collected spells
spells
presented in the style of a
to be read as a whole,
one that forms an entirely
new poem, if you will.
thinking about language as magic and inherent human creativity through our personal interpretations of word meanings and usages
we build our own castles/houses/palaces— whatever.
and then we live in them
everyone is a poet so long as they remember (ocean voung)
the art teaches you how to make it
ideas gestate best in voids. things that block voids are called “avoids” (andrea zittel)
the best rules are never stable or permanent but evolve naturally according to content or need (andrea zittel)
devastation grew from me. (like flowers?)
rotten fruit on the table
the dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss. (ursula k. le guin)
focus on how good it feels, each day, to be pointing towards your truest desires. (ask polly)
the distance between two bodies is itself a body too…to be “between people” rather than “with them”
(siegfried kracauer)
just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
(czeslaw milosz)
it is inside myself that i must create someone who will understand (clarice lispector)
the thing about performance…is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
(daniel day-lewis)
the poet must not avert his eyes (werner herzog)
through expression we meet ourselves (rick rubin)
once i was beautiful. now i am myself, (anne sexton)
what matters is life, life alone, the continuous and infinite process of discovering it, not the discovery itself!
(fyoder dostoevsky)
even a wounded world is feeding us (robin wall kimmerer)
the pain of heartbreak isn’t so terrible once you subtract shame from the picture (ask polly)
the living reduce the dead to those who have lived; yet the dead already include the living in their own great collective.
(john berger)
you are not alone, the poem said, in the dark tunnel
(louise gluck)
life comes in clusters (may sarton)
i am being joyful because i refuse to be defeated: so i love
(clarice lispector)
nothing is better than to live a storyless life that needs to writing for meaning (jeff buckley)
you are where you are until you’re not (jamie varon)
commune with your own heart on your bed and be still
(maimonides)
religion is an exercise of attention (byun-chul han)
absolutely no one comes to save us but us
(ismatu gwendolyn)
keep the channel open (zadie smith)
rain never falls from the same cloud twice.
neither should you.
god is real and he is singing
a mirror reflecting a mirror reflecting yet another mirror.
you seeing you seeing you.
last night i dreamt of poetry but the words slipped through my fingers— like time; the meaning eludes me & still, softly:
the memory of something having been there at all.
the light blinds me to the light (james baldwin)
of course it’s escapist!…it is our plain duty to escape and to take as many people with us as possible. (jrr tolkien)
walking home, for a moment, you almost believe you could start again. and an intense love rushes to your heart, and hope. it’s unendurable, unendurable (franz wright)
never waste a good crisis (julia tarrant)
everything is waiting for you (david whyte)
my love, kiss me (nordic runes, 1248)
miss you. would like to take a walk with you
(gabrielle calvorcorressi)
all that’s left is the assholes we are (marion wink)
this place could be beautiful, right? you could make this place beautiful. (maggie smith)
you love something because it loves you back
let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. it will not lead you astray (rumi)
the universe as a series of expansions and contractions
icarus isn’t a story about how terrible hubris is, that you can die from flying too high, but instead: of how beautiful the sun is. how it blinds and melts us all.
nights where my body is made of the space between radio stations. when every part of me is tension.
not, that i’m sure, it was meant for me (danusha lameris)
i wish to see a brilliance that softens like ripe fruit. but this brilliance is sharp and cuts the tongue.
last year i abstained, this year i devour / without guilt / which is also an art (margaret atwood)
you don’t have a career, you have a life (nia vardalos)
one must imagine sisyphus happy (albert camus)
i had a dream about flying. then, the leaves of a green plant: how it looks with the sun shining through them.
lightly, child, lightly (aldous huxley)
there is a hidden blessing in knowing something will end before it has even begun (ranata suzuki)
there is a crack in everything. that’s how the light gets in.
(leonard cohen)
tomorrow is born from the body of today
equillibrium between balance and surrender leads to a change in perspective
all the plants i’ve ever had are still alive in my dreams, and thriving
the heart breaks and the world explodes in front of us as a revelation (nick cave)
okay before ; okay again after
like i’m climbing the endless staircase of myself
make a covenant with honesty (martin shaw)
every day we invent new ways to become ourselves
real life. with sweetness
how dreams are more vivid for not having described them to anyone or even yourself
love is a dream or a meal we have again and again
it was lovely, and it was beautiful, and it was exactly what we needed.
there is a window.
now there is a door.