Pensum

pensum — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:54:16 +0000

i will cry over another’s death, but i will never shed a tear over my own.

199

pensum — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:23:08 +0000

he sought to be relieved of hope.

but in the end was forced
to give up even that desire.

pensum — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:29:21 +0000

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Blaise Pascal

pensum — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:28:40 +0000

Just a bump on the toboggan ride into the abyss.

pensum — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:37:21 +0000

“I need to emerge from tiny time-stopping moments; I need to exist inside dawn’s light. I need to give in to the presence of everything humble, boundlessly sincere and extraordinarily terrifying.”

Virginia Woolf, Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909

pensum — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:05:10 +0000

Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.

William Faulkner, Mosquitoes: A Novel

pensum — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 23:58:37 +0000

It is all well and good to confess that one is a sinner, but it would be even better to think of the harm that one does to another through one’s sin.

Pierre Hadot, The Present Alone is Our Happiness, pg. 27

pensum — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:10:07 +0000

Sense that sees itself is spirit.

Novalis

to exist, to perceive

pensum — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:33:07 +0000

To exist, to perceive,
To be a kind of perceptive residue (if one can say that)
In the departure gate, Roissy terminal 2D
Waiting for the flight to Alicante
Where my life will follow me
For several more years
Together with my little dog
And joys (briefer and briefer)
And the regular addition of suffering
During the years immediately preceding my death.

***

Exister, percevoir,
Être une sorte de résidu perceptif (si l’on peut dire)
Dans la salle d’embarquement du terminal Roissy 2D,
Attendant le vol à destination d’Alicante
Où ma vie se poursuivra
Pendant quelques années encore
En compagnie de mon petit chien
Et des joies (de plus en plus brèves)
Et de l’augmentation régulière des souffrances
En ces années qui précèdent immédiatement la mort.

Michel Houellebecq, Configuration du dernier rivage (to be published April 17), Flammarion, 2013, pg. 90.

(another of my translations of a poem by Houellebecq can be found here)

Tantra Song featured on Imagista

pensum — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:46:45 +0000

I have written a feature on Tantra paintings for Imagista. It includes a selection of ten paintings and an excerpt from Bill Berkson’s interview with Franck André Jamme. Read the article here.