there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn’t told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
” —Charles Bukowski - Love is a Dog From Hell (via fightergirl)Forever reblog Bukowski.
(via thecathoderays)Elizabeth Gilbert
(via nirvikalpa)
“cut and run” - jill andrews
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many
gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the
world with its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is
where I stand.
I want to know if you know how to melt into that
fierce heat of living, falling toward the center of
your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day,
with the consequence of love and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
David Whyte, “Self Portrait”
(via waveofwords)
its a surprisingly refined moment when one notices that the elevation to the status of symbolic authority has to be paid by the ritualistic mind-ly death of its empirical bearer. If one is to save its legacy, one has to renounce its realistic existence. Idealism and cruelty as it turns out are the two sides of the same coin -that is, how the illusory attempt to realize an idea of a better life is that of either crudeness or subjectivity. However, it must be added that the displacement of subjectivity rather exhibits the un-readiness to come to terms with the truly traumatic core of the subject.
The conundrum here is the desire of the abstract messianic promise of some redemptive Otherness.
I remain philosophical in my opposition to any reduction of the proper un-existant measure of human nature and its criticism, for we all have the right to exist not merely by the fact of the occurrence of our birth; and I have decided I will not assume the cost of the status of a living-dead.
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Khalil Gibran
