The Moon's Favors by Baudelaire

The moon, which is caprice itself, looked in the window while you were sleeping in your crib, and said to herself: “That child pleases me.”

And then she mellowly descended her staircase of clouds and passed noiselessly through the windows. Then she spread herself over you with the supple tenderness of a mother, and she left her colors on your face. Your eyes remained green, and your cheeks extraordinarily pale. It was while contemplating that visitor that your eyes became so bizarrely large; and she so tenderly crushed your throat that you have retained forever the desire to cry.

Meanwhile, in the expansiveness of her joy, the Moon filled all of the room like a phosphoric atmosphere, like a luminous poison; and all of that living light thought and said: “You will be eternally subject to the influence of my kiss. You will be beautiful in my manner. You will love what I love and who loves me: water, the clouds, silence, and the night; the immense, green sea; formless and multiform water; the place where you will not be; the lover you will not know; monstrous flowers; perfumes that make you delirious; cats who swoon on pianos, and who moan like women, with a hoarse, gentle voice!

“And you will be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You will be the queen of the green-eyed men whose throats I have also pressed with my nocturnal caresses; of those who love the sea, the immense sea, tumultuous and green, formless and multiform water, the place where they are not, the woman they do not know, sinister flowers that resemble the incense burners of an unknown religion, perfumes that trouble the will, and savage and voluptuous animals that are the emblems of their folly.”

And it is for that reason, cursed, spoiled, beloved child, that I am now laying at your feet, seeking in all of your person the reflection of the formidable Divinity, of the prophetic god-mother, of the wet-nurse who empoisons all lunatics.

La Mélinite: Moulin-Rouge

La Mélinite: Moulin-Rouge
Arthur Symons, 1895

Olivier Metra’s Waltz of Roses
Sheds in a rhythmic shower
The very petals of the flower;
And all is roses,
The rouge of petals in a shower.

Down the long hall the dance returning
Rounds the full circle, rounds
The perfect rose of lights and sounds,
The rose returning
Into the circle of its rounds.

Alone, apart, one dancer watches
Her mirrored, morbid grace;
Before the mirror, face to face,
Alone she watched
her morbid, vague, ambiguous grace.

Before the mirror’s dance of shadows
She dances in a dream,
And she and they together seem
A dance of shadows,
Alike the shadows of a dream.

The orange-rosy lamps are trembling
Between the robes that turn;
In ruddy flowers of flame that burn
The lights are trembling:
The shadows and the dancers turn.

And, enigmatically smiling,
In the mysterious night,
She dances for her own delight,
A shadow smiling
Back to a shadow in the night.

Half-asleep

For many years, I lay half awake. I believed that in order to function, I must compromise the truth for the demands of reality. I don’t think anyone should compromise who they are. Just like no one should be prevented from having mad, passionate love affairs as long as the intentions are pure. Those who restrain their emotions get sick in the heart and in the head. Some forget that we are built by our relationships and never our titles. We were put into this world to care for other people, some for multitudes, some for just one.

We are all joyful beings. Everything that we are made up of, from our souls to our bodies, function only on the basis of joy. It’s everything that we need to feel. As long as we know what makes us ultimately happy then that’s where we find our God.

We fight wars in order to attain peace. Ironically, the moment I surrendered was the moment I got what I needed. Now I’m happy, happier than I could ever be.

Niña Sandejas

What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes

By Dave Eggers

Like the fur of a chinchilla. Like the cleanest tooth. Yes, the fishes say, this is what it feels like. People always ask the fishes, ‘What does the water feel like to you?’ and the fishes are always happy to oblige. Like feathers are to other feathers, they say. Like powder touching ash. We smile and nod. When the fishes tell us these things, we begin to understand. We begin to think we know what the water feels like to the fishes. But it’s not always like fur and ash and the cleanest tooth. At night, they say, the water can be different. At night, when it’s very cold, it can be like the tongue of a cat. At night, when it’s very very cold, it’s like cracked glass. Or honey. Or forgiveness, they say, ha ha. When the fishes answer these questions - which they are happy to do - they also ask why. They are curious things, fish are, and thus they ask, ‘Why? Why do you want to know what the water feels like to the fishes?’ And we are never quite sure. The fishes press further. ‘Do you breathe air?’ they ask. The answer is yes. Well then, they say, ‘What does the air feel like to you?’ And we do not know. We think of air and we think of wind, but that’s another thing. Wind is air in action, air on the move, and the fishes know this. Well then, they ask again, ‘What does the air feel like?’ And we have to think about this. Air feels like air, we say, and the fishes laugh mirthlessly. ‘Think!’ they say. ‘Think,’ they say, now gentler. And we think and we guess that air feels like hair, thousands of hairs, swaying ever so slightly in breezes microscopic. The fishes laugh again. ‘Do better, think harder,’ they say, encouraging us. It feels like language, we say, and they are impressed. ‘Keep going,’ they say. It feels like blood, we say, and they say, ‘No, no, now you’re getting colder.’ The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.


William Ernest Henley
published 1875

—- —- —-

Still one of my favourite poems.

Lovely knees, scraped elbows

she wishes she has lovely knees, instead she has a lovely
way to see the world.

she doesn’t believe in umbrellas, only
the stars in the midnight sky and the raindrops running down
her neck, arms, legs, spine.

she sits on his bed and orders one beautiful sunrise after
another. she says: let’s reinvent what magic is.

she replaces fear of the unknown with curiosity.

—- —- —-

These lovely writing excerpts are from here.

The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women

1. Don’t play by their rules. Change the game.
2. Win by “besting”. You don’t have to put other people down in order to raise yourself up.
3. Win by winning people over. People don’t like to be defeated, but they like to be won over.
4. Have strong feelings and don’t feel ashamed of expressing them.
5. Have strong desires and don’t feel ashamed of fulfilling them.
6. Strengthen your opponents because they are potential allies.
7. Love and war are the same thing.