Keep it going

Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going,
    don't take anything too seriously,
        it'll all work out in the end.

             David Niven, The Other Side of the Moon

 

 

 

 

A test

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:
        If you're alive, it isn't.

    Richard Bach, Illusions:The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

 

 

 

 

Is that clear?

I try not to speak more clearly than I think.

        Niels Bohr, The Making of the Atomic Bomb

 

 

 

 

 

Who's speaking?

If God should really speak to man,
man could still never know that it was God speaking.

    Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties

 

 

 

Poem: The Poem Wants a Drink

In the workshop, students analyze
what each poem wants, what each one
strives to be. Well, this poem is
a layabout with limited ambitions. It wants
a drink.

This poem doesn't give a damn
for rhyme or reason. It only sings
off-key. It has no rhythm
in the jukebox of its soul.
It grew up without symbols.
It doesn't know from assonance.
Give it mambo lessons, and it
still won't learn to dance. It has
not one stanza with a lyric pedigree.
It's late, and getting later, and this poem
wants a drink.

Call it gray and tired. Even call it
a cliche. This poem's lived long enough
to know exactly what it means
to say: Don't be stingy
with the whiskey, baby.
.....Yes, the night
has been a cruel one, and this poem
could use a drink. 

             Karen Glenn  

Long life!

I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up,
foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust,
I forgot to ask that they be years of youth.

        Ovid, Metamorphoses 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop interrupting

Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.

        Napoleon Bonaparte, The Military Quotation Book