Two poems - Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers, by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.


No More Clichés

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.
From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

Gibran's "Song of the Soul XXII"

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.

How can I sigh it?
I fear it may
Mingle with earthly ether;
To whom shall I sing it?
It dwells
In the house of my soul, in fear of
Harsh ears.
When I look into my inner eyes
I see the shadow of its shadow;
When I touch my fingertips
I feel its vibrations.
The deeds of my hands heed its
Presence as a lake must reflect
The glittering stars; my tears
Reveal it, as bright drops of dew
Reveal the secret of a withering rose.

It is a song composed by contemplation,
And published by silence,
And shunned by clamor,
And folded by truth,
And repeated by dreams,
And understood by love,
And hidden by awakening,
And sung by the soul.

It is the song of love;
What Cain or Esau could sing it?

It is more fragrant than jasmine;
What voice could enslave it?

It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret;
What string could quiver it?

Who dares unite the roar of the sea
And the singing of the nightingale?
Who dares compare the shrieking tempest
To the sigh of an infant?
Who dares speak aloud the words
Intended for the heart to speak?
What human dares sing in voice
The song of God?

Lines From Gibran's "Song of the Wave XVII"

Many times have I danced around mermaids
As they rose from the depths and rested
Upon my crest to watch the stars;
Many times have I heard lovers complain
Of their smallness, and I helped them to sigh.

Many times have I teased the great rocks
And fondled them with a smile, but never
Have I received laughter from them;
Many times have I lifted drowning souls
And carried them tenderly to my beloved
Shore. He gives them strength as he
Takes mine.

Many times have I stolen gems from the
Depths and presented them to my beloved
Shore. He takes them in silence, but still
I give for he welcomes me ever.

A Few Lines From Gibran's "A Lover's Call XXVII"

Do you have memory of the day we met, when the halo of
You spirit surrounded us, and the Angels of Love
Floated about, singing the praise of the soul's deed?

Do you recollect our sitting in the shade of the
Branches, sheltering ourselves from Humanity, as the ribs
Protect the divine secret of the heart from injury?

Remember you the trails and forest we walked, with hands
Joined, and our heads leaning against each other, as if
We were hiding ourselves within ourselves?

Recall you the hour I bade you farewell,
And the Maritime kiss you placed on my lips?
That kiss taught me that joining of lips in
Love Reveals heavenly secrets which the tongue cannot utter!

George Carlin

“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so fuckin' heroic."

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten”

A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.

Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? (or, Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac? )

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

Weather forecast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.

What year did Jesus think it was?

If Helen Keller had psychic ability, would you say she had a fourth sense?

If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.

It isn’t fair: the caterpillar does all the work, and the butterfly gets all the glory.

Life is a zero sum game.

Night

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline

Is there not A tongue in every star that talks with man,And wooes him to be wise? nor wooes in vain;This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.~Anna Letitia Barbauld, A Summer Evening's Meditation

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. ~N.P. Willis

Moonlight is sculpture. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

When the moon, after covering herself with darkness as in sorrow, at last throws off the garments of her widowhood, she does not at once expose herself impudently to the public gaze; but for a time remains veiled in a transparent cloud, till she gradually acquires courage to endure the looks and admiration of beholders. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare,
Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Interesting Thoughts

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.—Mother Teresa

Remorse—Regret that one waited so long to do it.—H.L. Mencken

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.—William Saroyan

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.—T.S. Eliot

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.—Jorge Luis Borges

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.—Eliel Saarinen

Ah tell me not that memory / Sheds gladness o’er the past; / What is recalled by faded flowers / Save that they did not last?—Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Trust, but look for the exits.—Mason Cooley

An open foe may prove a curse, / But a pretended friend is worse.—John Gay

A man / thinks he amounts / to a great deal / but to a / flea or a / mosquito a / human being is / merely something / good to eat—Don Marquis

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.—Karl Kraus

I would rather make my name than inherit it.—William Makepeace Thackeray

The United Nations is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn’t created to take you to heaven.—Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

Kahlil Gibran - "My Friend" (The Madman)

My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear -- a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do -- for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.

When thou sayest, "The wind bloweth eastward," I say, "Aye, it doth blow eastward"; for I would not have thee know that my mind doth not dwell upon the wind but upon the sea. Thou canst not understand my seafaring thoughts, nor would I have thee understand. I would be at sea alone.

When it is day with thee, my friend, it is night with me; yet even then I speak of the noontide that dances upon the hills and of the purple shadow that steals its way across the valley; for thou canst not hear the songs of my darkness nor see my wings beating against the stars -- and I fain would not have thee hear or see. I would be with night alone.

When thou ascendest to thy Heaven I descend to my Hell -- even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, "My companion, my comrade," and I call back to thee, "My comrade, my companion" -- for I would not have thee see my Hell. The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils. And I love my Hell too well to have thee visit it. I would be in Hell alone.

Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness; and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things. But in my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone.

My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect -- and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone. My friend, thou art not my friend, but how shall I make thee understand? My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.

The Wind

Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming।

Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!
- Goethe, 1789

The inner - what is it?
if not intensified sky,hurled through with bird
sand deep with the winds of homecoming।- Rainer Marie Rilke

When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world.
When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world.
The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless.
We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually,
There is just one whole world.- Shunryu Suzuki

“Since I grew tired of the chase And search, I learned to find;

And since the wind blows in my face,I sail with every wind.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?” - Kahlil Gibran

“You throw the sand against the wind

And the wind blows it back again.” - William Blake

"In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain - I find no sea room - but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.”

- Henry David Thoreau

A breeze came wandering from the sky, Light as the whispers of a dream; He put the o'erhanging grasses by, And softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream.
- William Cullen BryantSource: The Wind and Stream

The wind moans, like a long wail from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm!
- William Hamilton GibsonSource: Pastoral Days--Winter

We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.

- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

The wind blows hard among the pinesToward the beginningOf an endless past.Listen: you've heard everything.

- Shinkichi Takahashi, Zen Poems of China and Japan

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the West wind, and daffodils.

- John MasefieldSource, The West Wind

Blow, Boreas, foe to human kind!Blow, blustering, freezing, piercing wind!Blow, that thy force I may rehearse,While all my thoughts congeal to verse!

- John Bancks (Banks), To Boreas

It's Me

"History is herstory too".
Author Unknown

“The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.”
Emma Goldman quotes

“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual”
Albert Einstein quotes

"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.”

"You no longer need to invest in self development to guarantee a bright future"

“There are not many males, black or white, who wish to get involved with a woman who's committed to her own development”
Eleanor Holmes Norton quotes

“The "silly" question is the first intimation of some totally new development”
Alfred North Whitehead quotes

“Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers and fathering is a very important stage in their development.”
mcleodbr David Gottesman quotes

"If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.”
Brian Tracy quotes

"If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based."
Betty Friedan

"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less"
Susan B. Anthony

"Men will often admit other women are oppressed but not you."
Sheila Rowbotham

Clenched Soul - Pablo Neruda

We have lost even this twilight.

No one saw us this evening hand in hand

while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window

the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched

in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?

Who else was there?

Saying what?

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly

when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight

and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings

toward the twilight erasing statues.

Dream On...

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
~W.H. Auden

He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie.
~Anais Nin

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.
~Antoine Rivarol

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All religions will pass, but this will remain: simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.
~V.V. Rozanov

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.
~Steven Wright

People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


I would like to dedicate this post to all the day dreamers out there and specially to my friend Priyankari...Hope you enjoy it......

Remembering Some Great Tagore Quotes On Rabindra Jayanti

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.

Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.

From the solemn gloom of the temple children run out to sit in the dust, God watches them play and forgets the priest.

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Asks the Possible of the Impossible, "Where is your dwelling-place?" "In the dreams of the Impotent," comes the answer.

When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.

Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.

Let the dead have the immortality of fame, but the living the immortality of love.

Laugh Out Loud!!

Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit.
~Author Unknown

What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.
~Yiddish Proverb

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other.
~Alan Alda

A hearty laugh gives one a dry cleaning, while a good cry is a wet wash.
~Puzant Kevork Thomajan

I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."
~Quincy Jones

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end.
~Max Eastman

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
~Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

A laugh is a smile that bursts.
~Mary H. Waldrip

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.
~Arnold Glasow

Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense.
~Author Unknown

Erma Louise Bombeck

I came across a few quotations from this writer and instantly decided to share them with you.

From Wikipedia : Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996), born Erma Fiste, was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for a newspaper column that depicted suburban home life in the second half of the 20th century.

Favorite Quotes from her writings that I collected:

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."
" It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else."
"Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage."
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

And these are her books .... some of them are excellent humorous one-liners

* The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
* Aunt Erma's Cope Book
* If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?
* I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression
* When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home
* Just Wait Until You Have Children of Your Own (written with Bil Keane)
* Family - The Ties that Bind... and Gag!
* A Marriage Made in Heaven or Too Tired for an Affair
* At Wit's End
* Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From American's Favorite Humorist
* Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession
* I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise: Children Surviving Cancer
* All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loehmann's Dressing Room.

~enjoy

YOU FOOL !!!

“Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd.”

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” - James Oppenheim

“Only the most foolish of mice would hide in a cat's ear, but only the wisest of cats would think to look there” - Andrew Mercer

“Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?” - Maurice Freehill

“There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.” - Aristotle

“To a worldly man, a God-intoxicated person will appear mad and he will laugh at him, But to the God-intoxicated man, the worldly appear insane, foolish, misled, blind.” - Sri Sathya Sai Baba

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines” -
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You can say any foolish thing to do to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'” - Dave Berry

“Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations.” - Jane Austen

War of Wit

“Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.”
G. K. Chesterton

“Wit is far more often a shield than a lance”
Unknown

“Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.”
William Hazlitt

“Wit consists in seeing the resemblance between things which differ, and the difference between things which are alike”
Madame de Stael

“So vast is art, so narrow human wit.”
Alexander Pope

“Wit must be foiled by wit : cut a diamond with a diamond”
William Congreve

“Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty”
Joseph Addison

“Wit: Intellect on a spree”
Unknown

“Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.”
Mark Twain

“Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity”
Joseph Addison

Magic Hands

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Mother Teresa

“I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity.”
Hazel Lee

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art”
Leonardo da Vinci

“The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Wit without discretion is a sword in the hand of a fool”
Spanish Proverb

“Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them”
Chinese Proverbs

“Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well.”
Denis Waitley

“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.”
Mark Twain

“Never try to catch two frogs with one hand”
Chinese Proverb

“The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.”
Frederic Lawrence Knowles

“I love a hand that meets my own with a grasp that causes some sensation.”
Samuel Osgood

I Have A Dream - one of my favorite songs

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

AN ASSORTMENT OF APPETIZING IDEAS

What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten , but they may start a winning game.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever our souls are made up, his and mine are the same.
- Emily Bronte

Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right
- Henry Ford

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Author: Mother Teresa

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

"I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." - Chinese Proverb

Bloom where you are planted.

Be yourself. Who else is better qualified.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. – Eric Golnik