30 Nov 2011

caught in the wind ephemeral
inexplicably balanced
the signs and portents fire
and as quiet as the anticipation
dawn arises from the world’s moat
the day upon the tight wire
about to fall — or fly

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

27 Nov 2011

I will put all my faith in the hands of the Lord. For whatever I tried to hold onto, I have let slip, from memory or from sight. So much that I have forgotten. But whatever I placed in the care of Him above, these things will I ever have, whether I concern myself about them or not. Sometimes what He promises I will scoff at, like Sarah who He told would have her son Isaac, even while she was in old age. But the Lord’s promises are not those of men, who like a leaf is blown and scattered. His will is surer than the seconds that pass so diligently. God is love: thus is the mystery we contend with. That of the delicate balance of all things between one another, He knows how fate will trace, the single whisper that sets in motion the creation of whole cities. We, not to comprehend a fraction of the myriad connections between triggers and flows, the actions and consequences, the intricate orchestrations and their musics. Just that we trust that the hand from which the miracle comes is sure.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

24 Nov 2011

the sign that is not a sign
a muted and ordinary hiccup of fate
(in perfect alignment, the stars begin to fall)
visions just outside my peripheral optics
where destiny builds the instants
(there is no conspiracy, but the madness is real)
a past that tips off the edge of memory
the void holds secrets perfectly
(and here i am at the end, and snow is everywhere)

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

21 Nov 2011

We all profess that we are bound for heaven, immortality, and glory; but is it any evidence we really design it, if all our thoughts are consumed about the trifles of this world, which we must leave behind us, and if we have only occasional thoughts of things above?

– John Owen

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

18 Nov 2011

Louis I. Kahn
Salk Institute for Biological Studies


Click on the pic for a larger version.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

15 Nov 2011

Modern man has a God-shaped hole in his heart.
– Jean-Paul Sartre

It is that desire for something better, I think, wherein this hole is expressed, the sentence that starts with “in a perfect world…”. The cynic who only sees the faults in the works of man, the half-empty glass: could it be that he secretly seeks a perfection he cannot name, which he has stopped hoping for (except only as a dull pain that he is missing something, something important)? Do these protest too much? For perhaps thus, man was made imperfect for a reason: to find the piece of him that makes him wonder why….

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

12 Nov 2011

[Book. The previous is at alquemie.com.]

And then there are the other people, people enclosed behind a white counter, framed like a small fortification, and they are dressed in white as like the walls. They must belong here. They must hold the keys. I shouldn’t stare. Down the hall there is a large commons-like space, where there is a large TV and some people dressed like me are sitting, mostly with vague interest to whatever is playing or around them in general. There is a table where someone is drawing something. There is a cabinet with various board games stacked within it. This is the end of the line, I find, for the doors that lead elsewhere besides this is locked, at least on this extremity. Except for the TV, nothing is really making a sound.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

9 Nov 2011

Night falls, a test if faith will last the dark, not lose itself in the nothingness.

Night falls, and all the stars show themselves from behind the blue curtain of day.

Night falls, and a hundred candles means romance, while one candle stands for hope.

Night falls, but the moon is sometimes a better companion than the sun.

Night falls, a slow exhale of the inbreath, the accumulations of the daylight hours.

Night falls, a cool blanket of midnight blue that collects in it all who rest from motion.

Night falls, and I discover sometimes I can find myself better in the dark.

posted by John H. Doe @ 3:41 am

6 Nov 2011

All dreams are innocent.

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:08 am

Where, then, does happiness lie? In forgetfulness, not indulgence, of the self. In escape from sensual appetites, not in their satisfaction. We live in a dark, self-enclosed prison, which is all we see or know if our glance is fixed ever downward. To lift it upward, becoming aware of the wide, luminous universe outside — this alone is happiness. At its highest level, such happiness is the ecstasy that mystics have inadequately described. At more humdrum levels, it is human love; the delights and beauties of our dear earth, its colors and shapes and sounds; the enchantment of understanding and laughing, and all other exercise of such faculties as we possess; the marvel of the meaning of everything, fitfully glimpsed, inadequately expounded, but ever present.

– Malcolm Muggeridge

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

3 Nov 2011

there are zero matadors
dancing on zero tables
fighting zero ferocious bulls
zero bloodthirsty spectators
carried by zero flying carpets
yelling zero metaphysical truths
and the zero of the countdown
makes much of such nothings
as zero approaches in secret
the flip of a dread switch
when everything happens
and the crowd goes wild
at the slaying of the bulls
while the matadors dance
while we fly into oblivion

posted by John H. Doe @ 12:01 am

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