Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying. Martin Luther

And if you’re very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last – and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”

― Jim Butcher

Death is the greatest leveller. It is the all, in all, unifier.

Wake not a sleeping lion.

never fight a lion – unless you are a lion yourself.” – african proverb

“Old and new kiss everywhere in Africa” ~John Gunther, “Inside Africa”

“The thing I hate most about skeletons is you can never tell when they’re smiling.” ― Stephen Blackmoore, Dead Things

“He had a skull and crossbones label on him, but I drank his poison nevertheless and loved it; now I needed an antidote.”
― Genna Rulon, Only for You

Great Minds Drink Alike

“Death: “THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT.”
Albert: “Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.”
― Terry Pratchett

Death and drink-draining are near neighbours.

There will be mud on the carpet tonight and blood in the gravy as well. The wifebeater is out, the childbeater is out eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup.

[Anne Sexton (1928-1974), U.S. poet. “The Wifebeater.”]

The silver swan, who living had no note, When death approached, unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more: ‘Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.’ 1612 TheFirst Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,’The Silver Swan’.

Renee Winegarten :

Old age cannot be cured. An epoch or a civilization cannot be prevented from breathing its last. A natural process that happens to all flesh and all human manifestations cannot be arrested. You can only wring your hands and utter a beautiful swan song.

[Renee Winegarten (b. 1922), British author, critic. “The Idea of Decadence,” Commentary (New York, Sept. 1974).]

She who doth not love tea, covets wine.

IF DRINKING DON’T KILL ME

Somehow the killing of a giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of a wizard or the dwarves or anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.

 Tolkien – The Hobbit

Richardson has tiff, a drink, which he thinks a corruption of tipple, an allied word ; Ash defines tiff to be a corruption of the Teutonic tepel, a dug or teat, while the ancient author of “Gazophylacium Anglicanum ” surpasses all his predecessors and successors in ingenuity by deriving tipsy and tipple from the Latin tipula, a water-spider, because that in- sect is always drinking ! Mr. Halliwell, without entering on the etymological question, says that in English provincial dialects tiff has three meanings small beer, a draught of any liquor, and to fall headlong from the effects of drink.

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

Proverbs 24:11 : New International Version

“Our behaviour is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?

TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature–a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice. ” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

The Fortune-Teller

My brother went to see a fortune teller

who said he would die at the age of twenty-one.

That sharp thorn of thought stuck in my mind.

~

One day he was riding

a freeway on his motorbike

and the road rearranged his brain.

~

They patched him up at the hospital

and he walked out with no scars

visible to passers-by.

~

When he turned twenty-two

I laughed out loud with relief

and hid that thorn in my tin of memorabilia.

~

One day I took the thorn out of my tin

and showed my mother, laughing as I reminded her of the story

with a frown she said

but he did die, didn’t he.

GABRIELLE BRYDEN

“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable” Terry Pratchett, The City Watch Trilogy

“Kill you all!” The clown was laughing and screaming. “Try to stop me and I’ll kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You can’t stop me!”

― Stephen King, It

“DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”

― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

foto – izzy’s spot in bongil bongil forest

There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong.” ― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Death is patiently making my mask as I sleep. Each morning I awake to discover in the corners of my eyes the small tears of his wax.

Philip Dow

foto –izzy foreal at brierfield halloween 2013

My weary soul cries out for peace, Peace and the quietness of death.

Weariness BY EVA GORE-BOOTH

___________________________________

“I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

SMALL TRIBUTE FOR IZZY FOREAL BY PETER CARRUTHERS

Death is lighter than a feather, but Duty is heavier than a mountain. Robert Jordan, To the Blight

“Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please—this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. 
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favour for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)” 

― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Even a giant oak was once an acorn. Slovak.

Do you dare to die? The sense of death is most in apprehension, and the poor beetle that we tread upon feels a pang as great as when a giant dies.

Shakespeare.

 

Somehow the killing of a giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of a wizard or the dwarves or anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.

Tolkien – The Hobbit

Selena Odom: I have a master of an evil kind He totally controls my body, soul, and mind.

 

 

DRANSFIELD

last week,  I think on Tuesday,

she died

just gave up breathing

toppled over

a big smashed doll

with the needle still in her arm

 

I made a funeral of leaves

and sang the Book of Questions

to her face as white as hailstones

to her eyes as closed as heaven

‘For Ann so still and dreamy’

http://printedshadows.wordpress.com/category/australian-poetry/michael-dransfield-collected-poems/

 

“What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn’t easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring.”

― Russell Brand

It is good to die before one has done anything deserving death. Anaxandrides.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

― Albert Einstein

Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all. Lemony Snicket.

http://www.litera.co.uk/ancient_greek_proverbs_do_like_the/126/

Whispers of Immortality

WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

T. S. Eliot

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.” ― Malcolm X

Elegant Violence

Aufie Zophy

After five days of gloom 
and dark monsoon, 
sparks of colour in the sunrise
betray an enticing pause in the season

Strong winds still stand 
and sweep up white chunks of water
that jump out of the sea
in violent bouts of elegance

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/y-elegant-violence/

You can be a king or a street-sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper.

 

by Aditya Talwar, Salesian College – Australia

I watched as the Grim Reaper slowly walked towards me, yes the Grim Reaper. I was standing on a railway track thinking what to do about my dilemma. I could lie down flat on the track and wait for the next train to run over me or I could slowly wait for the Grim Reaper to come and slowly tear and rip my guts out while I watched in horror.

The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married. Cyril Connolly

http://www.gadel.info/2011/08/feeling-lonely-and-loneliness-quotes.html

foto of raleigh rumblers in december 2013

The Lonely Crossing

A man on foot came down to the river,
A silent man, on the road alone,
And dropped his swag with a chill-born shiver,
And sat to rest on a wind-worn stone.

He slid then down to the long grass, bending
His arms above as the resting do,
And watched a snow-white chariot trending
Its wind-made way o’er the wedgewood blue.

In it sat one of the fairest ladies
That mind could mould, in a crown of white,
But close beside came a fiend from Hades
In a chariot black as the heart of night.

The man, he sighed as the fiend would clasp her,
Then smiled as the wind by a wise decree
Her white steeds turned to the streets of Jaspar,
And Satan drave to a sin-black sea.

The wattles waved, and their sweet reflection 
In crystal fathoms responses made;
The sunlight silted each soft inflection
And fretted with silver the short’ning shade.

A restless fish made the thin reeds shiver,
A waking wind made the willows moan,
But the resting man by the noon-bright river
Lay dreaming on, in the long grass prone.

The bell-bird called to its tardy lover,
The grebe clouds all to the west had sped,
But the river of death had a soul crossed over,
The man with the swag on the bank was dead.

Lawson, Louisa (Dora Falconer)(1848-1920)

A man should avoid these six evils: lust, anger, avarice pleasure, pride, and rashness, for free of these he may be happy. (Sanskrit).

I Came to buy a smile—today—But just a single smile—The smallest one upon your faceWill suit me just as well—The one that no one else would missIt shone so very small—I’m pleading at the “counter”—…

Source: A man should avoid these six evils: lust, anger, avarice pleasure, pride, and rashness, for free of these he may be happy. (Sanskrit). | THE OLD PROVERBIAL RECOVERY

Bunny’s Excuse. There was once a wicked old sinner Who fancied a rabbit for dinner, But the bunny he met Said: “Don’t kill me yet, For I really am still a beginner.”

My living problems also cease to be struggles.

Heaven designs to suit our trials to our strength.

Though the sun shines, leave not your cloak at home.

” The queen’s mocking laughter cut in. “This is your treasure, Lord Sheftu?”

“Aye. The greatest treasure in Egypt—a maid whose loyalty cannot be bought. Whatever bargain we make, Daughter of the Sun, must include her freedom.”
― Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Mara, Daughter of the Nile

RISE TOGETHER

ADAM T NA SPEAKER

IF DRINKING DON’T KILL ME

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

SMALL TRIBUTE FOR IZZY FOREAL BY PETER CARRUTHERS

RISE TOGETHER

ADAM T NA SPEAKER

IF DRINKING DON’T KILL ME

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

SMALL TRIBUTE FOR IZZY FOREAL BY PETER CARRUTHERS