a shandean commonplace book

No ball, no rules.  Any one boy On the cinder playground Raises his hand and yells I Got It And a few others chase him reaching To touch him and the great Game begins. At first maybe four or five Charge after him and one tags him And yells I Got It and then more Join the pack lunging ager the new Leader, the pursued one Who sprints and dodges, head-feints Nearly out of breath, writhing Out of reach. No end, no score. Thrill of the broken-field run in football, but Pure: no boundaries, no goal. No teams.  Aristocratic martial Rhythm of anarchy and brilliance, The one against the many: I remember a heavyset boy named Carl Who liked to keep the chain-link Fence to his back, even Leaning against it, side-faking or pulling His chubby belly back, and every time a boy Touched him, I Got It, Carl Dancing tagged him back With rope-a-dope hands I Got It Back on the tagging arm, Carl Unwinded at bay unyielding. Some...

That which is loved is always beautiful. Norwegian proverb

You are invulnerable.  Have they not granted you, those powers that preordain your destiny, the certainty of dust?  Is not your time as irreversible as that same river where Heraclitus, mirrored, saw the symbol of fleeting life?  A marble slab awaits you which you will not read—on it, already written, the date, the city, and the epitaph. Other men, too, are only dreams of time, not indestructible bronze or burnished gold; the universe is, like you, a Proteus. Dark, you will enter the darkness that expects you, doomed to the limits of your travelled time. Know that in some sense you are already dead. Jorge Luis Borges (trans. Alastair Reid)

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. Harry S. Truman

Heart sits on a stump in the backyard, dog turds, custed snow lie all around. A window opens, a voice shouts: Come on back, Heart! But Heart won’t budge. You see, there is a dark place in the sky despite the noon sun and lack of clouds A spot above the oak branch on the right, like a dark splatter of spilled black point. If you stretched out your arm, your hand could almost cover it. Heart can’t explain it. It feels like sadness but why is there sadness? Heart sleeps okay, eats okay, moves his bowels just right. It feels like despair but why is there despair? Heart has pals, no big bills, and the roof doesn’t leak. As far as Heart can tell, life is going well. The spot shimmers a bit and Heart thinks: It’s showing me that it knows I am here. He imagines the dark spot leaving its home in the morning — can sadness be preexisting? Could it fix like a tick on its victim’s neck? But perhaps this is someone else’s sadness and off on another street a...

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. Augusten Burroughs

They sat there, nine women, much the same age, The same poppy-red hair, and similar complexions Freckling much the same in the summer glare, The same bright eyes of green melting to blue Melting to golden brown, they sat there, Nine women, all of them very quiet, one Perhaps, was looking at her nails, one plaited her hair in narrow strands, one stared at a stone, One let fall a mangled flower from her hands, All nine of them very quiet, and the one who spoke Said, softly: "Of course he was very charming, and he smiled, Introduced himself and said he'd heard good things, Shook hands all round, greeted us by name, Assured us it would all be much the same, Explained his policies, his few minor suggestions Which we would please observe.  He looked forward To working with us.  Wouldn't it be fun?  Happy To answer any questions. Any questions?  But None of us spoke or raised her hand, and questions There were none:  what has ...