drains from a deep wound. The tigers lapped my love’s blood and remained enemies. The inhabitants of the day laughed at the gift I wanted to bring them, and I shut myself in my inner room to escape the betrayal of their arrogant mouths.

As long as men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God maintained the strictest and most heartless neutrality. But when some honest man, some great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.

When a young tree is injured it grows around that injury. As the tree continues to develop, the wound becomes relatively small in proportion to the size of the tree. Gnarly burls and misshapen limbs speak of injuries and obstacles encountered through time and overcome. The way a tree grows around its past contributes to its exquisite individuality, character, and beauty. I certainly don't advocate for traumatization to build character, but since trauma is almost a given at some point in our lives, the image of the tree can be a valuable mirror.

BLOODY LIPS The bloody wound Of the gladiator Gurgles out life's end. The cries of acclimations from the stands Fill the sky with raging tigers. Waving their arms about to incite the masses The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena. Making their separate entries they K N E E L over the still-warm corpses Of the young. Their withered lips they pose Upon the fresh flowing wounds And, to prolong their lives – so they believe, Suck, ravenously suck out the blood, blood, blood. Fresh blood from the sun Flowing into filthy veins As into sewage pipes, And thus the Heart of the Nation is abandoned.

Kicked my ass is what he did,” Zander said as he laid towels around the wound. “Embarrassing. Polar bear Shifters are the biggest predators alive, and I let a tiger kick my butt.

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today--- the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.

I then felt like a tiger with a deadly arrow buried in its flesh and who was slowly circling the fearful people to find out who would have the courage to come up and free it from its pain. And then there is the person who knows that a wounded tiger is only as dangerous as a child. And coming up to the beast, unafraid to touch it, pulls out the embedded arrow.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and jumped when I turned and found Ren’s brother standing behind me as a man. Ren got up, alert, and watched him carefully, suspicious of Kishan’s every move. Ren’s tail twitched back and forth, and a deep grumble issued from his chest. Kishan look down at Ren, who had crept even closer to keep an eye on him, and then looked back at me. He reached out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then bowed deeply with great aplomb. “May I ask your name?” “My name is Kelsey. Kelsey hayes.” “Kelsey. Well, I, for one, appreciate all the efforts you have made on our behalf. I apologize if I frightened you earlier. I am,” he smiled, “out of practice in conversing with young ladies. These gifts you will be offering to Durga. Would you kindly tell me more about them?” Ren growled unhappily. I nodded. “Is Kishan your given name?” “My full name is actually Sohan Kishan Rajaram, but you can call me Kishan if you like.” He smiled a dazzling white smile, which was even more brilliant due to the contrast with his dark skin. He offered an arm. “Would you please sit and talk with me, Kelsey?” There was something very charming about Kishan. I surprised myself by finding I immediately trusted and liked him. He had a quality similar to his brother. Like Ren, he had the ability to set a person completely at ease. Maybe it was their diplomatic training. Maybe it was how their mother raised them. Whatever it was made me respond positively. I smiled at him. “I’d love to.” He tucked my arm under his and walked with me over to the fire. Ren growled again, and Kishan shot a smirk in his direction. I noticed him wince when he sat, so I offered him some aspirin. “Shouldn’t we be getting you two to a doctor? I really think you might need stitches and Ren-“ “Thank you, but no. You don’t need to worry about our minor pains.” “I wouldn’t exactly call your wounds minor, Kishan.” “The curse helps us to heal quickly. You’ll see. We’ll both recover swiftly enough on our own. Still, it was nice to have such a lovely young woman tending to my injuries.” Ren stood in front of us and looked like he was a tiger suffering from apoplexy. I admonished, “Ren, be civil.” Kishan smiled widely and waited for me to get comfortable. Then he scooted closer to me and rested his arm on the log behind my shoulders. Ren stepped right between us, nudged his brother roughly aside with his furry head, creating a wider space, and maneuvered his body into the middle. He dropped heavily to the ground and rested his head in my lap. Kishan frowned, but I started talking, sharing the story of what Ren and I had been through. I told him about meeting Ren at the circus and about how he tricked me to get me to India. I talked about Phet, the Cave of Kanheri, and finding the prophecy, and I told him that we were on our way to Hampi. As I lost myself in our story, I stroked Ren’s head. He shut his eyes and purred, and then he fell asleep. I talked for almost an hour, barely registering Kishan’s raised eyebrow and thoughtful expression as he watched the two of us together. I didn’t even notice when he’d changed back into a tiger.

I opened myself up to the kiss and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Putting all my secret emotions and tender feelings into the embrace, I wound my arms around his neck and slid my hands into his hair. Pulling his body that much closer to mine, I embraced him with all the warmth and affection that I wouldn’t allow myself to express verbally. He paused, shocked for a brief instant, and then quickly adjusted his approach, escalating into a passionate frenzy. I shocked myself by matching his energy. I ran my hands up his powerful arms and shoulders and then down his chest. My senses were in turmoil. I felt wild. Eager. I clutched at his shirt. I couldn’t get close enough to him. He even smelled delicious. You’d think that several days of being chased by strange creatures and hiking through a mysterious kingdom would make him smell bad. In fact, I wanted him to smell bad. I’m sure I did. I mean, how can you expect a girl to be fresh as a daisy while traipsing through the jungle and getting chased by monkeys. It’s just not possible. I desperately wanted him to have some fault. Some weakness. Some…imperfection. But Ren smelled amazing-like waterfalls, a warm summer day, and sandalwood trees all wrapped up in a sizzling, hot guy. How could a girl defend herself from a perfect onslaught delivered by a pefect person? I gave up and let Mr. Wonderful take control of my senses. My blood burned, my heart thundered, my need for him quickened, and I lost all track of time in his arms. All I was aware of was Ren. His lips. His body. His soul. I wanted all of him. Eventually, he put his hands on my shoulders and gently separated us. I was surprised that he had the strength of will to stop because I was nowhere near being able to. I blinked my eyes open in a daze. We were both breathing hard. “That was…enlightening,” he breathed. “Thank you, Kelsey.” I blinked. The passion that had dulled my mind dissipated in an instant, and my mind sharply focused on a new feeling. Irritation. “Thank you? Thank you! Of all the-“ I slammed up the steps angrily and then spun around to look down at him. “No! Thank you, Ren!” My hands slashed at the air. “Now you got what you wanted, so leave me alone!” I ran up the stairs quickly to put some distance between us. Enlightening? What was that about? Was he testing me? Giving me a one-to-ten score on my kissing ability? Of all the nerve? I was glad that I was mad. I could shove all the other emotions into the back of my mind and just focus on the anger, the indignation. He leapt up the stairs two at a time. “That’s not all I want, Kelsey. That’s for sure.” “Well, I no longer care about what you want!” He shot me a knowing look and raised an eyebrow. Then, he lifted his foot out of the opening, placed it on the dirt, and instantly changed back into a tiger. I laughed mockingly. “Ha!” I tripped over a stone but quickly found my footing. “Serves you right!” I shouted angrily and stumbled blindly along the dim path. After figuring out where to go, I marched off in a huff. “Come on, Fanindra. Let’s go find Mr. Kadam.

Atsushi hated pain. But pain had been an intimate part of his life for as long as he could remember. The pain of being stabbed, the pain from being punched, the pain of his hands numbing in the cold, pain inside his head, the pain of hunger—suffering clung to Atsushi like clothing, shaping him. Pain made Atsushi feel like himself. He didn’t know any other way to experience this feeling. After joining the detective agency, the nature of the pain changed, he got hurt less often, and he stopped feeling miserable. Instead, the crushing pressure of necessity tore at Atsushi’s flesh. It split open his shoulder, pierced his chest, and snapped off his leg. The agony was so unbearable that it was as if he could feel his soul leaving his body, but even then, he fought through the pain because it was worth it. He knew he could stubbornly resist the pain no matter how bad it got. There’s a beast inside me, thought Atsushi. And that’s not a metaphor. There’s a literal beast inside me. Right now, he’s howling and wildly feasting as he rampages. For some reason or another, he seems to have the power to negate wounds. Not the power to heal them or to recover but to negate. The reason he’s able to do this isn’t totally unrelated to my birth, probably. It’s not unrelated to the suffering I’ve had to bear all these years. The beast—the tiger—is a manifestation of something within me. I still don’t know what that something is, but if he commands me to stand, then I can’t not stand—just like if he negates my wounds, then my wounds have no choice but to disappear.

Martinsson fired. Wallander watched Lucia fly back and put his hand up to his shoulder. The gun fell from his hand and landed outside the counter. With a bellow Martinsson yanked himself free of the guy ropes and launched himself at the counter, straight at the wounded man. The counter collapsed, and Martinsson landed in a jumble of leather jackets. Wallander lunged forwards and grabbed the gun from mud. He saw Skinhead dash past him into crowd. No-one seemed to have noticed the shots. The traders in the surrounding stalls had watched in amazement as Martinsson made his ferocious tiger pounce. “Get after him,” Martinsson shouted from the heap of leather jackets. “I’ll take care of this bastard.

I see us as all sitting around naked, shivering, in a huge circle, looking up as the sky turns black and the stars flare out and somebody starts to tell a story, claims to see a pattern in the stars. And then someone else tells a story about the eye of the hurricane, the eye of the tiger. And the stories , the images, become the truth and we will kill each other rather than change one word of the story. But every once in a while, someone sees a new star, or claims to see it, a star in the north that changes the pattern, and that is devastating. People are outraged, they start up grunting in fury, they turn on the one who noticed it and club her to death. They sit back down, muttering. They take up smoking. They turn away from the north, not wanting it to be thought that they might be trying to catch sight of her hallucination. Some of them, however, are true believers, they can look straight north and never see even a glimpse of what she pointed to. The foresighted gather together and whisper. They already know that if that star is accepted, all the stories will have to be changed. They turn suspiciously to sniff out any of the others who might surreptitiously turn their heads to peer at the spot where this star is supposed to be. They catch a few they think are doing this; despite their protests, they are killed. The things must be stopped at the root. But the elders have to keep watching, and their watching convinces the others that there's really something there, so more and more people start to turn, and in time everyone sees it, or imagines they see it, and those that don't claim they do. So earth feels the wound, and Nature from her seat, sighting through all her Works, gives signs of woe, that all is lost. The stories all have to be changed: the whole world shudders. People sigh and weep and say how peaceful it was before in the happy golden times when everyone believed the old stories. But actually nothing whatever has changed except the stories.

The Koran is empathetic about the rights of other religions to practice their own beliefs. It unequivocally condemns attacks on civilians as a violation of Islam. It states that suicide, of any type, is an abomination. The tactic of suicide bombing, equated by many of the new atheists with Islam, did not arise from the Muslim world. This kind of terror, in fact, has its roots in radical Western ideologies, especially Leninism, not religion. And it was the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist group that draws its support from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka, which invented the suicide vest for their May 1991 suicide assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Suicide bombing is what you do when you do not have artillery or planes or missiles and you want to create maximum terror for an occupying power. It was used by secular anarchists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They bequeathed to us the first version of the car bomb: a horse-drawn wagon laden with explosives that was ignited on September 16, 1920, on Wall Street. The attack was carried out by Mario Buda, an Italian immigrant, in protest over the arrest of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. It left 40 people dead and wounded more than 200. Suicide bombing was adopted later by Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Hamas. But even in the Middle East, suicide bombing is not restricted to Muslims. In Lebanon during the suicide attacks in the 1980s against French, American and Israeli targets, only eight suicide bombings were carried out by Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were the work of communists and socialists. Three were carried out by Christians.

When the victor, in a fight of the cities, according to the law of warfare, executes the whole male population and sells all the women and children into slavery, we see, in the sanction of such a law, that the Greek deemed it a positive necessity to allow his hatred to break forth unimpeded; in such moments the compressed and swollen feeling relieved itself; the tiger bounded forth, a voluptuous cruelty shone out of his fearful eye. Why had the Greek sculptor to represent again and again war and fights in innumerable repetitions, extended human bodies whose sinews are tightened through hatred or through the recklessness of triumph, fighters wounded and writhing with pain, or the dying with the last rattle in their throat? Why did the whole Greek world exult in the fighting scenes of the "Iliad"? I am afraid, we do not understand them enough in "Greek fashion," and that we should even shudder, if for once we did understand them thus. But what lies, as the mother-womb of the Hellenic, behind the Homeric world? In the latter, by the extremely artistic definiteness, and the calm and purity of the lines we are already lifted far above the purely material amalgamation: its colours, by an artistic deception, appear lighter, milder, warmer; its men, in this coloured, warm illumination, appear better and more sympathetic — but where do we look, if, no longer guided and protected by Homer's hand, we step backwards into the pre-Homeric world? Only into night and horror, into the products of a fancy accustomed to the horrible. What earthly existence is reflected in the loathsome-awful theogonian lore: a life swayed only by the children of the night, strife, amorous desires, deception, age and death. Let us imagine the suffocating atmosphere of Hesiod's poem, still thickened and darkened and without all the mitigations and purifications, which poured over Hellas from Delphi and the numerous seats of the gods! If we mix this thickened Boeotian air with the grim voluptuousness of the Etruscans, then such a reality would extort from us a world of myths within which Uranos, Kronos and Zeus and the struggles of the Titans would appear as a relief. Combat in this brooding atmosphere is salvation and safety; the cruelty of victory is the summit of life's glories. And just as in truth the idea of Greek law has developed from murder and expiation of murder, so also nobler Civilisation takes her first wreath of victory from the altar of the expiation of murder. Behind that bloody age stretches a wave-furrow deep into Hellenic history. The names of Orpheus, of Musaeus, and their cults indicate to what consequences the uninterrupted sight of a world of warfare and cruelty led — to the loathing of existence, to the conception of this existence as a punishment to be borne to the end, to the belief in the identity of existence and indebtedness. But these particular conclusions are not specifically Hellenic; through them Greece comes into contact with India and the Orient generally. The Hellenic genius had ready yet another answer to the question: what does a life of fighting and of victory mean? and gives this answer in the whole breadth of Greek history.

A Russian poacher named Vladimir Markov shot and wounded a tiger but wasn’t able to track it down. Deciding that he didn’t want to walk away from the hunt empty-handed, the poacher stole part of the animal the tiger had killed and was in the process of eating when it ran away. This is where you’d expect the tiger to come bounding back into the clearing and kill the poacher. But this tiger’s brain was built more like that of Jason Voorhees. According to NPR, “The injured tiger hunted Markov down in a way that appears to be chillingly premeditated. The tiger staked out Markov’s cabin, systematically destroyed anything that had Markov’s scent on it, and then waited by the front door for Markov to come home.” Between twelve and forty-eight hours after he wounded the tiger, Markov returned home and was devoured by it,

JANUARY 10 Akiba When Akiba was on his deathbed, he bemoaned to his rabbi that he felt he was a failure. His rabbi moved closer and asked why, and Akiba confessed that he had not lived a life like Moses. The poor man began to cry, admitting that he feared God's judgment. At this, his rabbi leaned into his ear and whispered gently, “God will not judge Akiba for not being Moses. God will judge Akiba for not being Akiba.” —FROM THE TALMUD We are born with only one obligation—to be completely who we are. Yet how much of our time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead and alive? This is encouraged as necessary in the pursuit of excellence. Yet a flower in its excellence does not yearn to be a fish, and a fish in its unmanaged elegance does not long to be a tiger. But we humans find ourselves always falling into the dream of another life. Or we secretly aspire to the fortune or fame of people we don't really know. When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own. Yet when we compare ourselves to others, we see neither ourselves nor those we look up to. We only experience the tension of comparing, as if there is only one ounce of being to feed all our hungers. But the Universe reveals its abundance most clearly when we can be who we are. Mysteriously, every weed and ant and wounded rabbit, every living creature has its unique anatomy of being which, when given over to, is more than enough. Being human, though, we are often troubled and blocked by insecurity, that windedness of heart that makes us feel unworthy. And when winded and troubled, we sometimes feel compelled to puff ourselves up. For in our pain, it seems to make sense that if we were larger, we would be further from our pain. If we were larger, we would be harder to miss. If we were larger, we'd have a better chance of being loved. Then, not surprisingly, others need to be made smaller so we can maintain our illusion of seeming bigger than our pain. Of course, history is the humbling story of our misbegotten inflations, and truth is the corrective story of how we return to exactly who we are. And compassion, sweet compassion, is the never-ending story of how we embrace each other and forgive ourselves for not accepting our beautifully particular place in the fabric of all there is. Fill a wide bowl with water. Then clear your mind in meditation and look closely at your reflection. While looking at your reflection, allow yourself to feel the tension of one comparison you carry. Feel the pain of measuring yourself against another. Close your eyes and let this feeling through. Now, once again, look closely at your reflection in the bowl, and try to see yourself in comparison to no one.

the game required the ball to be hit out of the ground altogether, not merely over the boundary as is the case today.43

What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice, deep as thunder, unsettled her. Why did he have to be so handsome? She wanted to fall right inside those brown eyes. “I saw you in the living room with Ben . . . earlier.” His lips pulled upward, no doubt remembering Ben’s belly laughs. “He’s a fun kid.” She hated to wipe the smile from his face. “I know you mean well, Jake, but I think it’s best if you avoid spending time with the children.” The smile slid south. “We were just playing around.” “The children are getting attached to you. I don’t think it’s healthy.” His jaw flexed, his shoulders squared. “They need relationships now more than ever.” “Not from someone who’ll soon exit their lives.” He flinched. She hated to hurt his feelings, had a physical ache from wounding him. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said finally. “I don’t want to exit their lives. I don’t want to exit your life.” Maybe he thought they could be some happy family or something. It was time to tell him everything. “I’m selling Summer Place. We’ll be leaving the island soon. The Goldmans—our guests over the daffodil weekend—made an offer, and I accepted. I haven’t told the children yet, so I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention it. We’ll stay through closing in late June.” Jake’s lips parted. A second later they pressed together. He walked to the end of the porch and back. He reminded her of a caged tiger, constricted by the boundary of the porch. She hadn’t expected him to be so upset. When he passed, she set her hand on his bare arm, stopping him. The muscles flexed beneath her palm. He was so strong. She had the sudden image of him hitting Sean, using those muscles to protect her. She pulled her hand away as if his skin burned her. “They’ve had enough loss. They’ve already become attached to you, and that’s only going to hurt them more when we leave.” His face softened as he stared, his lips slackening, his eyes growing tender. His face had already darkened under the sun. Faint lines fanned the corner of his eyes. He reached toward her and ran his finger down the side of her face. “Don’t leave.” His touch left a trail of fire. She pressed her spine to the column. How could she want to dive into his arms and run away at the same time? Inside a riot kicked up. She was back in the apartment on Warren Street, coming home from school, slipping in the door, unsure if she’d find her mom racing around the kitchen, slumped on the bathroom tile, or just gone. The same uncertainty roiled in her now. “I have to.” “This is their home. Your engagement is over,” he said gently. “Is what you’re going back to as important as what you’re leaving?” He didn’t have to say he meant them. Us. She shook her head, dislodging his hand. How had he turned this all around? She

I had wounded the tigress on 7 April, and it was now the 10th. As a general rule a tiger is not considered to be dangerous—that is, liable to charge at sight—twenty-four hours after being wounded. A lot depends on the nature of the wound, however, and on the temper of the wounded individuals. Twenty-four hours after receiving a light flesh wound a tiger usually moves away on being approached, whereas a tiger with a painful body-wound might continue to be dangerous for several days. I did not know the nature of the wound the tigress was

Audrey’s reaction to the tall, dark-haired ex-soldier had been more than a little perplexing. Christopher hadn’t understood why his normally sanguine sister-in-law became so shy and clumsy whenever Bennett was near. “It’s because he’s a tiger,” Beatrix had explained in private, “and Audrey is a swan, and tigers always make swans nervous. She finds him very attractive, but she doesn’t think he’s the kind of gentleman she should keep company with.” Bennett, for his part, seemed quite taken with Audrey, but every time he had made a careful advance to her, she had retreated. And then with startling quickness, the two of them seemed to have become fast friends. They went on rides and walks together and corresponded frequently when they were apart. When they were both in London, they were always seen in each other’s company. Mystified by the change in their formerly awkward relationship, Christopher asked Bennett what had happened to alter it. “I told her I was impotent from old war wounds,” Bennett said. “That calmed her nerves considerably.” Taken aback, Christopher had brought himself to ask gingerly, “Are you?” “Hell no,” came Bennett’s indignant reply. “I only said it because she was so skittish around me. And it worked.” Christopher had given him a sardonic glance. “Are you ever going to tell Audrey the truth?” A mischievous smile had played at the corners of Bennett’s lips. “I may let her cure me soon,” he admitted. Seeing Christopher’s expression, he had added hastily that his intentions were entirely honorable. It was a good match. And in Christopher’s opinion, his brother would have approved.

Love Hurts. I daresay there’s two or three poems, six novels and at least twelve songs on the subject. That’s how the Janus-faced beast of poetry gets written in the first place, in all its myriad of magical forms. So; why cover this hitherto uncharted and highly original territory? Why leap fearlessly into the unknown, nostrils flared, eyes flashing fire? Well, in the name of love, lust and limerence, why on earth not? Suffering is gratuitous and pointless, yet also vital, valuable and necessary. My last tête à tête gave me plenty, incorporating elements of the forbidden, of rebellion, pornography, pregnancy, parental approval – followed by fury – of infidelity, friend estrangement, life on one island that was heavenly and a second that veered between purgatorial and infernal, of violence, miscarriage, masturbating Indians, pepper spray, antipathy, disloyalty, evictions, a planned future, failed globetrotting and habitual lies, whilst being indicative of a wider, all-encompassing social corrosion, and while the story itself may remain merely hinted at or alluded to in the course of this generalised polemic, it’s as worthy or valid as any other such tale told round the campfire and whispered across the beaches of the world. All life’s a roll of the dice, tiger; ride into the bastard storm and if your wounds hurt, be grateful you survived to lick them, even in the darkest nights of the soul when the sun is a mattress fire the god of your love died in. Love Hurts, and in a stupendous and savage cosmos, it’s my right to sit at the keyboard and bleed. Besides, love, poverty and war are the necessary accoutrements to a fulfilled life; this is the all-encompassing theme of our human condition and the crooning, persuasive symphony of that philosophically unfathomable miracle of life itself… especially as love leads to poverty and war. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, after all. I certainly am… we choose our own chains... ~excerpt, "Love Hurts

children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today—the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today—the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.

As Woods lay unconscious on the road at 2:25 a.m. on November 27, 2009, blood on his teeth and lips, he finally appeared as he truly was-a vulnerable, fragile, deeply wounded person.

And now let me collect my strength and my thoughts and focus with everything I have on the horror of our earthly existence, on the imperfection of the world, on the myriad lives torn asunder, on the beasts that devour one another, on the snake that bites a stag as it grazes in the shade, on the wolves that slaughter sheep, on the mantises that consume their males, on the bees that die once they sting, on the mothers who labor to bring us into the world, on the blind kittens children toss into rivers, on the terror of the fish in the whale's entrails and the terror of the beaching whale, on the sadness of an elephant dying of old age, on the butterfly's fleeting joy, on the deceptive beauty of the flower, on the fleeting illusion of a lover's embrace, on the horror of spilt seed, on the impotence of the aging tiger, on the rotting of teeth in the mouth, on the myriad dead leaves lining the forest floor, on the fear of the fledgling when its mother pushes it out of the nest, on the infernal torture of the worm baking in the sun as if roasting in living fire, on the anguish of a lover's parting, on the horror known by lepers, on the hideous metamorphoses of women's breasts, on wounds, on the pain of the blind...

The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind of history. All these stories that we haven't been telling all this time, that we haven't been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we're broken. And don't make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived is not a badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient? When we go to tell our stories, people think we want it to have gone differently. People want to say things like "sore losers" and "move on already, quit playing the blame game." But is it a game? Only those who have lost as much as we have see the particularly nasty slice of smile on someone who thinks they're winning when they say "Get over it." This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, “It’s too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings.” And then someone else on board says something like, “But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d’oeuvres.” At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who’d been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can’t get to him soon enough, or they don’t even try, and the yacht’s speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered. If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.

I’m wounded, Tiger. You don't believe me? And I thought you loved me.

ALL kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint. All the believing kings are in heaven—all the doubting philosophers in perdition. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground. Libraries could hardly contain the names of the Christian wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest, no minister, describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted—they had never thought—they accepted the creed as they did the fashion of their clothes. They were not infidels, they could not be—they had been baptized, they had not denied the divinity of Christ, they had partaken of the "last supper." They respected priests, they admitted that Christ had two natures and the same number of wills; they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded," and that, according to the multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and three times one is one, and these things put pillows beneath their heads and covered them with the drapery of peace. They admitted that while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger. He will not be wounded in battle. For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn, Tigers no place to use their claws, And weapons no place to pierce. Why is this so? Because he has no place for death to enter.

The wounds Mao sought to reopen had been inflicted during the nineteenth century when the future superpowers were grinding against each other like so many tectonic plates. The world as we know it was forming then, along fault lines of race, culture, and geography.

He paced the room like a caged tiger, splendid in his wounded anger.

As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today. The most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.