Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
All art is quite useless.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are fascinating.
You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.
It’s not something that I’ve thought of much. In my youth, I was attracted to most every culture but that of my own ancestry. In my late teens and early twenties, I visited Liverpool two or three times (just across the Irish Sea from my ancestral homeland,) but (sadly) never made it to Ireland. I’ve been to over 40 countries, but not yet my ancestral homeland. I think that’s not so uncommon to come around to an interest in such things later in life.
But the answer to the question is certainly to be found in the literature. Yeats is among my favorite twentieth century poets (if not my favorite,) and Seamus Heaney is certainly in the running. Of late, I’ve gotten on an Oscar Wilde kick, and his work definitely appeals to my ornery yet thoughtful nature. Even Joyce, who I had trouble getting into in his role as novelist, is a writer whose use of language I love.
In the drowsy dark caves of the mind / dreams build their nest with fragments / dropped from day’s caravan.
From the solemn gloom of the temple / children run out to sit in the dust, / God watches them play / and forgets the priest.
The wind tries to take the flame by storm / only to blow it out.
The same sun is newly born in new lands / in a ring of endless dawns.
When death comes and whispers to me, / “Thy days are ended.” / let me say to him, “I have lived in love / and not in mere time.” / He will ask, “Will thy songs remain?” / I shall say, “I know not, but this I know / that often when I sang I found my eternity.
Fireflies by Rabindranath Tagore is in the public domain and can be read at sites such as:
Fireflies is available at PoetryVerse
A long time ago,
I listened to the audiobook of
Kerouac's "On the Road."
In that format,
I became aware of how often
Kerouac used the word
"rickety."
Almost as aware as I became
of how often Twain uses
the N-word in Huck Finn
when I unwisely listened to
that audiobook while driving
through downtown Atlanta
with my windows rolled down.
I'm now reading Hunter Thompson's
"Kingdom of Fear," and I've become
aware that Thompson had a love
of the word "gibberish" almost on par
with Kerouac's love of "rickety."
And I think about how much beautiful
rickety gibberish I've read from those
authors, and what a fine
thing it is if one can write
rickety gibberish that stands up
under its own weight.
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod? / Or Love in a golden bowl?
from Thel’s Motto
I am a watery weed, / And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales: / So weak the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head. / Yet I am visited from heaven and he that smiles on all / Walks in the valley.
from Part I
Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies, / How great thy use, how great thy blessing
from Part II
every thing that lives. / Lives not alone nor for itself
from Part II
Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction? / Or the glistening Eye to the poison of a smile!
from Part IV
“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”
Duncan in Act I, Scene 4
“Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor.”
Macbeth in Act I, Scene 7
“when our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors”
Wife of Macduff in Act IV, Scene 2
“Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat up the honest men and hang them up.”
Son of Macduff in Act IV, Scene 2
“Life ‘s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Macbeth in Act V, Scene 5
There is much to admire, though, in a dedicated recluse.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 1)
Going on a journey, whatever the destination, makes you feel suddenly awake and alive to everything.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in IdleNess (No. 15)
You can find solace for all things by looking at the moon.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (no. 21)
Something left not quite finished is very appealing, a gesture toward the future.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 82)
It’s in easy places that mistakes will always occur.
Kenkō Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (No. 109)
CITATION: Kenkō Yoshida & Kamo no Chōmei. 2013. Kenkō and Chōmei: Essays in Idleness and Hōjōki. London: Penguin. 206pp.
We fat all creatures else to fat us and we fat ourselves for maggots… a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”
HamLet to Claudius in Act IV, Sc. 3
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Hamlet to Queen Gertrude in Act I, Sc. 5
I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Hamlet to rosencrantz & Guildenstern in Act I, sc. 2
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Polonius to claudius & gertrude in act II, sc. 2
A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
hamlet to rosencrantz in act IV, Sc. 2
drawing by Kikuchi Yōsai
On flows the river ceaselessly, nor does its water ever stay the same.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
No one owns a splendid view, so nothing prevents the heart’s delight in it.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
Knowing what the world holds and its ways, I desire nothing from it, nor chase after its prizes. My one craving is to be at peace; my one pleasure is to live free from troubles.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
These days, I divide myself into two uses — these hands are my servants, these feet my transport.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
When I chance to go down to the capital, I am ashamed of my lowly beggar status, but once back here again I pity those who chase after the sordid rewards of the world.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
Reference: Saigyō Hōshi, Kamo no Chōmei, Yoshida Kenkō. 2021. Three Japanese Buddhist Monks. New York: Penguin Books. 112pp.
Available HereThis poetry collection teaches that most challenging of human skills: how to be insanely confident that you can do anything without being a jerk about it. (Also, how to see beauty beyond the societal consensus of what’s beautiful.)
Zhuangzi by ZhuangziThe virtues of a carefree, spontaneous, minimalist, and down-to-earth approach to living explained through tiny stories.
The Tragedies of William Shakespeare by William ShakespeareA master class in things that can turn a life into a tragedy.
Titus Andronicus: Live by the sword = tragedy (An eye for an eye, and everyone dies.)
Romeo & Juliet: Grudges (+ Lust) = tragedy
Julius Caesar: handing your adversary the mic (/ the fickleness of crowds) = tragedy
Hamlet: indecisiveness = tragedy (i.e. On or off the crazy-bus.)
Othello: jealousy = tragedy
Macbeth: excessive ambition = tragedy
King Lear: needing gratuitous signs of affection = tragedy
Timon of Athens: expectations of reciprocity = tragedy
Anthony & Cleopatra: mixing one’s love and work lives = tragedy
Coriolanus: a crotchety old warrior in peace time = tragedy
Tiger Riding for Beginners 