“She stays lost in the middle of her own world somewhere. We can’t get in and she doesn’t come out.”
– Malorie Blackman; Noughts and Crosses
Author: Christina's Words
“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford
“Imaginary Paintings” by Lisel Mueller
1. How I would Paint the Future
A strip of horizon and a figure,
seen from the back, forever approaching.
2. How I would Paint Happiness
Something sudden, a windfall,
a meteor shower. No –
a flowering tree releasing
all its blossoms at once,
and the one standing beneath it
unexpectedly robed in bloom,
transformed into a stranger
to beautiful to touch.
3. How I would Paint Death
White on white or black on black.
No ground, no figure. An immense canvas,
which I will never finish.
4. How I would Paint Love
I would not paint love.
5. How I would Paint the Leap of Faith
A black cat jumping up three feet
to reach a three-inch shelf.
6. How I would Paint the Big Lie
Smooth, and deceptively small
so that it can be swallowed
like something we take for a cold.
An elongated capsule,
an elegant cylinder,
sweet and glossy,
that pleases the tongue
and goes down easy,
never mind
the poison inside.
7. How I would Paint Nostalgia
An old-fashioned painting, a genre piece.
People in bright and dark clothing.
A radiant bride in white
standing above a waterfall,
watching the water rush
away, away, away.
– Lisel Mueller, Alive Together
“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads . . .
“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune’s all we are.”
– Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution
“Nightclub” by Billy Collins
You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don’t hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.
For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else’s can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o’clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.
Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.
~ Billy Collins, from The Art of Drowning (The University of Pittsburgh Press).
“My father had taught me to be nice first . . .
“My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you’ve been mean to someone, they won’t believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it’s time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”
– Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight
Words ... for the Time Being 