Peyton

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
― John Donne, No man is an island – A selection from the prose

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“We're the unmended, the untended,
cold soldiers of the shoe. We're the neglected,
the never resurrected, agonies of the few.
We're the once kissed, unmissed and always
refused. Because we're the unfinished
and feared and we're never pursued.

And just that easily, on my behalf,
I come around. Because I'm burning.
The beast of War feeds only on the meats of War.
And now I'm for carnage.
Here's how my anguish frees.
Destroy everyone of course. Because I'm unwanted
and unsafe. And I'll take tears away with torments and rape,
killings and fears not even the dead will escape.
Encircling the Guilty, Ashamed, Blameless and
Enslaved. Absolved. Butchering their prejudice.

Patience. Their Value. Because I'm without value.
I'm the coming of every holocaust. Turning no lost.
Rending tissue, sinew and bone. Excepting no suffering.
By me all levees will break. All silos heave.
I will walk heavy.
And I will walk strange.

Because I am too soon.
Because without Her, I am only revolutions
Of ruin.

Because I am too soon.
Because without You, I am only revolutions
Of ruin.

I'm the prophecy prophecies pass.
Why need dies at last.
How oceans dry. Islands drown.
And skies of salt crash to the ground.
I turn the powerful. Defy the weak.
Only grass grows down abandoned streets.

For a greater economy shall follow Us
and it will be undone.
And a greater autonomy shall follow Us
and it too will be undone.
And a greater feeling shall follow Love
and it too we will blow to dust.
For I am longings without trust. The cycloidal haste
freedom from Hailey forever wastes.
Dust cares for only dust.
And time only for Us.

Because I am too soon.
Because without Her, I am only revolutions
Of ruin.

Because I am too soon.
Because without You, I am only revolutions
Of ruin.

We are always sixteen...”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions

“I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.

From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.

We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I— what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.”
― Socrates