Category Archives: Literature

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

“Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep again.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

“It is one of the tragedies of life that one cannot have all the wisdom one is ever to possess in the beginning… Perhaps, it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself “Why?” afterwards than before.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

“Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

“It seems that fighting is a game where everybody is the loser.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston

It feels like America is on Her way back. God I hope so. 

The amazing poet Amanda Gorman gave voice to this magnificent and challenging day. 

Her delivery is as powerful as her words:

The night is darkening round me

By Emily Bronte

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Excerpts from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving:

Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley among high hills which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook murmurs through it and, with the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks the uniform tranquility.

Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the descendants of the original settlers. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions.

It is remarkable that this visionary propensity is not confined to native inhabitants of this little retired Dutch valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there for a time. However wide-awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, haunted bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman. But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homeward. How often did he shrink with curdling awe at some rushing blast, howling among the trees of a snowy night, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian of the Hollow!

From ‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin… because even in summer some things are not to be taken lightly:

It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. One can give nothing whatsoever without giving oneself – that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free…

There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior. And this human truth has an especially grinding force here, where identity is almost impossible to achieve and people are perpetually attempting to find their feet on the shifting sands of status…

Furthermore, I have met only a very few people – and most of these were not Americans – who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear. It can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster…

It may come as a surprise that in elementary school the subject that I hated most was ‘Language’ ~ that’s what we used to call English or grammar. It was the subject in which we would have to write, and I loathed it. Math came much more easily to me, and science was much more interesting. Words and grammar were too abstract and dry for me to grasp. While it was a chore, I usually excelled at writing, and like most things we initially fight against and reject, it eventually became my cherished love. That didn’t happen until high school, however, when we finally got to read some good shit, starting with ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and, later that freshman year, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ I didn’t realize that it was a love of language and words and how adroitly they could bring us into other realms that was working its magic ~ I simply loved the escapism of a book or play. Whenever I would lie awake in bed at night worrying about the next day of school, I could open a book and escape, albeit briefly, into a different place where I only had to observe and experience. I didn’t have to talk to anyone, I didn’t have to engage, I had only to watch and feel and travel safely as spectator. Wracked by social anxiety and depression, I found safety in the world of the written word. It didn’t even matter that so much of those words escaped my notice, that so many layers of meaning went unnoticed and unprocessed by my young mind. It was enough to simply exist somewhere other than within the reality in which I found myself.

It was fantasy.

It was play.

It was survival.

When the brutality of being a fourteen-year-old gay boy became too much ~ and simply existing in those days sometimes felt like too much ~ the words of a writer like Tennessee Williams called to me, beckoning me to keep going, to keep pushing into a world that might one day offer succor and salvation, even when it felt like no one was there to help.

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“You haven’t said a word about my appearance… Daylight never exposed so total a ruin.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the most unforgivable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“When I was sixteen, I made the discovery — love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“These are love-letters, yellowing with antiquity, all from one boy…..Poems a dead boy wrote. I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can’t! I’m not young and vulnerable anymore.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“…most writers, and most other artists, too, are primarily motivated in their desperate vocation by a desire to find and to separate truth from the complex of lies and evasions they live in, and I think that this impulse is what makes their work not so much a profession as a vocation, a true calling.” ~  Tennessee Williams

“Physical beauty is passing – a transitory possession – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart – I have all these things – aren’t taken away but grow! Increase with the years!” ~ Tennessee Williams

{See Part One here.}

“In the end, as in the beginning, all they had were the stories. The stories they told about one another, and the stories they told to themselves.” – Melanie Benjamin

It feels like there’s a resurgence of swans in my life, and with it all the complicated glamour and ferocity of their species. From this emotional rendering of ‘Swan Lake’ to this unexpectedly devastating book ‘The Swans of Fifth Avenue’ by Melanie Benjamin, the equally celebrated and maligned bird is emblematic of all the complexity and beauty of life around us. Ms. Benjamin proffers an embellished story of what might have gone on behind the painted faces of Truman Capote’s temporary coterie of swans along Fifth Avenue, and the demons and conflicted journey of Mr. Capote himself. It’s a tale of human connections torn asunder by decadence, betrayal and the binds of society that seem to pull more tightly the higher one ascends in social strata. It’s a view of the precarious threads of friendship, how delicate such a thing can be, even after years of thinking you know someone. It’s also the story of beaut, and how we always seem to want more, even when entirely immersed in it. Because that’s when it’s hardest to see.

“But there was always more. More beauty to be seen, more places to travel, more acclaim to be won. More love to earn, to barter, to exchange or withhold. To miss, always. Outside, looking in. Why did he always feel that way, every moment of every day?” ~ Melanie Benjamin

There is something very sad and almost sinister about the way the world works to challenge certain people. There’s an element of chance and luck that doesn’t always dole itself out fairly, a sliver of destiny that almost dares us to believe, if only for a moment, that we have some sort of say in the trajectory of our lives, that we have some bit of control. It’s a tease. It lends a delicious tension to whatever events flutter about us, a tempting but ever-elusive golden ring for which we reach over and over, grabbing and grasping in desperate, pathetic attempts at snatching it. The wiser ones among us take joy in trying, in going through the strenuous motions. They understand it’s all for naught, and they relax and let go, allowing themselves happiness in the simple act unto itself. The rest of us go through life thinking it is possible to reach it, to foolishly believe that others have reached it, that others have found happiness upon reaching it. In the end, it’s not something you can grab or hold. It’s not something you can ever reach. It exists always a little ahead, or perhaps a bit behind, but never close enough to touch. To some it’s a green light, to others a diamond ring. To all, a desire – a want – and it makes us feel alive.

Now there were no more stories to tell, to soothe, to comfort, to draw strangers close together; to link the hearts and minds.

To wound, to hurt. To destroy the one thing they each loved more than anything else…

Beauty. Beauty in all its glory, in all its iterations; the exquisite moment of perfect understanding between two lonely, damaged souls, sitting silently by a pool, or in the twilight, or lying in bed, vulnerable and naked in every way that mattered. The haunting glanced of a woman who knew she was beautiful because of how she saw herself reflected in her friend’s eyes.

The splendor of belonging, being included, prized, coveted.

The loveliness of a flower, lilies of the valley, teardrop blossoms snowy white against glossy green foliage. Made lovelier because of the friend’s hand tenderly proffering the blossom, a present, a balm.

The beauty of understanding tears in an understanding face.

The beauty of a perfectly tailored shirt, crisp, blinding white, just out of the box.

The beauty of a swirl of taffeta, the tinkling of bells, diamonds, emeralds; a pristine paper flower.

Beauty. 

~ Melanie Benjamin

 

Writer Colin Harrison has provided plenty of resonant inspiration during my march to manhood (spoiler alert: I’m still marching) and this excerpt is no exception. Just a little something to see you through the noon hour…

Such men believe in luck, they watch for signs, and they conduct private rituals that structure their despair and mark their waiting. They are relatively easy to recognize but hard to know, especially during the years when a man is most dangerous to himself, which begins at about age thirty-five, when he starts to tally his losses as well as his wins, and ends at about fifty, when, if he has not destroyed himself, he has learned that the force of time is better caught softly, and in small pieces. Between those points, however, he’d better watch out, better guard against the dangerous journey that beckons to him -the siege, the quest, the grandiosity, the dream. ~ Colin Harrison 

We are now deep in the dark of fall, the brief lull before the holidays kick into their festive frenzy. Before all the leaves are ripped from the trees and the chill settles in for the rest of the year, we may yet have a few days of calm and stillness, when the wind isn’t starting to unleash its fury, when the cruelty of the rain is kept somewhat at bay. As awful as those states may be, they still pale in comparison to the melancholy doldrums of an overcast sky that teases but never delivers snow. The best balm at such a time is poetry, especially the poetry of Mary Oliver, who has a keen way of weaving words into something as beautiful as their inspiration.

THE RETURN by Mary Oliver

                                                                      1.

When I went back to the sea

it wasn’t waiting.

Neither had it gone away.

All its musics were safe and sound; the circling gulls

were still a commonplace, the fluted shells

rolled on the shore

more beautiful than money –

oh, yes, more beautiful than money!

The thick-necked seals

stood in the salted waves with their soft, untroubled faces

gazing shoreward –

oh bed of silk,

lie back now on your prairies of blackness your fields of sunlight

that I may look at you.

I am happy to be home.

2.

I do not want to be frisky, and theatrical.

I do not want to go forward in the parade of names.

I do not want to be diligent or necessary or in any way

heavy.

From my mouth to God’s ear, I swear it; I want only

to be a song.

To wander around in the fields like a little reed bird.

To be a song.

3.

Two eggs rolled from the goose nest

down to the water and halfway into the water.

What good is hoping?

I went there softly, and gathered them

and put them back into the nest

of the goose who bit me hard with her

lovely black beak with the pink

tongue-tip quivering,

and beat my arms with her

lovely long wings

and beat my face with her

lovely long wings,

what good is trying?

She hissed horribly, wanting me to be frightened.

I wasn’t frightened.

I just knew it was over,

those cold white eggs would never hatch,

the birds would forget, soon, and go back,

to the light-soaked pond,

what good is remembering?

But I wasn’t frightened.

4.

Sometimes I really believe it, that I am going to

save my life

a little.

5.

When I found the seal pup alone on the far beach,

not sleeping but looking all around, I didn’t

reason it out, for reason would have sent me away,

I just

went close but not too close, and lay down on the sand

with my back toward it, and

pretty soon it rolled over, and rolled over

until the length of its body lay along

the length of my body, and so we touched, and maybe

our breathing together was some kind of heavenly conversation

in God’s delicate and magnifying language, the one

we don’t dare speak out loud,

not yet.

6.

Rumi the poet was a scholar also.

But Shams, his friend, was an angel.

By which I don’t mean anything patient and sweet,

When I read how he took Rumi’s books and threw them

into the duck pond,

I shouted for joy. Time to live now,

Shams meant.

I see him, turning away

casually toward the road, Rumi following, the books

floating and sinking among the screeching ducks,

oh, beautiful book-eating pond!

7.

The country of the mockingbird is where I now want to be,

thank you, yes.

The days when the snow-white swans might pass over the dunes

are the days I want to eat now, slowly and carefully

and with gratitude. Thank you.

The hours fresh and tidal are the hours I want to hold

in the palm of my hand, thank you, yes.

Such grace, thank you!

The gate I want to open now is the one that leads into

the flower-bed of my mind, thank you, yes.

Every day the slow, fresh wind, thank you, yes.

The wing, in the dark, that touches me.

Thank you.

Yes.