It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.

Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

I need not go

I need not go
Through sleet and snow
To where I know
She waits for me;
She will wait me there
Till I find it fair,
And have time to spare
From company.

When I've overgot
The world somewhat,
When things cost not
Such stress and strain,
Is soon enough
By cypress sough
To tell my Love
I am come again.

And if some day,
When none cries nay,
I still delay
To seek her side,
(Though ample measure
Of fitting leisure
Await my pleasure)
She will riot chide.

What--not upbraid me
That I delayed me,
Nor ask what stayed me
So long? Ah, no! -
New cares may claim me,
New loves inflame me,
She will not blame me,
But suffer it so.


- Thomas Hardy

Unfinished autumn

I'll help the roving eye,remember:

Its one colour
After its soul is scattered-
Distilled into heavy orange
Deep lake-blue
Then , uninterpreted,
Still, darkness.

Until I open, helped by dull landmarks,
Like a street - Gravel, mud, concrete,
Sometimes bougainvillea on the sides
Or plain endlessness without a chance for a detour.

The trapped-song of that bright green tree
Bustling in the crowd of its own leaves
While others melt into elegant gold flakes
Obliging, without the music.

That it was I, a terrible conflict called 'us'
Who lived.
And then stopped .............
......................................
[Awkwardly]

Upon us all a little rain must fall

This is the springtime of my loving - the second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing - so little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing - I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles - flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune.
Ain't so hard to recognize - These things are clear to all from
Time to time.

Talk Talk - I've felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go. I cursed the gloom that set upon us...
But I know that I love you so

These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion - I see the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient - Upon us all a little rain must fall