Lines on Nonsense

Source: Favim 

Yes, nonsense is a treasure!

   I love it from my heart;

The only earthly pleasure

   That never will depart.

But, as for stupid reason,

    That stalking, ten-foot rule,

She’s always out of season,

    A tedious, testy fool.

She’s like a walking steeple,

    With a clock for face and eyes,

Still bawling to all people,

   Time bids us to be wise.

While nonsense on the spire

    A weathercock you’ll find,

Than reason soaring higher,

    And changing with the wind.

The clock too oft deceives,

    Says what it cannot prove;

While every one believes

    The vane that turns above.

Reason oft speaks unbidden,

    And chides us to our face;

For which she should be chidden,

    And taught to know her place.

While nonsense smiles and chatters,

    And says such charming things,

Like youthful hope she flatters;

    And like a syren sings.

Her charm’s from fancy borrowed,

    For she is fancy’s pet;

Her name is on her forehead,

    In rainbow colors set.

Then, nonsense let us cherish,

    Far, far from reason’s light;

Lest in her light she perish,

   And vanish from our sight.

~ Eliza Lee Follen

Lines on Nonsense

Source: Favim 

Yes, nonsense is a treasure!

   I love it from my heart;

The only earthly pleasure

   That never will depart.

But, as for stupid reason,

    That stalking, ten-foot rule,

She’s always out of season,

    A tedious, testy fool.

She’s like a walking steeple,

    With a clock for face and eyes,

Still bawling to all people,

   Time bids us to be wise.

While nonsense on the spire

    A weathercock you’ll find,

Than reason soaring higher,

    And changing with the wind.

The clock too oft deceives,

    Says what it cannot prove;

While every one believes

    The vane that turns above.

Reason oft speaks unbidden,

    And chides us to our face;

For which she should be chidden,

    And taught to know her place.

While nonsense smiles and chatters,

    And says such charming things,

Like youthful hope she flatters;

    And like a syren sings.

Her charm’s from fancy borrowed,

    For she is fancy’s pet;

Her name is on her forehead,

    In rainbow colors set.

Then, nonsense let us cherish,

    Far, far from reason’s light;

Lest in her light she perish,

   And vanish from our sight.

~ Eliza Lee Follen

the end of the line

Source: Instagram/Favim 

"There are feelings you expect to have

And satisfactions you hope to find

In the course of an ordinary day, as it unwinds

From the faint morning light and morning

Paper through a mild spring afternoon, and evening,

Dinner, music, then the drink before bedtime,

When you turn off the lights. And then there are

Those moments that destabilize the day, like that near

Miss in the car—a premonition of eternity in time,

The sudden stab of fear that I may cease to be.

I make my way across the page on which I find myself

Confined, a cipher at the center of the story,

Tracing out the outlines of these never ending

Sentences that define my life, and always haunted

By the inkling of that world beyond the mind,

Beyond the poem of the mind, the poem of my mind,

Where I don’t exist, and life goes on without me;

The impossible world from which I'm absent,"

~ John Koethe

the end of the line

Source: Instagram/Favim 

"There are feelings you expect to have

And satisfactions you hope to find

In the course of an ordinary day, as it unwinds

From the faint morning light and morning

Paper through a mild spring afternoon, and evening,

Dinner, music, then the drink before bedtime,

When you turn off the lights. And then there are

Those moments that destabilize the day, like that near

Miss in the car—a premonition of eternity in time,

The sudden stab of fear that I may cease to be.

I make my way across the page on which I find myself

Confined, a cipher at the center of the story,

Tracing out the outlines of these never ending

Sentences that define my life, and always haunted

By the inkling of that world beyond the mind,

Beyond the poem of the mind, the poem of my mind,

Where I don’t exist, and life goes on without me;

The impossible world from which I'm absent,"

~ John Koethe

Quote on balance

Source: Unknown/Favim.com

"You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair."
He paused, considering what he had just said. "Yes," he repeated. "In the end, it's all a question of balance."

~ Rohinton Mistry

Quote on balance

Source: Unknown/Favim.com

"You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair."
He paused, considering what he had just said. "Yes," he repeated. "In the end, it's all a question of balance."

~ Rohinton Mistry

One Train May Hide Another

Image: Claude La Riviere (Soundsangels)

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it’s best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person’s reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you’re not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother’s bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter’s bag one finds oneself confronted by the mother’s
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or the same love
As when “I love you” suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when “I’m full of doubts”
Hides “I’m certain about something and it is that”
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you’re asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you’d have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

~ Kenneth Koch

One Train May Hide Another

Image: Claude La Riviere (Soundsangels)

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it’s best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person’s reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you’re not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother’s bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter’s bag one finds oneself confronted by the mother’s
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or the same love
As when “I love you” suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when “I’m full of doubts”
Hides “I’m certain about something and it is that”
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you’re asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you’d have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

~ Kenneth Koch