Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-

Only this, and nothing more."...

The Raven [excerpt]

Edgar Allan Poe

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost...

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter [excerpt]
JRR Tolkien

The Cheshire Cat:

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll

still not a butterfly.

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall-
-still not a butterfly.


A caterpillar
Matsuo Basho

Wishlist

I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good

Wishlist
Pearl Jam

new love

While you are away
My heart comes undone
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn
The devil collects it
With a grin
Our love, our love,
In a ball of yarn

He'll never return it

When you come back
We'll have to make new love


Unravels [excerpt]
Bjork

It's A Beautiful Day

Goddamn right it's a beautiful day.

It's A Beautiful Day
Eels

on identity crises

Whatever you become, someone will long for what you were.

-Taxi Driver Wisdom

the unattainable.

…I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.

Stand Still Like the Hummingbird [excerpt]
Henry Miller

should not have let you go

When the truth is,
I miss you
Yeah the truth is,
that I miss you so

Warning Sign [excerpt]
Coldplay

tame dove, then wild dove,

A precise woman with a short haircut brings order
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)


A Precise Woman
Yehuda Amichai
Translated by Chana Bloch

and grinned.

You aren't much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.

The Moths [excerpt]
Mary Oliver

as in dreams

...as in dreams things are and aren't.

Adolescence [excerpt]
P.K. Page

in retrospect

He had spent seven years of life with Tereza, and now he realized that those years were more attractive in retrospect than they were when he was living them.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera

say anything

Dear Diane,

I'll always be there for you.
All the love in my heart,

Lloyd

action

I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not.
— Lucille Ball

For your own protection, over their affection...

Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can't finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
If you're alone, it must be you that wants to be apart

Alameda [excerpt]
Elliot Smith

To Cure Itself

Poetry lifts itself away
from its origin, so as
to maintain itself, so as
to speak, so as
to cure itself
of death and of life.

To Cure Itself [excerpt]
David Ignatow

A Bitterness

I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.

A Bitterness [excerpt]
Mary Oliver

how you made them feel.

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Carl W. Buechner

I'm still angry with you.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
-Seneca

a skill

Waiting is a skill like anything else.

The Killing Floor
Lee Child

burns at both ends

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends --
It gives a lovely light!

First Fig
Edna St. Vincent Millay

October

Look, I want to love this world
as though it's the last chance I'm ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

October [excerpt]
Mary Oliver

War

In a letter he wrote, but never mailed, to his future wife, fighter pilot Quentin Aanenson said:

For the past two hours, I've been sitting here alone in my tent, trying to figure out just what I should do and what I should say in this letter in response to your letters and some questions you have asked. I have purposely not told you much about my world over here, because I thought it might upset you. Perhaps that has been a mistake, so let me correct that right now. I still doubt if you will be able to comprehend it. I don’t think anyone can who has not been through it.

I live in a world of death. I have watched my friends die in a variety of violent ways...

So far, I have done my duty in this war. I have never aborted a mission or failed to dive on a target no matter how intense the flak. I have lived for my dreams for the future. But like everything else around me, my dreams are dying, too. In spite of everything, I may live through this war and return to Baton Rouge. But I am not the same person you said goodbye to on May 3. No one can go through this and not change. We are all casualties. In the meantime, we just go on. Some way, somehow, this will all have an ending. Whatever it is, I am ready for it.

Quentin Aanenson