ANVN

We were always adroiter

with objects than lives, and more facile
at courage than kindness: from the moment

the first flint was flaked this landing was merely
a matter of time. But our selves, like Adam’s,

still don’t fit us exactly, modern
only in this — our lack of decorum.

“He [Kierkegaard] suffers from one great literary defect, which is often found in lonely geniuses: he never knows when to stop. Lonely people are apt to fall in love with the sound of their own voice, as Narcissus fell in love with his reflection, not out of conceit but out of despair of finding another who will listen and respond.”

-W H Auden

Compassion

1340, from O.Fr. compassion, from L.L. compassionem (nom. compassio) “sympathy,” from compassus, pp. of compati “to feel pity,” from com- “together” + pati “to suffer”

Passion

c.1175, “sufferings of Christ on the Cross,” from O.Fr. passion, from L.L. passionem (nom. passio) “suffering, enduring,” from stem of L. pati “to suffer, endure,” from PIE base *pei- “to hurt” (cf. Skt. pijati “reviles, scorns,” Gk. pema “suffering, misery, woe,” O.E. feond “enemy, devil,” Goth. faian “to blame”). Sense extended to sufferings of martyrs, and suffering generally, by 1225; meaning “strong emotion, desire” is attested from c.1374, from L.L. use of passio to render Gk. pathos. Replaced O.E. þolung (used in glosses to render L. passio), lit. “suffering,” from þolian (v.) “to endure.” Sense of “sexual love” first attested 1588; that of “strong liking, enthusiasm, predilection” is from 1638. The passion-flower so called from 1633.

“Though touched by the song, Sabina did not take her feeling seriously. She knew only too well that the song was a beautiful lie. As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the context of non-kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness. For none among us is superman enough to escape kitch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”

Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera

“When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabina- what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.

Until that time, her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if the paths come to an end? One could betray one’s parents, husband, country, love, but when parent’s, husband, country, and love were gone- what was left to betray?

Sabina felt emptiness all around her. What if that emptiness was the goal of all her betrayals?”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

The August sky will then bear witness
To a brand new chapter with torn up pages
When the planets align, I can feel the gates opening
To my courage
As I proceed to run my fingers through her hair
And forget everyone who’s jaded, ‘cause they don’t matter
And I don’t care

In a confident fashion
I will admit my deepest and darkest to her
And every gaze across the table
Will send my unsuspecting body into shock

Then I’ll say
“Would you like to go inside?
And forget the world and the rules
By which we are to abide”
And she will say
“There’s nothing I want more”
As we step into the room, turn off the lights and close the door

The August sky will then bear witness
To a brand new chapter with torn up pages
When the planets align, I can feel the gates opening
To my courage
As I proceed to run my fingers through her hair
And forget everyone who’s jaded, ‘cause they don’t matter
And I don’t care
No, ‘cause they don’t matter
And I don’t care

Brash and hopeful
That my luck will not perish tonight
When the overcast tries to kill me
It’s your slow motion rain
That falls warm on my neck that keep me alive

Consider this song a testament
Of my devotion to your sacharrine scent

And to be completely honest
You’re not like all the rest
You’re not like all the rest

a spring like sixty
and your car’s in a ditch
you wanted so bad for this night to go off without a hitch
you beg for one more chance
this was it.
i hope it never goes away,
what I felt that day.
I’m sure you’ll never show your face anyway.
I hope it never goes away,
what I felt that day.
a spring like sixty
can’t find the words, can’t find the pitch
crouching in the grass
as close to earth as it permits
tried so hard but can’t
this was it.
a silent drunken dance
this was it.

Stay through the night
I’m here for a while
Shut off to the world
Shut off to all

I’m yours.
I’m yours.

I know evil people who say things
They don’t know
Oh why do I even care
It’s nothing now

Now I rest my head on the satyr's carved chest,
The hollow where the heart would have been, if sandstone
Had a heart, if a headless goat man could have a heart.
His neck rises to a dull point, points upward
To something long gone, elusive, and at his feet
The small flowers swarm, earnest and sweet, a clamor
Of white, a clamor of blue, and black the sweating soil
They breed in...If I sit without moving, how quickly
Things change, birds turning tricks in the trees,
Colorless birds and those with color, the wind fingering
The twigs, and the furred creatures doing whatever
Furred creatures do. So, and so.  There is the smell of fruit
And the smell of wet coins. There is the sound of a bird
Crying, and the sound of water that does not move...
If I pick the dead iris?  If I wave it above me
Like a flag, a blazoned flag?  My fanfare? Little fare
with which I buy my way, making things brave? The way
Now I bend over and with my foot turn up a stone,
And there they are: the armies of pale creatures who
Without cease or doubt sew the sweet sad earth.

Underneath the leaves where the blackbirds turn blue
If there’s room for me
There’s room for you

Place your ear to the ground, you hear a voice
It sings this song
The whole night long

I am the melody of the fallen tree
What comes between
You and me

So sadly transient , you’d never guess
It could ever be
So easy to see

Across a frozen field you hear a call
With the urgency
Of the boiling sea

All your hopes and dreams they rise and fall
Secretly
A cacophony

The life and brutality
They all turn on me
You hope to someday see
Patiently
So sadly obvious, you’d never guess
It could ever be
So hard to see

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly express’d;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.