"This apartment full of books could crack open
to the thick jaws, the bulging eyes
of monsters, easily: Once open the books, you have to face
the underside of everything you’ve loved—
the rack and pincers held in readiness, the gag
even the best voices have had to mumble through,
the silence burying unwanted children—
women, deviants, witnesses—in desert sand.
Kenneth tells me he’s been arranging his books
so he can look at Blake and Kafka while he types;
yes; and we still have to reckon with Swift
loathing the woman’s flesh while praising her mind,
Goethe’s dread of the Mothers, Claudel vilifying Gide,
and the ghosts—their hands clasped for centuries—
of artists dying in childbirth, wise-women charred at the stake,
centuries of books unwritten piled behind these shelves;
and we still have to stare into the absence
of men who would not, women who could not, speak
to our life—this still unexcavated hole
called civilization, this act of translation, this half-world."
Adrienne Rich, Twenty-One Love Poems, V (via grammatolatry)
(via grammatolatry)
Roman Opałka was a French-born Polish painter who painted numbers. In 1965 he began painting a process of counting – from one to infinity. Starting in the top left-hand corner of the canvas and finishing in the bottom right-hand corner, the tiny numbers were painted in horizontal rows. As of July 2004, he had reached 5.5 million. (via triangulation)
(via proofmathisbeautiful)
"Today I bought
the first pumpkin
of my season.
The sun was
hitting the water
in tiny explosions;
the grass was as pure
as a revival meeting.
I thought of your smile
on my long walk home
with the leaves
dropping aimlessly
and the sound
of roller skates.
When the door opened
you burst upon me
like a diamond."
Dorothea Grossman (via grammatolatry)
Poems by Emily Dickinson (346 of 447)
IX.
Poor little heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!
Proud little heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonair! Be debonair!
Frail little heart!
I would not break thee:
Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me?
Gay little heart!
Like morning glory
Thou’ll wilted be; thou’ll wilted be!
"
There’s always that moment
with people, right?
You look back…
you can’t believe
how they just
don’t love you.
And how,
in the minute before that,
you didn’t know.
There was a place, near water.
The people had come
from somewhere else, and settled.
How we came to exist.
How we came to be here, everywhere
at once.
How could I say nothing?
Well, it’s a long walk ahead.
For a long time,
I didn’t know.
And it’s all just another
story about how life could be.
A psychic told me once I had the mind of a nun.
As if there would be only one kind, for nuns.
The offices of seers we consulted in the South
sometimes had chickens. The vestibules
were swimming with the poor—
bobbing, drowning, in our lake
of dreams and wishes.
Tell me everything
you want to do while there’s still time.
Keep in touch.
Think about the leaves
and the birds
in branches.
Think about the words
Big Picture.
The Big Picture.
For a long time,
I didn’t know what to say.
And of course I didn’t want to say it.
When everything depends—has always
depended on acting like nothing is wrong.
Fruit trees blooming in the blood drenched ground,
a ringing phone—
it’s what we’re in the middle of.
If we realized the extent to which no one understands
what anybody else really means
by anything they say, well,
you say we’d all go crazy.
But aren’t we crazy already?
With trying and pretending
and being mad about it—I mean angry.
There was a place, near water.
How we all came to be,
everywhere
at once.
My prayer is changing.
"Kate Greenstreet, 2 of Swords (via grammatolatry)
"I don’t care if you made that dress,
I will shred it until you look deserted."
Derrick Brown, excerpt from Cotton in the Air
(via grammatolatry)
This couplet absolutely breaks me.
