mugs by Atesartt
circle of sleep <3
Oh ok so it turns out ive been borrowing grief from the future ! it turns out ive been preparing to lose the things i love rather than basking in the light of them while they last. Maybe i should nt do that
also a poem from the new, unreleased collection. very possibly my own all-time favourite.
please don’t spend your life convincing yourself that love or joy is reserved for the idealized version of you that only exists in the future
“As no science explains adequately how dreams work, no one can explain how a poem works. Where is a dream, sure, but where is a poem? I believe somewhat in Williams’ formulation that a poem is a machine made out of words, but, finally, the poem isn’t where the words are. The poem is somewhere between the words and the reader, or it is the words taken into the reader, who exists within the general society and its history. You enter the poem when you open to its page or remember it, having memorized it, but it is a much larger world than the page. It is transformed when you say it out loud; and it changes from reading to reading—you, the reader, change it, for one thing, as you change—or is it that it changes for you? If you are reading a poem by Catullus, you are in no way the same as an ancient Roman reading it: you are not that person—that kind of person, though it is that poem, as those words. But even if you know Latin, you don’t “speak Latin,” and you haven’t much feeling for what it was like to be a Roman. A poem, like a dream, has an odd relation to time: it is in time, like a poem by Catullus, but it is timeless, as an object made out of words. A dream lasts a moment but endures as a memory might: but it didn’t really happen. A memory can be backed-up, but no outside observer can find the particulars of a dream in time and space (evidence of REM or whatever isn’t evidence of what happened in your dream). A poem didn’t or doesn’t happen, it’s a still group of words on a page; and a story doesn’t really happen either. We say that dreams, poems, and stories occur in the imagination, or the psyche, or whatever word we’re using right now, to invent another entity that doesn’t concretely exist to put them in. But doesn’t the “real world” exist in some collective category like that? All we do is dream; we live in poems and stories we invent.”
— Alice Notley on Writing from Dreams ‹ Literary Hub
˚˖𓍢ִ 🌷 ˚ pink & green pngs — free to use !! no credits needed ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
"There is a stranger outside your house. He is old, ragged and dirty. He is tired. He has been wandering, homeless, for a long time, perhaps many years. Invite him inside. You do not know his name. He may be a thief. He may be a murderer. He may be a god. He may remind you of your husband, your father or yourself. Do not ask questions. Wait. Let him sit on a comfortable chair and warm himself beside your fire. Bring him some food the best you have, and a cup of wine. Let him eat and drink until he is satisfied. Be patient. When he is finished, he will tell his story. Listen carefully. It may not be as you expect."
~ Translator's Note ; The Odyssey (trl by Emily Wilson)