Sunday, September 23, 2012

Cummings' Guide to Love

Fear is good. Fear means you have taken a chance, leapt out of your comfort zone. Fear could be an indication of progress. Of crossing over. Of coming alive.


let it go – the

e.e. cummings

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear

so comes love



Monday, September 17, 2012

There are times when I go almost crazy. It happens once a month, consistently, without fail. This is when my face could deep-fry chicken. This is when I feel like a penguin walking on ice.

Weeks ago, I tried to rationalize my emotions. Sadly, I cannot come up with any mindblowing existentialist justification. So I turn to biology.

Just this week over dinner, I tried to rationalize again. Aided by a friend this time. We talked about religion, palm-reading, and skydiving. But mostly we talked about men. And why men do what they do.

We eventually got tired of talking about men so we decided to take a walk and find a toilet. We surmised that men are the way they are because perfection is boring. And that achieving the ideal would kill the motivation to live.

We never talked about men after that. Until the next bout of crazy, of course.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Neruda's Thing about Labels


We struggle everyday. Not so much with the people around us but with ourselves. I'd like to think that we have a huge collection of faces. Some face we leave some place at some point. Some we'd like to keep but can't keep anymore. How many faces have you lost?


Too Many Names
Pablo Neruda

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night.

 
No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.

 
It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.


When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names,
with so many sad formallities,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.