It really is all in Neruda...

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

~ Pablo Neruda

All those men were there inside,
when she came in totally naked.
They had been drinking: they began to spit.
Newly come from the river, she knew nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh.
Obscenities drowned her golden breasts.
Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears.
Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes.
They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs,
and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor.
She did not speak because she had no speech.
Her eyes were the colour of distant love,
her twin arms were made of white topaz.
Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light,
and suddenly she went out by that door.
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

[love is more thicker than forget]

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

E.E. Cummings, “[love is more thicker than forget]” from Complete Poems 1904-1962.

13 Ways of Being Mauled by a Tiger

1. A tiger never changes its stripes. 

2. The stripes camouflage the danger. You can't see until it's too late.

3. The impenetrable eyes: You'll only find yourself staring back.

4. The growl begins as a playful purr. You think it's a game. You're a fool.

5. You don't mind the claws.

6. The chase! The game is fun; the rules keep changing.

7. Tigers love to loll in the sun. You love that too.

8. Water. You think you're safe. Tigers swim.

9. The trees. Tigers climb.

10. Those gleaming teeth, precise, deadly. Tantalizing.

11. The beguiling smile hides the darkest night of your soul.

12. Your desire: Eros. Way too much fucking éros.

13. Death drive: Thanatos. You chose this. You've been warned.

The Christmas Love Letter Experiment

A love letter for TS

When I'm near you I swim in a sea of clear blue, basking in your smile; a place I know, somehow, from a half-forgotten memory or a dream.  I read the words on the tip of your tongue and sometimes they frighten me--all the things I long to say fall away. I have to remind myself not to break this spell. Somewhere we're weaving the same dream. We'll meet there, someday.

Je t'embrasse,

The crazy red-haired girl who writes all the things

A love letter for Roman

From fancy flaming drinks to dating tips, your wry smile, ironically raised brow, and vaguely puckered lips, such deft affect to procure patrons' tips--I think I like you best when you're brandishing whiskey sours and making sarcastic quips.

Affectionately,

Your favorite patron

A love letter for Carie

Dancing is the best medicine. Leaping in midair, laughing, flying girl on a trapeze, conceal, reveal, appease. She mocks you, you're pleased.

With much affection,

A kindred spirit

A love letter for Jane

Darkly smiling, bright eyes hide, searching soul, poetic retrace, behind a mane of black hair, you'll never truly see her face.

Love forever and always!

Your soul sister

This was also important... for some reason

Flame
by Frederick Seidel

The honey, the humming of a million bees,
In the middle of Florence pining for Paris;
The whining trembling the cars and trucks hum
Crossing the metal matting of Brooklyn Bridge
When you stand below it on the Brooklyn side—
High above you, the harp, the cathedral, the hive—
In the middle of Florence. Florence in flames.
Like waking from a fever ... it is evening.
Fireflies breathe in the gardens on Bellosguardo.
And then the moon steps from the cypresses and
A wave of feeling breaks, phosphorescent—
Moonlight, a wave hushing on a beach.
In the dark, a flame goes out. And then
The afterimage of a flame goes out.

A Reprieve?

“We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

And perhaps it's also a bit like this?

Word of the Day

sidereal, adj.

Pronunciation:  /saɪˈdɪərɪəl/
Forms:  Also 16–18 siderial (16 syd-); 16–17 sydereal (16 sydereall), 17 sydireal.
Etymology:  < Latin sīdereus, < sīder- , sīdus constellation, star + -al suffix1.


 1. Of or relating to the stars.

1642   H. More Ψυχωδια Platonica sig. M7v,   Upon which pure bright sydereall phantasms unprejudiced reason may safely work.
1651   H. More Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1712) 32   That a Man has a sydereal body besides this terrestrial which is joined with the Stars.
1692   J. Salter Triumphs Jesus 24   Display your Glories ye Syderial States.
1739   H. Coventry Lett. Philemon to Hydaspes iii. 76   [A] most expressive, as well as permanent Symbol of the Sidereal Splendors.
1792   Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 82 26   Among the changes that happen in the sidereal heavens we enumerate the loss of stars.
1834   T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus i. iii. 7/2   What thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire?
1870   H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (ed. 2) I. i. vii. 137   That general Astronomy which includes our whole Sidereal System.
1874   F. W. Farrar Life Christ I. iii. 29   That any strange sidereal phenomenon should be interpreted as the signal of a coming king, was in strict accordance with the belief of their age.


 2. Star-like, lustrous, bright. rare.

1634   Bp. J. Hall Contempl. Hist. New Test. (STC 12640.5) 201   With what a blushing astonishment doth she behold his sydereall countenance cast upon her?
1649   Bp. J. Hall Humble Motion to Parl. 30   Provoking some sydereall and flaming soules to display themselves in their full..lustre.

 3. a. Of periods of time: determined or measured by means of the stars. sidereal day: the time between the successive meridional transits of a star, or specifically of the first point of Aries; about four minutes shorter than the solar day. Also sidereal month, sidereal year, sidereal time (see quots.).

1681   G. Wharton Disc. Years in Wks. (1683) 71   The Sydereal year is the space of time, in which the Sun returns to the same star from whence he departed.
1715   tr. D. Gregory Elements Astron. I. ii. §11. 242   The Astronomic [year] is also twofold,..namely, the Sydereal and Tropical. The Sydireal Year..is 365 Days, 6 Hours, and 10 Minutes nearly.
1794   G. Adams Lect. Nat. & Exper. Philos. IV. xlii. 156   There must be one more siderial day in a year than there are solar days.
1812   R. Woodhouse Elem. Treat. Astron. viii. 50   A clock regulated by the transit of fixed stars, or adapted to sidereal time.
1846   A. Young Naut. Dict. 95   The interval between the departure and return of a meridian to the sun is called a solar day; in the case..of a star, a sidereal day.
1868   J. N. Lockyer Elem. Lessons Astron. §434   The sidereal month is the interval between two successive conjunctions of the moon with the same fixed star.


 b. Of a clock: showing sidereal time.

1812   R. Woodhouse Elem. Treat. Astron. Pref.,   An observation expressed by..the seconds of a sidereal clock.


 4. Of planetary or lunar motion: relative to the stars.

1815   J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 554   Its annual sidereal revolution is calculated by Laplace, to be performed in 1681 days, 17 hours, 57 seconds.
1833   J. F. W. Herschel Astronomy viii. 252   The sidereal periods of the planets may be obtained..by observing their passages through the nodes of their orbits.
1868   W. Lockyer tr. A. Guillemin Heavens (ed. 3) 66 (note) ,   This revolution is called a sidereal revolution in contradistinction to the ‘synodic revolution’, because, relatively to the Sun, the planet again occupies the same portion of the heavens.


 5. Concerned with the stars.

1833   J. F. W. Herschel Astronomy 372 Chap. xii.   Of Sidereal Astronomy.
1853   J. F. W. Herschel Pop. Lect. Sci. (1873) v. §28. 204   Thus opening another chapter in the history of sidereal mensuration.
1870   tr. Pouchet's Universe (1871) 519   The nebulæ mark the limits of sidereal investigation.