"All that we have forgotten about narrative steals back into narrative and watches us with shining eyes."
--Lisa Robertson, Debbie: An Epic (1997)
[Wonderful use of language by this poet i had not previously heard of. Can't tell yet if it adds up to anything, but many phrases attest a singularly precise ear & imagination.]

"Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions."
--Tony Kushner, Angels in America/ part 1

   'IN THE AUTUMN

A leaf quietly wafts through the autumn
Gleaming with bright sunlight.
Let me believe that with bright smiles
We can shore up this huge earth.

Let us find you
In the ripples of the bell sounds;
In the tiny, hard grip of the baby
Clinging to its mother's skirt.

There will never come a day
When all our yesterdays and todays
Are buried irretrievably in legends.

Today I want to believe an eternal truth
Grandmother's words that the moon has a cinnamon tree
To be cut out with a silver hatchet.

In the burning sickbed of my childhood
I was falling in a bottomless abyss.
That endless, headlong fall caused me
To pass out again and again.
Let us protect our dear dreams
From that terrible truth.'

--Han-mo Chung, in: Best Loved Poems of Korea, ed Chang-soo Koh (1984)

Listening to: No World (Trio) Improvisations

Byzantine Studies on the Internet. (via Metafilter) --Let
me tell you, we're a lot closer to being the New Byzantines than being the New Romans.

Obligatory "Unelectable" link. (pull out yr barf bag)