Albion

“the pony also sets off on a journey... autumn dusk   *”
― David G. Lanoue, Issa's Best: A Translator's Selection of Master Haiku

“we were never meant to be what we are or where we are, we are looking for an escape, some music from the sun, the girl we never found. we are betting on the miracle again there before the purple mountains as the horses parade past so much more beautiful than our lives.”
― Charles Bukowski, Bone Palace Ballet: 175 Unpublished Poems and Stories—From Hard-Drinking Apprentice to Defiant Artist Facing Fate

“Because he has bright white teeth, Egnatius whips out a tooth-flash on all possible (& impossible) occasions. You’re in court. Counsel for defence concludes a moving peroration. (Grin.) At a funeral, on all sides heart-broken mothers weep for only sons. (Grin.) Where, when, whatever the place or time – grin. It could be a sort of ‘tic’. If so, it’s a very vulgar tic, Egnatius, & one to be rid of. A Roman, a Tiburtine or Sabine, washes his teeth. Well-fed Umbrians & overfed Etruscans wash theirs daily. The dark Lanuvians (who don’t need to), & we Veronese, all wash our teeth.… But we keep them tucked in. We spare ourselves the nadir of inanity – inane laughter. You come from Spain. Spaniards use their morning urine for tooth-wash. To us that blinding mouthful means one thing & one only – the quantity of urine you have swallowed.”
― Catullus, The Poems

“ah it will never end, there will be no help, no mercy, no living thing, it will all go on, uselessly, through fabrication and old habits, it will continue, a headless body of life, walking old walks, doing old tricks, dreaming old dreams, it will be as alone as a mountain, and despite billions of beings there will not be one real being, there will be everlasting waste and only the animals will be real, they will have the pureness of eye and the grace, they will be the last, the simple, pure, the ember, what it meant truly, the wolf will have the heart and the panther the lungs and the eagle, the eyes, and the last war will be one man sitting in a chair, laughing at it all.”
― Charles Bukowski, Bone Palace Ballet: 175 Unpublished Poems and Stories—From Hard-Drinking Apprentice to Defiant Artist Facing Fate