Taking solitude in stride was a sign of strength and of a willingness to take care of myself. This meant - among other things - working productively, remembering to leave the house, and eating well. I thought about food all the time. I had a subscrip...
You are sauntering along the back streets of Avallon; you step into a tavern for a cup of wine. A great lummox claims that you have molested his wife; he takes up his cutlass and comes at you. So now! With your knife! Draw and throw! All in a single ...
Everyone rushes wherever his instincts impel him, the populace swarms like insects over a corpse, poets pass by without having the time to sculpt their thoughts, hardly have they scribbled their ideas down on sheets of paper than the sheets are blown...
Renee: “The Greek government doesn’t know that I found anything that day in the temple. And they for sure wouldn’t want to know about the little mess I left behind.” She grimaced. Trout: “Little mess? You started a freakin’ cave in, you m...
Tell me have you ever wanted someone so much it hurts? Your lips keep trying to speak, but you just can't find the words. Well I had this dream once, I held it in my hand... You had me dim the lights, you danced just like a child. The wine spilled on...
Yes You Are! Like the Blossoming rose, Like the Rays of hope. Like a deer in the forest, Like an athlete full of zest. Like a lamp in temple, Like the life feeling ample. Like the feel of the dawn, Like the grace of the swan. Like the melody of sitar...
The two seemed on casual terms, leading me to wonder how long this limousine had been in her life, and whether she had ever seen the inside, and if so, whether she climbed in the front seat or the back, and if the front, did she help navigate, and if...
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into...
If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre--the poems, the poems!--in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? But if I had never read Jack Kerouac's horrendous poems, I never would have had the guts to write horrend...
A Rough Guide Be polite at the reception desk. Not all the knives are in the museum. The waitresses know that a nice boy is formed in the same way as a deckchair. Pay for the beer and send flowers. Introduce yourself as Richard. Do not refer to what ...
If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and...
They danced again, and when the assembly closed, parted, on the lady’s side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much while she drank her warm wine and water and prepared herself for bed...
Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'...
The social prestige of wine at table and at the club must be destroyed through lofty example and polite ridicule; forces which are not always available, and for whose successful operation much time will be required. But the outstanding fact remains, ...
Oddball: Hi, man. Big Joe: What are you doing? Oddball: I'm drinking wine and eating cheese, and catching some rays, you know. Big Joe: What's happening? Oddball: Well, the tank's broke and they're trying to fix it. Big Joe: Well, then, why the hell ...
Let it all go to waste… For what I long for, I’m bound to resign! Bittersweet is, like the taste of wine, This Love’s captivating taste. Let my heart be tormented by wonder It will never manage to attain. On my window symphony of rain, Open sea...
His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear ...
Insensate cruelty to those you can whip, and grovelling submission to those you can't. Once having set up her idols and built altars to the, it was imevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she would accept any inconsistency and...
I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at dinner next to someone who knows just as mu...
And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plumme...
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread....
