Ines

“There’s a loss of personality; Or rather, you’ve lost touch with the person You thought you were. You no longer feel quite human. You’re suddenly reduced to the status of an object — A living object, but no longer a person. It’s always happening, because one is an object As well as a person. But we forget about it As quickly as we can. When you’ve dressed for a party And are going downstairs, with everything about you Arranged to support you in the role you have chosen, Then sometimes, when you come to the bottom step There is one step more than your feet expected And you come down with a jolt. Just for a moment You have the experience of being an object At the mercy of a malevolent staircase.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays

“Some ladies had them for favourites or pets; but they were found mischievous and dangerous. Their morality was easy,—but difficult to understand; compounded of three-fourths sentiment—nine-tenths selfishness, twelve-ninths instinct, self-devotion, metaphysics, and cant. ‘Twas hard to come at a common denominator. John Bull, with his four rules of vulgar arithmetic, could never make it out; altogether he never could abide these foreign bores. Thought ‘em confounded dull too—Civilly told them so, and half asleep bid them “prythee begone”
― Maria Edgeworth, Thoughts on Bores: 'Wit is often its own worst enemy''

“The sagebrush is so short in some places that it is not large enough to make a fire, so we had to drive until quite late before we camped that night. After driving all day over what seemed a level desert of sand, we came about sundown to a beautiful cañon, down which we had to drive for a couple of miles before we could cross. In the cañon the shadows had already fallen, but when we looked up we could see the last shafts of sunlight on the tops of the great bare buttes. Suddenly a great wolf started from somewhere and galloped along the edge of the cañon, outlined black and clear by the setting sun. His curiosity overcame him at last, so he sat down and waited to see what manner of beast we were. I reckon he was disappointed for he howled most dismally. I thought of Jack London's "The Wolf.”
― Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters Of A Woman Homesteader: By Elinore Pruitt : Illustrated

“Tomino’s Hell

Elder sister vomits blood,
younger sister’s breathing fire
while sweet little Tomino
just spits up the jewels.

All alone does Tomino
go falling into that hell,
a hell of utter darkness,
without even flowers.

Is Tomino’s big sister
the one who whips him?
The purpose of the scourging
hangs dark in his mind.

Lashing and thrashing him, ah!
But never quite shattering.
One sure path to Avici,
the eternal hell.

Into that blackest of hells
guide him now, I pray—
to the golden sheep,
to the nightingale.

How much did he put
in that leather pouch
to prepare for his trek to
the eternal hell?

Spring is coming
to the valley, to the wood,
to the spiraling chasms
of the blackest hell.

The nightingale in her cage,
the sheep aboard the wagon,
and tears well up in the eyes
of sweet little Tomino.

Sing, o nightingale,
in the vast, misty forest—
he screams he only misses
his little sister.

His wailing desperation
echoes throughout hell—
a fox peony
opens its golden petals.

Down past the seven mountains
and seven rivers of hell—
the solitary journey
of sweet little Tomino.

If in this hell they be found,
may they then come to me, please,
those sharp spikes of punishment
from Needle Mountain.

Not just on some empty whim
Is flesh pierced with blood-red pins:
they serve as hellish signposts
for sweet little Tomino.

—translated by David Bowles
June 29, 2014”
― Saijo Yaso