Recopilación

"No conocimos su inaudita cabeza,
en la que maduraron los frutos de sus ojos. Pero
su torso arde aún cual candelabro,
cuyo mirar, tan sólo atenuado,perdura y resplandece. De otro modo la saliente
de su pecho no podría deslumbrarte, ni podría avanzar
una sonrisa por la silenciosa curva del lomo
hacia aquel centro de la procreación.

De otro modo esta piedra deformada y truncada
no se erguiría bajo la transparente caída de los hombros
ni centellearía como el pelaje de una fiera salvaje;

ni estallaría desde todos sus bordes como una estrella,
pues no hay en ella un sólo lugar que no te vea.
Debes cambiar tu vida."

-Rilke, Torso arcaico de Apolo

"Cuando yo era niño
un dios solía salvarme
del griterío y la cólera de los hombres;
entonces jugaba , tranquilo y bueno,
con las flores del bosquecillo
y las brisas del cielo
jugaban conmigo."

-Holderlin

"Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie"

-Pascal, Pensées

"A snarl! A scruffle round the room!
A sense that Death is drawing near!
And human creatures reassume
The elemental robe of fear.

So when my colleague makes his moan
Of careless cooks, and warts, and debt,
-- Enlarge his views, restore his tone,
And introduce him to your Pet!"

-Sir Walter Raleigh

" Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

- Butler Yeats

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

-Bill Blake

"The antique Persians taught three useful things —
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.  "

-Byron

"Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

L

• A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
  Yes; and a single Alif were the clue —
  Could you but find it — to the Treasure-house,
  And peradventure to The Master too;

LI

• Whose secret Presence, through Creation's veins
  Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
  Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and
  They change and perish all — but He remains;

LII

• A moment guess'd — then back behind the Fold
  Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll'd
  Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold. 

LXXI

• The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXXII

• And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
  Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
  Lift not your hands to It for help — for It
  As impotently moves as you or I.

• LXXXI
  
• Oh, Thou who Man of baser Earth didst make,
  And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
  For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
  Is blacken'd — Man's forgiveness give — and take!" 

-Khayyam/Fitzgerald

"Me siento sólo y aburrido sin razón aparente.
(genji)

Cuando toco el koto para mi propio solaz, bastante mal, por cierto, en la brisa fresca del anochecer, me preocupa que alguien pueda oirme y advertir que no hago mas que "sumarme a la tristeza general". ¡Ay de mi! De modo que ahora mis dos instrumentos, el de trece cuerdas y el de seis, permanecen en un cuartucho miserable y negro de hollin, pero siempre con las cuerdas a punto. Debido a mi negligencia -olvide, por ejemplo, hacer retirar los puentes en los dias lluviosos-, han acumulado polvo y reposan entre el armario y un pilar.
Hay, tambien, dos armarios grandes llenos hasta los topes. Uno de ellos contiene viejos poemas y cuentos, convertidos hoy en refugio de incontables insectos que se mueven de un lado a otro de un modo tan desagradable que nadie se molesta ya en mirarlos; el otro rebosa de libros chinos olvidados desde que aquel que los atesoro abandono este mundo. Cuando la soledad amenaza con abrumarme, saco uno o dos libros para ojearlos; pero mis sirvientas se reunen a mis espaldas para murmurar:
-¿Que clase de mujer lee libros chinos? ¡Ahi esta la causa de sus desgracias! -repiten- Antes ni siquiera estaba bien visto leer los sutras.
"Si", quisiera replicarles, "¡pero no he conocido nunca a nadie que viviera mas años por creer en tantas supersticiones como vosotras!" De todos modos, seria desconsiderado por mi parte, pues hay algo de verdad en lo que dicen.  "

(La Murasaki)

"Pleasing things: finding a large number of tales that one has not read before. Or acquiring the second volume of a tale whose first volume one has enjoyed. But often it is a disappointment.

  64. Surprising and Distressing Things
While one is cleaning a decorative comb, something catches in the teeth and the comb breaks.
A carriage overturns. One would have imagined that such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream -- astonishing and senseless.
A child or grown-up blurts out something that is bound to make people uncomfortable.
All night long one has been waiting for a man who one thought was sure to arrive. At dawn, just when one has forgotten about him for a moment and dozed off, a crow caws loudly. One wakes up with a start and sees that it is daytime -- most astonishing.
One of the bowmen in an archery contest stands trembling for a long time before shooting; when finally he does release his arrow, it goes in the wrong direction.” 

(Sei Shonagon)

 "This is the way the world ends 

This is the way the world ends 

This is the way the world ends 

Not with a bang but a whimper."

(Eliot) 

"Y los seguí: los vi caminar a paso ligero por Bucareli hasta Reforma y luego los vi cruzar Reforma sin esperar la luz verde, ambos con el pelo largo y arremolinado porque a esa hora por Reforma corre el viento nocturno que le sobra a la noche, la avenida Reforma se transforma en un tubo transparente, en un pulmón de forma cuneiforme por donde pasan las exhalaciones imaginarias de la ciudad, y luego empezamos a caminar por la avenida Guerrero, ellos un poco más despacio que antes, yo un poco más deprimida que antes, la Guerrero, a esa hora, se parece sobre todas las cosas a un cementerio, pero no a un cementerio de 1974, ni a un cementerio de 1968, ni a un cementerio de 1975, sino a un cementerio de 2666, un cementerio olvidado debajo de un párpado muerto o nonato, las acuosidades desapasionadas de un ojo que por querer olvidar algo ha terminado por olvidarlo todo."

(Bolaño)

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. "

"Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone."

 (Bardolatría perezosa de merda)

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself."

-Philip Larkin

“What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

  

Other people must be destroyed. In order that I might truly face the sun, the world itself must be destroyed... 

What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity… ”  

(Mishima)

"Hold your tongue; you won't understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God.

If Stavrogin has faith, he does not believe that he has faith. If he hasn't faith, he does not believe that he hasn't."

(DostoDostoDosto)

 " See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah my Christ —
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on him — O spare me, Lucifer!
Where is it now? 'Tis gone: and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God."

"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd in one self place; but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be"

"Thou hast committed 

Fornication: but that was in another country

And besides, the wench is dead. "

 (Marlowe + AntiMarlowe)

"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though; - cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. 


I would prefer not to."
(Melville)

"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;"
(Revelation 6:12)

"I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!"

(Dickinson)

"The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."

The man replied, "Things as they are 
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are." 
(Wallace Stevens)
 

"Go where those others went to the dark boundary   

for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize

go upright among those who are on their knees

among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live

you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous   

in the final account only this is important

and let your helpless Anger be like the sea

whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten

let your sister Scorn not leave you

for the informers executioners cowards—they will win

they will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earth   

the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography

and do not forgive truly it is not in your power   

to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn

beware however of unnecessary pride

keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror   

repeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than I

beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring   

the bird with an unknown name the winter oak

light on a wall the splendour of the sky   

they don’t need your warm breath

they are there to say: no one will console you

be vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and go   

as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star

repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends   

because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain   

repeat great words repeat them stubbornly

like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand

and they will reward you with what they have at hand   

with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap

go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls

to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland

the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes

Be faithful Go"

-Herbert

"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.  

We're actors — we're the opposite of people!

Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: England.
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.

Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I'm not dead."
(Stoppard)

"Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?
Vladimir: Yes, yes, we're magicians.

Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come --

Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."
 (Beckett)

"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.

No single thing abides; and all things are fucked up

There is a line somewhere in Wozzeck that translates out to, roughly, 'The world is awful.' Yes, I said to myself as I shot across the Bay Bridge not giving a fuck how fast I drove, that sums it up. That is high art: 'The world is awful.' That says it all. This is what we pay composers and painters and the great writers to do: tell us this; from figuring this out, they earn a living. What a masterful, incisive insight. What penetrating intelligence. A rat in a drain ditch could tell you the same thing, were it able to talk. If rats could talk, I'd do anything they said."
(Philip K. Dick)

"Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

 It is remarkable, however, that at the very lowest point of Kant's depression, when he became perfectly incapable of conversing with any rational meaning on the ordinary affairs of life, he was still able to answer correctly and distinctly, in a degree that was perfectly astonishing, upon any question of philosophy or of science, especially of physical geography, [Footnote: Physical Geography, in opposition to Political.] chemistry, or natural history. He talked satisfactorily, in his very worst state, of the gases, and stated very accurately different propositions of Kepler’s, especially the law of the planetary motions. And I remember in particular, that upon the very last Monday of his life, when the extremity of his weakness moved a circle of his friends to tears, and he sat amongst us insensible to all we could say to him, cowering down, or rather I might say collapsing into a shapeless heap upon his chair, deaf, blind, torpid, motionless,—even then I whispered to the others that I would engage that Kant should take his part in conversation with propriety and animation. This they found it difficult to believe. Upon which I drew close to his ear, and put a question to him about the Moors of Barbary. To the surprise of everybody but myself, he immediately gave us a summary account of their habits and customs; and told us by the way, that in the word Algiers, the g ought to be pronounced hard (as in the English word gear).

the tyranny of the human face” 
(de Quincey)