My Small Boat

Strange Waters
I’ve seen a high cairn kissed by holy wind
Seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins
Seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities
The mad whose blessing you must accept without pity
I’ve stood in airports guarded glass and chrome
Walked rifled roads and landmined loam
Seen a forest in flames right down to the road
Burned in […]

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.

Two Fragments
Love holds me captive again
and I tremble with bittersweet longing.
As a gale on the mountainside bends the oak tree
I am rocked by my love.

Rain
The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back.

The darkest hour in any man’s life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

There is a solitude of space

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself –
Finite infinity.

of John Dryden

His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you […]

James James
Morrison Morrisson
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great care of his mother
Though he was only three.
James James said to his mother
Mother he said, said he:
You mustn’t go down to the end of the town if you don’t go down with me.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Went to the end of the town
James […]

What is the object of playing a gambit opening?… To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.