tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33371086396720025182016-06-30T11:35:07.292-07:00per aspera ad astraOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.comBlogger238125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-52862119510394416642013-09-30T11:20:00.003-07:002016-06-22T10:42:54.405-07:00
Life is poetry, often with the irony of O.Henry's prose. I come home from across that lonesome ocean and she is nowhere to be found.
If you are there and are still brave and forgiving, I am []. I just want to be silent and breathe with you for a few minutes -- far too much to ask but I ask anyway.
Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-88290480115620076472013-06-04T16:01:00.001-07:002012-02-18T23:16:15.634-08:00Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-17569600481329641922012-03-17T07:23:00.003-07:002012-03-17T07:24:54.688-07:00Capoed version (capo 4th fret)
C C
Seen a shooting star tonight
F C
And I thought of you
C C
You were trying to break into another world
F
A world I never knew
F G
I always kind of wondered
C F
if you ever made it through
C C
Seen a shooting star tonight
Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-49952767605720093452012-03-17T06:52:00.000-07:002012-03-17T06:52:22.021-07:00Jacqueline (aka "Bubbles"): thank you.
Me to her.
Her to me.Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-40505153635421609802012-03-16T16:27:00.001-07:002012-03-16T16:27:07.523-07:00Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-18948605506671850112012-03-14T17:06:00.000-07:002012-03-14T17:06:56.454-07:00And this one...another of my eternal tormentors...
Saw your face yesterday
Thinking on the days of old
And the price that we paid
For a love we couldn't hold
I wanna let you slip away
There was nothing I could do
That was so long ago, yeah
Still I often think of you
I fall down, I get up
And I've always had to fight
Everything that was wrong
For the things that were right
Now Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-38171690297121250692012-03-13T13:05:00.003-07:002012-03-14T17:16:27.875-07:00God, I love this song...
I never walked near the edge
Used to fear falling
I never swam far from shore
Never tried the secret door
But when you give me love
When you give me love
I have no fear of heights,
No fear of the deep blue sea,
Although it could drown me,
I know it could drown me
I didn’t wander in the woods
Used to fear the darkness
I didn’t like getting deep
I was scared of what Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-77127828482080023272012-03-11T09:07:00.001-07:002012-03-11T09:07:45.428-07:00
On the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee, with covered guns (lower right) set up nearby, in 1864.(George N. Barnard/LOC)
Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-74359021772792490762012-03-11T07:17:00.002-07:002012-03-11T07:22:56.494-07:00Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife.
July the 14th, 1861
Washington D.C.
My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure—and it may be oneOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-9511763173715893202012-03-11T05:50:00.000-07:002012-03-11T05:50:48.381-07:00Funny how a suicide journal keeps me alive. I am going home -- wherever that is. I told a good friend in SF that last week, a woman who has known me since D.C., and she said: "Kent, where is home?" Ouch. Cut straight to the essence of the matter. For the past 20 years, my answer to that question has always been: "With my family." But since that doesn't work anymore, I am going "home" to Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-33516801277939815692012-03-05T11:32:00.000-08:002012-03-05T11:32:26.055-08:00It's stimulating getting back to the basic sort of life for a while. Surrounded by trees and nature, one feels a glorious stirring of the senses or a rejection of poisonous inhibition and a fecund emotion of the soul.
There can be no true beauty without decay.
Which reminds me...
I have of late...
"I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-75277952485471346072012-03-03T09:01:00.000-08:002012-03-03T09:01:28.696-08:00Latest chapter in the fantasy I will take with me: tantric lovemaking with her.
I would take her near the edge many times, letting her peer into the white sweetness of orgasmic bliss, only to pull her back at the last possible moment and keep her from falling. Again and again, I would start slowly and take her to the precipice.
This is my trick to get her to talk to me: she would have to tell meOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-22566998468052614992012-03-02T13:24:00.000-08:002012-03-02T13:24:39.483-08:00No, I cannot face another winter in this place. I am done. I think of the man I was when I came to this place, of the man I once thought myself. I have lived a life that has been nothing less than direct damnation for many years.
I have sinned grievously. I have lied, thieved, and cheated. I have wondered when I would crack, when I would reach the final edge of the final pit, stare deeply Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-10434560586748055672012-02-26T01:06:00.003-08:002012-02-26T01:17:59.470-08:00I started feeling things I haven't felt in a long time. I started feeling hope.
But hope makes you start craving other things. Crazy things like forgiveness. It don't have to be right away, though. I can wait.
Maybe it's not too late to start over. But I'm just barely hanging on these days.
Please, God, send me to a place that offers a little less heartbreak.
I can't bear to look at the Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-89011059558832299352012-02-24T13:09:00.002-08:002012-02-24T13:09:36.958-08:00http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/Zf5RVePviGikReUk?cmpid=fb_like_rec
Thank you, Noolie.Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-41628623049428788622012-02-22T14:35:00.004-08:002012-02-23T18:08:48.890-08:00It is remarkable. There are people in this world who love me, like me, who remember me as I used to be, who remember me well. People who, when they think of me, think good things.
Why can't I be one of those people? Why these periods of self-loathing? I have been depressed for as long as I can remember, I guess. It disappears at times -- sometimes for years at a time. But, just like the Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-6174346853817432182012-02-20T11:44:00.003-08:002012-02-22T09:57:51.018-08:00They say in this life you have to perfect one human relationship in order to really love God. You practice loving God by loving another human with unconditional love.
I don't believe this. But let's say I did...
I hope my children and my mother and father count in this thinking.
Nothing can compare to the kind of love I have for my children.
Nothing can compare to the kind of love I have Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-2832028721945165822012-02-20T05:39:00.001-08:002012-02-20T05:50:58.672-08:00
Somewhere over the rainbow- way
up high
in the land
that I heard of once
Once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow- skies
are blue
and the dreams
that you dare to dream
really do come true
Someday I'll wish upon a star
and wake up
where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
away above the chimney tops
that's where you'll find me
(Instrumental)
Someday I'llOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-32676389090495700122012-02-20T04:33:00.003-08:002012-02-20T04:35:44.596-08:00"I was beside myself with madness that would bring me sanity. I was dying a death that would bring me life." ~Augustine
"The first thing you got to understand is that I aint got a original thought in my head. If it aint got the lingerin scent of divinity to it then I aint interested." (Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited, pg. 13)Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-19908929715758447072012-02-19T17:10:00.001-08:002012-02-20T04:34:13.595-08:00Perhaps another option: either San Miniato al Monte, Florence, or Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Siena.
But there would be no coming back; I will keep at least one oath in this life.Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-45361053193798919102012-02-19T11:57:00.002-08:002012-02-19T15:02:16.234-08:00When the deportation letter comes, I have a few stark choices:
Stay here and pursue a hunger strike to the end.
Become a fugitive, live in the forests for a few weeks until I'm caught or turn myself in, and then be deported.
Go do Birkenau to die.
Go to the Nashville Union Rescue Mission to die.
Go to Ashwood to die with my hands buried in the dirt of home.
Die in my prison cell here.
There is noOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-61957195119351388122012-02-19T09:18:00.001-08:002012-02-19T11:59:54.045-08:00Even pitiable, massively self-absorbed fools like me are allowed to dream. Sometimes it's all we have. My dream: making love with her before I die. Maybe this is the only way we could communicate. I've tried centuries of words and they have no efficacy with her. But a kiss...oh, my. If memory serves, that is how we once, long ago, communicated best. Through intimacy. Actually, it was moreOsip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-15583292055584494542012-02-18T11:14:00.002-08:002012-02-18T11:14:58.901-08:00I never knowed me a woman raised on indoor plumbing who turned out worth a damn anyway. I need to find me one raised up the hard way.Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-8152446756024883692012-02-18T01:23:00.002-08:002012-02-18T06:50:06.229-08:00"Stop badgering me," she said over the phone so many years ago. He was so excited by the prospect of renewed communion with her that he gave innocent liberty and no restraint to his desires -- with far too many phone calls. Second thoughts were for him rare and wonderful when it came to her.
No woman wants you if she knows she can have you. I eventually learned this from others. Too late in Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3337108639672002518.post-54665299072488458932012-02-17T17:19:00.002-08:002012-02-17T17:19:37.669-08:00In the darkness of my nights
In the brightness of my day.
She is there.Osip Mandelstamnoreply@blogger.com0