Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 51

CarrollBlog 6.13

from "Target"

by Jason Koo

Oh you out there not in love,

I know how it is, when you wake up in the morning and look down

at your body like an émigré looking back

Disgustedly at his homeland; when you peer through the blinds

and the world is nothing but a grey side;

When you feel each day is a dart flung at a target you keep missing

because who, or where, or what is the target?

The soul cannot live like this, the soul needs a cable, a clasp, its talons

are hungry for a peak, there's too...

CarrollBlog 6.10

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less...

CarrollBlog 6.9

Love Poem With Toast

by Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do

to make things happen,

the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,

the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do

trying to keep something from doing something,

the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,

the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery

powering our passage through the days,

we move, as we call it, forward,

wanting to be wanted,

wanting not to lose the rain forest,

wanting the ...

CarrollBlog 6.5

Just in from a friend in New York:

Actual conversation at Starbucks at 6th Ave & 14th Street yesterday.



To me -

Barista - "What are ya' having?"

Me - "Tall skim latte"

Barista - "What's your name?"

Me - "Jeff"

Barista - "Tall non fat latte for Jeff"



Next customer

Barista - "What are ya' having?"

Customer - "Medium mocha frappucino"

Barista - "What's your name?"

Customer - "Umberto"

Barista - "Grande mocha frappucino for Burrito"



Umberto was not amused. I don't think it was an...

CarrollBlog 6.4

Starlings in Winter

by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,

but with stars in their black feathers,

they spring from the telephone wire

and instantly

they are acrobats

in the freezing wind.

And now, in the theater of air,

they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;

they float like one stippled star

that opens,

becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;

and you watch

and you try

but you simply can't imagine

how they do it

with no articulated instruction, no pause,

CarrollBlog 5.31

This is a really interesting insight into the future of print/books etcetera from the blog of the graphic designer Frank Chimero:

• Question: What is the future of print design? How will the tangible, ink-on-paper pieces that designers love coexist with design on digital platforms in the years to come?

Things are changing. We want to know where it's going. But, hell if I know, or any one else has more than a hunch. Craig Mod calls it the PRE/POST era and I think he's right. As I've said...

CarrollBlog 5.30

"At a lunch afterwards, Brian asked if they might be friends. The way he asked—shyly and with a charming tone of worry in his voice—flustered her. In court he was so confident and authoritative. But now he sounded like a 7th grade boy asking her to dance. On the verge of saying of course, it struck her uh oh maybe he doesn't want to be just friends, he wants— As if reading her mind, the lawyer put up a hand and shook his head. 'Please don't take that any way but how I said it. I just think...

CarrollBlog 5.29

There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged.

Such moments are most desirable,

for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places.

This is detachment—

when the old is over and the new has not yet come.

If you are afraid, the state may be distressing,

but there is really nothing to be afraid of.

Remember the instruction:

Whatever you come across—

go beyond."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

CarrollBlog 5.28

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because...

CarrollBlog 5.27

Not having seen each other in years, they met one day by chance and had a nice but superficial conversation on the street. Both knew there was so much more that could have been said but it wasn't because once *those* floodgates were opened, who knows what might have happened. When they were saying good bye, he reached in his pocket and brought out a roller ball pen. Taking her hand, he turned it over and writing something on her palm, told her not to look until later. When he was finished he ...