[themes] August

[measuringlife.livejournal.com]

Summer In Algiers (August 2011)

1. the dying of a small god within you

2. these small yet significant orbits in the language of desire.

3. I hope for a passion that could shatter illusions.

4. regret, that other form of hope

5. emptiness, boredom, an indifferent sky

6. sleeping the sleep of stones

7. all my life I've been a stranger to myself

8. the celebrated strangeness of another

9. following the rise and fall of another land.

10. I put my mouth on yours

11. your breathing changed as you kissed me in your sleep

12. things need not have happened to be true

13. tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

14. and we lie: 'I'll never leave you.'

15. your heart is made of steel

16. these inconvenient fireworks

17. in front of me, a stranger talks.

18. I stir fire into the bones of the dead.

19. this place called absence

20. the heart's memory

21. two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.

22. here is no I or you

23. when she was alone, she kissed leaves

24. the kind of touch that means something too simple to say

25. how nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

26. we are nothing but a bit of dust and shadow

27. full dark, no stars

28. if you're so dead, why are your eyes so bright?

29. in the discorruption of flesh

30. in the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer

31. floating away in every direction





1. From Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel

2, 3.
Throughout the night, I partially surface, aware of her presence. Meeting at the mouth, at the thigh. Brush of the elbow against a breast. These small yet significant orbits in the language of desire. I hope for a passion that could shatter illusions.
-This Place Called Absence by Lydia Kwa

4. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

5. Summer In Algiers by Albert Camus

6, 7.
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

8, 9, 10, 11

Breathe in. Breathe out. Your rhythm different to mine. Your body not mine; the celebrated strangeness of another. I put my head against your chest, and it must have been something to do with the vibrations of the hut, because underneath your breathing, or through it, I could hear a badger breathing too.
The hut was breath: the narrow air-flow of the stove where the low fire was burning down; the quiet hiss of water heating in the big kettle on the stove's top; the draught through the key-hole rattling the heavy bolt-chain; the wind like a mouth-organ.
I put my mouth on yours, and your breathing changed as you kissed me in your sleep. I lay down, my hand on your stomach, following the rise and fall of another land.
-Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson.

12, 13.

- Neil Gaiman, Sandman


14.
When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better.'It's all right' we whisper, 'I'm here, I love you.' and we lie: 'I'll never leave you.' For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad.

- Neil Gaiman

15.

16
Stray Italian Greyhound - Vienna Teng

17, 18, 19.
I'm returning to this place called absence, where in front of me, a stranger talks. Two strangers who sit across from each other in a small, soundproofed room. Face to face. Truths or lies?
A torrent of words, like a seasonal monsoon, underneath which lies the deepest pain. Aren't all stories true? To intuit the meanings of what is left unsaid.
I am Wu Lan, an exorcist of hidden demons.
I am the discoverer of secrets.
I stir fire into the bones of the dead.
I prepare the dead for release.
Bending into the porcelain whiteness of the bathtub, I lean very close to his embalmed body and whisper one last time.
Goodbye, Father

-This Place Called Absence by Lydia Kwa

20.
“The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past.”
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

21....love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.
-Han Suyin [Elizabeth Comber]:

22.
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close"
~ Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean writer & politician [Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto], note variation of this quote above

23, 24.
Mrs. Milan , on the other hand, was a flimsy talker, and she kissed, I think, to make up for it. She didn't just kiss me. She kissed her arm when the sun came out. She kissed my shoulder, through the shirt, at the end of a sentence, say; or in the middle. She kissed her husband every time she found him in the shop, the way anybody else would inquire, what's new. I bet, when she was alone, she kissed leaves. It wasn't an odd thing with her– more like a gesture of the hand, the kind of touch that means something too simple to say.
From the short story "Where I'd Quit" by Janet Kauffman

25.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

26. Pulvis et umbra sumus (Horace)

27. The title of a short story collection by Stephen King.

28, 29.
Titles of short stories by Janet Kauffman.

30.
In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer
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Albert Camus

31. Song by Hammock