Troubled Water

“Messieurs, l’huitre étoit bonne. Adieu. Vivez en paix.” — Boileau Secret they are, sealed, annealed, and brainless And solitary as Dickens said, but They have something to say: that there is more Than one way to yield. The first—and the hardest. The most nearly hindered—is when you pull Them off the rocks, a stinking, sawing sedge Sucking them back under the black mud, full Of hermit crabs and their borrowed snailshells, Minnows scattering like superstitions, The surf dragging, and every power Life permits them holding out, holding on For dear life. Sometimes the stones give way first. Before they will, but still we gather them, Even if our hands are bloody as meat, For a lunch Queen Victoria preferred: “A barrel of Wellfleet oysters, points down” Could last across the ocean, all the way To Windsor, wakening a widow’s taste. We ate them this afternoon, out of their Armor that was formidably grooved, though It proved our own reversal wiser still: Keep the bones and stones inside, or n...

I am the least controversial of men. Public disputations have rarely attracted me. For years I have failed to respond to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones , who long ago invented a set of opinions for me and invited me to defend them with an enviable persistence and vigour. Occasionally I may have corrected some too gross public misstatement about me--too often I fear with the acerbity of the inexperienced. But now, in my sixtieth year, I find myself drawn rather powerfully into a disputation with Mr. Hilaire Belloc . I bring an unskilled pen to the task. I am responsible for an Outline of History which has had a certain vogue. I will assume that it is known by name to the reader. It is a careful summary of man’s knowledge of past time. It has recently been reissued with considerable additions in an illustrated form, and Mr. Belloc has made a great attack upon it. He declares that I am violently antagonistic to the Catholic Church, an accusation I deny very earnestly, and he has produced a “Comp...

Como os outros discípulo da noite frente ao seu quadro negro que é exterior à música dispo o reflexo sou um e baço dou-me as mãos na estreita passagem dos dias pelo café da cidade adoptiva os passos discordando mesmo entre si As coisas são a sua morada e há entre mim e mim um escuro limbo mas é nessa disjunção o istmo da poesia com suas grutas sinfónicas no mar. Como os outros No meu país dardejado de sol e da caca dos gaios só há estâncias (de veraneio) na poesia. Nossos lábios a um metro e sessenta e tal do chão amarelecido dos símbolos abrem para fora por dois gomos de frio. Nossos lábios outonais, digo, outonais doze meses. No entanto à flor da possível geografia um frémito cinde as estações do ano. No Meu País Com as polidas cintilações das ondas eles enredam o mar e aspam de brancura o voo das gaivotas Sua íntima atitude é a das estátuas por fora como elas amam sem noções que lhe doam O céu foi o seu fundo das pupilas orto da Estrela da Manhã Mas volvidos são das paisagens rumoro...

  “By definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange - meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is all about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.” “It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds...

Tengo una voz que me dice: Tú sigue adelante, no puedes parar dale más, dale gas que eres fuerte tú puedes que tú puedes más que tú eres lo más, que tú quieres más nunca te conformes tú te lo mereces tu eres invencible -y esa vocecita casi me convence pero luego se viene otra voz Tengo otra voz, tengo otra voz que me dice: Shhhhh calma Tu tranquilo Más tranquilo hay que vivir la vida con mucha calma y serenidad Y de pronto entre tanta calma una voz amarga empieza a gritar: Hay que matarles a todos! Hay que matarles a todos! Apartad las criaturas que estoy loco, estoy muy loco!!! Odio, odio odio a todo el mundo!!! Pero luego se viene otra voz que me dice que Noooo! Paz, paz, paz, paz y amor! La vida me sonríe siempre estoy de buen humor Paz, paz, paz, paz y amor! Y si no fuera por esa voz que siempre me dice que no Que estoy acabado, totalmente hundido Todo el mundo en contra mío, tengo en contra todo el mundo Y esto no puedo perdonarlo y esto no puedo perdonarlo Bueno va tal vez no sea...

흰 수건이 검은 머리를 두르고 흰 고무신이 거친 발에 걸리다 흰 저고리 치마가 슬픈 몸집을 가리고 흰 띠가 가는 허리를 질끈 동이다 슬픈 족속 Up where the seasons pass, the sky is filled with autumn. In this untroubled quietude I could almost count these autumn-couched stars. But why I cannot now enumerate those one or two stars in my breast is because the dawn is breaking soon, and I have tomorrow night in store, and because my youth is not yet done. Memory for one star, love for another star, sorrow for another star, longing for another star, poetry for another star, and oh! mother for another star. Mother! I try to call each star by some such evocative word,  names of school children with whom I shared desks,  names of alien girls like Pai, Kyunh, Ok,  names of maidens who have already become mothers,  names of neighbors who lived in poverty,  names of birds and beasts like pigeon, puppy, rabbit, donkey, deer,  and names of poets like Francis, Jammes and Reiner Maria Rilke. They are as far away and intangible as th...

« We stay up so late that the sun is already fat and high above the trees by the time we wake up, and Stig is hissing furiously for more mouse. Dad makes me a cup of hot milk in my favourite mug. I sip the milk, which is a little bit too hot. I’ve just finished a book that talked about hot chocolate with clouds of pillowy whipped cream on top and sticky marshmallows in pink and white. I haven't ever had hot chocolate or whipped cream or marshmallows but today I can almost taste their sugary sweetness. I get dressed to go outside because we always plant a tree on my birthday. Dad planted an oak when l was first born and now it's taller than I am but still teeny tiny next to all the oaks that are hundreds and hundreds of years old. This year I want to plant a silver birch, because they shine like moonlight. You're not supposed to plant them until November but we're nearly there and I said please please please. We take Stig out into the sparkling morning and she hops aroun...