Diane Petrilli
In the columns we create in our minds as we live this life, there is one we unconsciously call “This is so True.” Take for example this posting from Ravenous Butterflies.
Sir John Lavery – Anna Pavlova as a Bacchante, 1911
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Toni Morrison
Ah, ha! I say to myself. And it goes into that column, all without my involvement. My awareness, my consciousness. It is only in observing my own reaction that I say not only true, but something I want to note. What does that mean, ownership? Am I free? Do I act free? Freely? Do I claim myself in this world, in this life?
Or have I made that break, chosen a life, and then contented myself with that action alone? What thoughts do I then pull in to ask if there’s more, there’s more for the taking? And asking, and being?
So then maybe there’s another column, a sub-column, an endnote. Something that says “Better think about this some more.”
“There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.”
T.S. Eliot
Poetic Outlaws:
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.” ~TS Eliot
From “The Hollow Men”
And Some Poetry, because no matter how much you don’t want to know, you want to know, and you want to hear it well told.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
― Charles Bukowski
And the Eraser—born on this day in 1858!
Posted by Bart Weinberger
In memory of, on this very special day, a friend in Colorado posted this to Facebook. A fun thing to know, yes?
And we all know how indispensable the pencil has been to writers of the world. Many writers, Hemmingway included, refused to write with a pen. Some—Papa as well—liked the feel of a pencil and also wanted to sharpen their own, using everything from a pocket knife to a hand-held sharpener.
The Blackwing pencil was often the instrument of choice as it could be sharpened to a long, strong point and lasted much longer than a standard #2 pencil. That eraser was also a bit different from the round one. It’s more of an oblong shape and again, lasts longer than the one on a #2 pencil.
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 