James Surprenant

“Excerpted from A PLEA FOR A LEAGUE OF SLEEP

... My life with joy is sometimes fraught,
But mostly when I'm doing naught.
Yea, I could spend my whole career
A pillow underneath my ear.
How wise was he who wittily said
That there is nothing like a bed.
A mattress is what I like to creep on;
The right side is the one I sleep on.

...Stalin and Hitler while they sleep
Are harmless as a baby sheep;
Tyrants who cause the earth to quake
Are only dangerous when awake.
This world would be a happier place,
And happier the human race,
And all our pilots be less Pontius,
If people spent more time unconscious.”
― Ogden Nash, Collected Verse from 1929 On

“I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.

A confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“The Library is desolation, it has a smell of its own of stagnation and death.”
― William Carlos Williams, Paterson, Book 3

“A crane can't buy a piece of ass

Or

hang itself at noon
in Monterey
Those are some of
the things

Humans can do
Besides
stand on one leg”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell