speakmnemosyne:

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:
I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay
Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,
Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair
Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.

W.B. Yeats, He tells of a Valley full of Lovers

"She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off."

Anne Sexton (via speakmnemosyne)

"My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad."

Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll  (via honeyforthehomeless)

Listen to presences inside poems,
Let them take you where they will.

Follow those private hints,
and never leave the premises.
- Rumi

What is it that’s still distracting him?
Is it the simmering languor of her lips,
or the flirtatious closeness between that mole and the dimple.
May be its the once in a while tender drop of her eyebrows,
which also shows off the mascara that always blinds him.
It could also be the beautiful frailty of her hands,
or the restless repose of her slender shoulders.
Also who can now rule out that endearing silence.

Did he see all that or was it all a dream?
May its be part of some dream which never returned back to its world,
for it found its mirror caught in his memories.

Her magic was wholesome,
for she never did anything,
never said much,
not even an iota of hint,
leaving the whole spell to be born inside me.

She’s a stubborn poem,
that began out of nowhere,
for its refusing to end now,
getting farther and farther away.

The conversation was like a lonesome flame struggling to told its own on a windy night,
His heart was like that wick,
ready to burn itself down,
to breathe a little longer,
for it knew his destiny.

My memory has started playing hide and seek now,
for she keeps forgetting her bit by bit and I keep filling in.
I don’t mind.
I wait for the day when she won’t recognize her,
May be that is her plan too.

‘There are two kinds of men,’ said Ka, in a didatic voice. ‘The first kind does not fall in love until he’s seen how the girl eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she’s angry at her father and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man - and I am this category - can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her.’
— Orhan Pamuk, Snow

For he loves leaving the word behind, waiting for her to reply. World of emotions goes through him as he waits. Emotions that a full life can be built upon, though he rather loves building castles and floating in them. Castle with rooms, where each door unfolds to a different world, staging his each dream and desire. He checks every room. Stays there, floats there. For every room he leaves he also shuts the door, he locks even, mixing the keys together, checking the weight of the keys as he moves. Weighing and measuring the keys as his own expectations. His spirits soars and so does the castle with them. He roams around. Still no word. He wonders and he longs, not wanting to reach the end of the castle he turns back wondering which door to re-enter. He chooses one door, inserts the key in. The keys now no longer turn the locks, for his emotions have gotten mixed. He runs desperately, trying random keys. Finally a door opens and he enters. The room has changed, though the familiarity of it pierces him. He throws the key out of the window. Anxious he throws the other keys too. His heart sinks as the keys descend. The word has still not come. He decides to send another word and another castle starts forming in the room.

One wonders which room was the earlier castle built into? How many words have come back, for he can’t trace his way back?

"Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way."

- Janet Fitch, White Oleander (via pavorst)

(via pavorst-deactivated20120105)


“Nabokov wrote most his novels on 3” x 5” notecards, keeping blank cards under his pillow for whenever inspiration struck. Seen here: a draft of Lolita.”

“Nabokov wrote most his novels on 3” x 5” notecards, keeping blank cards under his pillow for whenever inspiration struck. Seen here: a draft of Lolita.”

(via pavorst-deactivated20120105)

"Words weren’t dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter happened to you."

- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye (via honeyforthehomeless)

"The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any of this."

Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude (via pavorst)

(via pavorst-deactivated20120105)