It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.
- Anna Quindlen

The Devil finds work for idle hands. - Proverb, 1721

Finally, it was the city that held us, the city they said had no center, that all of us had come to from all over America because this was the place to find dreams and pleasure and love. I noticed – looking at headlines – that some cities emptied and some didn’t. Ours didn’t, not completely. They said we were crazy to stay. But then someone had always said we were crazy to be here in the first place. And someone had always said Noah was crazy to build a boat in his desert, and Lot had been crazy to pack up, on an impulse, and head west. - Carolyn See, Golden Days

If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry. - African Proverb

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. - W.H. Auden

Something was about to go laughably wrong,
whether directly at home or here,
on this random shoal pleading with its eyes
till it too breaks loose, caught in a hail of references.
I’ll add one more scoop
to the pile of retail.

Hey, you’re doing it, like I didn’t tell you
to, my sinking laundry boat, point of departure,
my white pomegranate, my swizzle stick.
We’re leaving again of our own volition
for bogus patterned plains streaked by canals,
maybe. Amorous ghosts will pursue us
for a time, but sometimes they get, you know, confused and
forget to stop when we do, as they continue to populate this
fertile land with their own bizarre self-imaginings.
Here’s hoping the referral goes tidily, O brother.
Chime authoritatively with the pop-ups and extras.
Keep your units pliable and folded,
the recourse a mere specter, like you have it coming to you,
awash with the new day and its abominable antithesis,
OK? Don’t be able to make that distinction.

- John Ashbery, "Mottled Tuesday"

I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always. - Katherine Anne Porter

Above the fire a man floats in a boat.

Above the fire a woman is devoured by a snake,
unseen.

The leaves are yellow alongside & in the wake

the trunks & branches
mirror one another, black, rain-soaked.

And now he's old. He trails a hand until it snares
a leaf--saw-toothed.

Clouds break above the buildings
where there had been none.

The snake is old, its jaw completely
unhinged for the swallowing.

What now?

There was a continent.

Below, the last gods bum along with their last
offerings--

no smoke, no film, no evidence.

The gold-shagged blizzard of the willow

spills again.

Climb down. Prevent.

He leans back & the oar drips like no other memory.

- Peter Sacks, "Above the Fire"

Solitude: sweet absence of faces. - Milan Kundera

only you
i choose
among the entire world

is it fair
of you
letting me be unhappy

my heart
is a pen
in your hand

it is all
up to you
to write me happy or sad

i see only
what you reveal
and live as you say

all my feelings
have the color
you desire to paint

from the beginning
to the end
no one but you

please make
my future
better than the past

when you hide
i change
to a Godless person

and when you
appear
i find my faith

don't expect
to find any more in me
than what you give

don't search for
hidden pockets because
i've shown you that
all i have
is all you gave.

- Rumi, "Only You"