frost
The day she was born was one of frost rather than snow, yet her father chose seol, snow, as one of the characters for his daughter’s name. Growing up, she was unusually sensitive to the cold and resente...
2024-12-15 12:04:35 +0000 UTC View Post
ON THE COOL OCTOBER MORNING when Cayetana Chavez brought her baby to light, it was the start of that season in Sinaloa when the humid torments of summer finally gave way to breezes and falling leaves, and small red birds skitte...
2024-12-14 08:42:01 +0000 UTC View Post
"I shall speak about women’s writing: about what it will do. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies – for the same reasons, by the s...
2024-12-13 13:22:54 +0000 UTC View Post
"The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the g...
2024-12-13 09:59:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest n...
I wakened myself last night with my own shouting. It must have been that terrible yellow plant I saw pushing through the flood-damp soil near the log by Tinker Creek, the plant as fleshy and featureless as a slug, that erupted through the floor of...
2024-12-12 08:38:45 +0000 UTC View PostI am thinking of making more of a concerted effort in the new year to nurture conversation and discussion on my Patreon. Not as a cynical ploy to keep people engaged but rather because I just like the idea that this could potentially be a platform...
2024-12-11 11:55:54 +0000 UTC View Post
“Three Sides of a Coin"
Am I in your light?
No, go on reading
&n...
“The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart
I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;
I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts...
“Isn't there something in living dangerously?'
There's a great deal in it,' the Controller replied. 'Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.'
What?' questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
It's o...
To see you naked is to remember the Earth,
the smooth Earth, clean of horses,
the Earth without reeds, pure form,
closed to the future, confine of silver.
To see you naked is to understand the desire
of rain that looks for the d...
“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.
First, there was the heaving oil,
heavy as chaos;
then, likea...
"The god of today is rampant and drenched. His arms spread, bearing moist pastures; his fingers spread, fingering the shore. He is time’s live skin; he burgeons up from day like any tree. His legs spread crossing the heavens, flicking hugely, an...
2024-12-08 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
...
“How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing---
each stone, blossom, child---
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,...
"Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.
— Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred ...
“Paths of the mirror"
I
And above all else, to look with innocence. As if nothing was happening, which is true.
II
But you, I want to look at you until your face escapes from my fear like a bird from the sharp
edge of the ...
“In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his s...
“Go on, my dear," urges the snake. "Take one. Hear it? 'Pluck me,' it's saying. That big, shiny red one. 'Pluck me, pluck me now and pluck me hard.' You know you want to."
"But God," quotes Eve, putting out feelers for an agent p...
1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
“Gulls wheel through spokes of sunlight over gracious roofs and dowdy thatch, snatching entrails at the marketplace and escaping over cloistered gardens, spike-topped walls and treble-bolted doors. Gulls alight on whitewashed gables, creaking pa...
2024-12-04 12:25:36 +0000 UTC View Post
“Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essenc...
2024-12-03 12:18:48 +0000 UTC View Post
“Wind in a Box"
—after Lorca
I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket
of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice.
I want to learn to walk without blinking.
I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle’...
“Place this salt in water and bring it here tomorrow morning".
The boy did.
"Where is that salt?" his father asked?
"I do not see it."
"Sip here. How does it taste?"
"Salty, father."
"And here? And there...
“I touch your mouth, I touch the edge of your mouth with my finger, I am drawing it as if it were something my hand was sketching, as if for the first time your mouth opened a little, and all I have to do is close my eyes to erase it and start a...
2024-12-01 17:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
“I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can't help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the...
2024-12-01 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
“The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens -- but our lives are not as limite...
2024-11-30 13:01:16 +0000 UTC View Post
"Bandits. I kind of miss them," Segundo said. "Have you heard tell of La Carambada?"
"No."
"This is a true story."
Tía tipped ash into her mouth and tapped her foot: this was a waste of her time.
"She was my favorite b...
“What—in other words—would modern boredom be without terror? One of the most boring documents of all time is the thick volume of Hitler’s Table Talk. He too had people watching movies, eating pastries, and drinking coffee with Schlag while...
2024-11-29 09:30:52 +0000 UTC View Post
“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”
At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical cau...