"Rock bottom teaches lessons that mountain tops never will. " ~ Unknown

“It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.” ~ Marie-Louise von Franz

Low, (That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace

The More Loving One by W. H. Auden 

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well 
That, for all they care, I can go to hell, 
But on earth indifference is the least 
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn 
With a passion for us we could not return? 
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn, 
I cannot, now I see them, say 
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky 
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Dilemma by Richard Aldington

You asked me if you should still go adventuring
For more beauty, new lands, strange faces, 
For other moons and suns over other cities
And seas and forests you have never beheld; 
Or whether you should sit down quietly
And con over all you have gathered,  
Fingering your memories, counting your spoils, 
Letting each day pass without comment
Indistinguishably—a day only, a passage of hours,
Without one blood-beat of discovery or pain. 

How could I answer in words? 
In any case I am sick of words and talk. 
So I drew you silently to the window
Opening upon the spring twilight. 
There was a deep orange overglow from the sun, 
And a young moon with a star in her hand; 
The last swifts dashed screaming over the roofs, 
While the first bats swerved noiselessly across the square; 
There was a murmur of talk and of moving feet
As people strolled and met after work; 
A peasant's cart went by with a man driving
And a girl holding a candle in a paper shade, 
And someone played a mandoline. 

Were you answered? I do not know, 
For after a long silence you spoke of other things. 
But I do not know any other silence to give you.

Beauty Unpraised by Richard Aldington

There is only you.
The rest are palterers, slovens, parasites. 
You only are strong, clear-cut, austere;
Only about you the light curls
Like a gold laurel bough.

Your words are cold flaked stone,
Scentless white violets?

Laugh!
Let them blunder.
The sea is ever the sea
And none can change it,
None possess it.

Misery by Richard Aldington

Sometimes in bitter mood I mock myself: 
'Half ape, half ass, servant and slave, 
Where are your dreams gone now, 
Where your fierce pride?
Whither goes your youth?
And how will you dare touch again
Dear slender women with those disfigured hands? 
Or bare your long-dishonoured body
To the contemptuous sun?
How live after this shame?'

And all my answer:
'So that hate poison not my days, 
And I still love the earth,
Flowers and all living things, 
And my song still be keen and clear 
I can endure.'

Salvador Dalí, The Ascension of Christ, 1958

”A work of art opens a void, a moment of silence, a question without answer, provokes a breach without reconciliation where the world is forced to question itself.” ~ Michel Foucault

”No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Sascha Schneider, The Anarchist , 1894

Decisions by Darby Hudson

I'm always just a couple
of poor decisions away from 
a terrible life.
But I'm also just a
couple of poor decisions from 
stumbling across the
life of my dreams.

Eduardo Naranjo , Dreaming of Muses , 1979

"Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me." ~ Buddhist quote

"Hope is optimism with a broken heart" ~ Nick Cave

I Am! by John Clare

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
     My friends forsake me like a memory lost. 
I am the self-consumer of my woes, 
     They rise and vanish, an oblivious host, 
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd 

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, 
     Into the living sea of waking dream, 
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys, 
     But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best 
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest. 

I long for scenes where man has never trod, 
     For scenes where woman never smiled or wept; 
There to abide with my Creator, God, 
     And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept 
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,  
The grass below; above the vaulted sky.

John Lee Hooker, It Serve You Right to Suffer

Walk the Line by Jimmy Osborne

Here's to the ones
Who play the part
With a smiling face 
But an aching heart

Who ride the wave 
But all the while 
They hide the pain
Behind a smile

This is to those 
Who face the rain
When the tide is high
And days are gray

Who walk the line 
To pave the way
To a better life
And brighter days

Victor Ivanovski, A Tail (Boudoir Stories), 2001