Awake When I'm Sleeping @armenotti - Tumblr Blog

In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.

A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn

#howard zinn

In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of _______. But I don’t know what to call it. Maybe hope. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures. But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be. Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know, is a fighter and a screamer.

from “Winter Hours”; Mary Oliver

#mary oliver

For how long can humans stay inside a poem?

Kim Hyesoon, "Korean Zen" from Phantom Pain Wings (translated by Don Mee Choi)

#Kim Hyesoon

"Only the sorrow of going to sleep and waking up, feeling life without knowing where it comes from, aware that it will flee without knowing why it was given to you, why it is taken from you. Here you are: there is this and this and this. And now, enough.”

Mercè Rodoreda

#MercèRodoreda

You say to the boy open your eyes

When he opens his eyes and sees the light

You make him cry out. Saying

O Blue come forth

O Blue arise

O Blue ascend

O Blue come in

Derek Jarman

#derek jarman

Toward world's end, through the bare

beginnings of winter, they are traveling again.

How many winters have we seen it happen,

watched the same sign, come forward as they pass

cities sprung around this route their gold

engraved on the desert, and yet

held our peace, these

being the Wise, come to see at the accustomed hour

nothing changed: roofs, the barn

blazing in darkness, all they wish to see.

The Magi --Louise Glück

#Louise Glück

There are two ways to escape suffering it.The first is easy: accept the inferno & become part of it that you can no longer see it.The second: seek & learn to recognize who and what, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.

Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities

#italo calvino #invisible cities

I'm not exactly sure which wound is the one I belong to.

Hanif Abdurraqib, The Crown Ain't Worth Much

#hanif abdurraqib

In a general way it’s very difficult for one to become remarkable.

Joseph Conrad, Chance

#Joseph Conrad

I am tortured by my heart which they say is my mind. (…) I have no mind. / It hurt me too much.

Alice Notley, from In the Pines

#alice notley

I think when you've been in one place long enough, it starts to feel like that's the whole world, you know? Seeing anything beyond it is hard. Like, it doesn't even feel possible? And I think a part of me has been fighting to keep things that way in my life. Uncomplicated and easy. Which I guess is a kind of safety.

Family meal - Bryan Washington

#Bryan Washington