Category: aphorisms

• March 15, 2012

  Restless mens (L.): Three E verses

  I.   Clever men bleed well: they’re feted, fed senselessly, sent every rendered wench, end effeted, well-spent, seceded.     II.   Agreed! Sempre, the terms severed, they were sentenced hence: ever rent yet never freed.    (Dern! Derned, derned severe!)     III.   The tree bends, The reed-wren flees, The wereful sheep descend. Pebbles…
• January 5, 2012

  ‘Are you done with that?’

  We have nearly forgotten what it’s like to take our time. Coffee comes pierced by a talon, is pulled down by a waterfall, is ready in less than a minute. It tastes like a hot gulp of brown. Daily, we are faced with the prospects of drinking big gulps, of chugging, of downing, or of…
• December 16, 2011

  On love, death, and um’s

  Imagine, if you will, a fully lived life. Having what you need and loving what you should. No more, no less, no other. * I read the last lines of George Whitman’s life and thus fell in love with a dead man. Whitman, 98, was a famous bookseller whose three floor shop was set down…
• August 10, 2011

  On the danger of sentimentality

  To be sentimental is to feel more than one ought. The sentimental man has no good reason to feel as he does, and thus there is no depth, nor can there be, to his feeling. The emotion, like a sensation, flits over him, is cheaply had, and then readily returns to the air. He watches…
• May 28, 2011

  On the cut-and-thrust of discourse

  The cut-and-thrust of discourse: your man, flesh-wounded, on the floor — boys tussling in the basement — dogs growling and gnawing — that fearful symmetry — manliness ferocious, harmful, refined — anger awoken — the ease of mastication — lopping heads clean off — the love of man expressed as war. Oh, Brother, bleed with…