17
Break of Day, by Jorge Luis Borges
Most of us have to suffer the mediocrity of passionless people teach words that emanated from the hearts of deeply passionate people. Because what poetry is about is passion, and what’s forbidden in the modern world is passion. It’s actually forbidden; you can’t be passionate about anything. And woe unto you if you are passionate!
Hamza Yusuf, What Happened to Poetry?
This morning
I woke to find
termites
eating away at
my home…
my friends
assured me that
the good
liberal ones
were not involved
kwame alexander, life (for professor derrick bell). (via black-poetry)
Murmur
Murmur is not
the sound of water.
It’s
the whine
of the stone.
Murmur is not
the sound of water.
It’s
the whine
of the stone.
Bed
The horizon is
the sun’s pillow
and the night
its bed.
The horizon is
the sun’s pillow
and the night
its bed.
Lending
Did the bird lend
its wings
to that tree?
Whenever the wind blows
the branches
lean
with
the feathers.
Did the bird lend
its wings
to that tree?
Whenever the wind blows
the branches
lean
with
the feathers.
Equation
He dreams
to see.
He sees
to dream.
He dreams
to see.
He sees
to dream.
Fatigue
His footsteps
are the ashes
of the embers
of his dreams.
His footsteps
are the ashes
of the embers
of his dreams.
Sleight
He
sleeps
to awaken
his dreams.
He
sleeps
to awaken
his dreams.
Yawning
Death
is a long
yawning.
Death
is a long
yawning.
Darkness
Like death, poetry
is a terrible idea.
They both
lead us
(involuntarily)
to dark
places.
……………
Like death, poetry
is a terrible idea.
They both
lead us
(involuntarily)
to dark
places.
……………
-MOHAMMAD AL-SALEHI
Rule No. 1: Show and Tell. Most people say, “Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do. “And what do you have for us today, Marcy?” “A penetrating psychological study of a young med student who receives disturbing news from a former lover.” “How marvelous! Timmy, what are you holding there?” “It’s a Calvinoesque romp through an unnamed metropolis much like New York, narrated by an armadillo.” “Such imagination!” Show and Tell, followed by a good nap.
Colson Whitehead’s [debatable] Rules for Writing.
from “Tales of a Severed Head”
XIII
And you
you the shadow of yourself
you who move forward like a horse
head on one side and body on the other,
who see one half of the sea
and don’t stop searching for the other,
who put your eyes in your mouth
your mouth in a bottle
the bottle in the sea
and the whole sea in a cigarette.
You seated on a rock the whole sea
rolling in smoke
into your chest.
You become sea horse for an evening
for a night,
become sea horse so that there will be
no more night
so that there will be no more mornings to
ask yourself
on what rock to rest your head,
in what dust to place your feet
and no other mornings to ask yourself
“And today…?”.
You on your rock
with no more grass to smoke
and crying for a lost ocean
and scraping a shard of seashell
with your nails
to find a scrap of noise in it.
You suddenly become fragile again
a man again
become the pauper you used to be
with your memories of orphanages
with your stock of cigarette-butts
listen to what my mouth pronounces.
Rachida Madani.
Perhaps creating something is nothing but an act of profound remembrance.
Rainer Maria Rilke, The Poet’s Guide to Life.
My dad has always told me this.
(Source: proustitute, via booklover)
It’s that time of night again.
I just saw this magnificent painting of a starry night sky, and surrounding it (thanks tumblr layout) are such things as a minimalist sketch of a giraffe, Parisian coffee-table duly equipped with all the fixings for a perfect Sunday morning, shots from a posture class in the 1950s, and a certain photo of Malcolm X speaking while holding up a newspaper headlined with “OUR FREEDOM CAN’T WAIT!”
This being tumblr, and me being in that poetic night ~zone~ where I think all my contemplative, existential thoughts that will definitely embarrass me tomorrow and oh my God if I delete this tomorrow morning, you guys will all pretend it never happened, right?
But anyways.
The point is; zoom out, and the universe overwhelms. zoom in, and the world still is pretty damn breathtaking. Realizing the inimitable simplicity of the heavenwards grander scale is humbling, but so is remembering that all these separate (sometimes warring and sometimes loving but mostly indifferent) worlds are joined under it. It’s kindof like an imploding wonder; you could think smaller and smaller only to discover larger and more mysterious galaxies in the mundane, and all you can wonder is how they’re all part of the same scheme.
I wish for you a really mean boss - one who makes you cry. Let’s be honest… this is a tough business.. one where you have to push and bully your way to a story. You need to develop a thick skin early on. One of my first professional memories was of being pushed off a ladder in a media stampede outside a court, when I got thrown to the floor and the mic dropped from my hand. Instead of giving me any sympathy, my cameraman fired me up. I learned right then, both in the field and in my newsroom, you have to stand still as others try to push you around. So when the boss blows you up for missing the big interview of the day, you learn to go to the washroom, weep a little, and then go get the interview.
@suhasinih on Twitter.
(via mehreenkasana)
Wearing no turban, his head shaved as a sign of mourning, the venerable qadi Abu Sa’ad al-Harawi burst with a loud cry into the spacious diwan of the caliph al-Mustazhir Billah, a throng of companions, young and old, trailing in his wake.
‘How dare you slumber in the shade of complacent safety,’ he began, ‘leading lives as frivolous as garden flowers while your brothers in Syria have no dwelling place save the saddles of camels and the bellies of vultures? Blood has been spilled! Beautiful young girls have been shamed, and must now hide their sweet faces in their hands! Shall the valorous Arabs resign themselves to insult, and the valiant Persians accept dishonour?’
‘It was a speech that brought tears to many an eye and moved men’s hearts,’ the Arab chroniclers would later write. The entire audience broke out in wails and lamentations. But al-Harawi had not come to elicit sobs.
‘Man’s meanest weapon, he shouted, ‘is to shed tears when rapiers stir the coals of war.’
- Amin Maaalouf, ‘The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.’ (via finjangahwa)
Reblogging because, sadly, it’s still relevant.
(via theconflictedromantic)
The thief of canvas
I saw a country embracing me
With morning hands: be
Worthy of the smell of bread. Be
worthy of the pavement flowers
Because your mother’s oven is still on fire
And the greeting is warm just like a loaf
Jamal Bdouma, The thief of canvas
Casablanca
…
Think of your walking death on the sidewalk
Ask about the color of your shrouds
The form of your funeral
Who will walk in it
Who will say the prayers
All the hands beseeching the roof of the bus
But there you go
You wish to utter this weakened scream
Sitting in your ethereal cafe Casablanca
The sad clouds of your coffee
Thicken in the sky of a newspaper
Suspended in your shivering hands
It is raining blood
Havoc
Shells
-Ikram Abdi, Casablanca
A Syrian woman in the town of Houla says she hid behind a door as gunmen shot dead children in the house.
The government has blamed “terrorists” for the killings, which the opposition said were carried out by government forces and pro-Assad thugs.
My God. Imagine the survivor’s guilt she’s going to be plagued with for the rest of her life.
