Chase Stewart

“I think it's the future. At least, it's the future
we called "tomorrow." Here it is,
"today": one hundred cups of effort,
good intentions, small misunderstandings,
stretching away from the bed
and finally leading back to it.”
― Albert Goldbarth, The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007

“APPLY WITHIN

You once told me
You wanted to find
Yourself in the world -
And I told you to
First apply within,
To discover the world
within you.

You once told me
You wanted to save
The world from all its wars -
And I told you to
First save yourself
From the world,
And all the wars
You put yourself
Through.


APPLY WITHIN by Suzy Kassem”
― Suzy Kassem

“How many hands were shook and names were signed
and pipes were passed congenially in a circle,
before the first of the used-car dealerships rose up
on the ground where the gods had walked?”
― Albert Goldbarth, Everyday People: Poems

“Love is a source of anxiety until it is source of boredom; only friendship feeds the spirit. Love raises great expectations in us that it never satisfies; the hopes based on friendship are milder and in the present, and they exist only because they've already been rewarded. Love is a script about just a few repeated themes we have a hard time following, though we make every effort to conform to its tone. Friendship is a permis de séjour that enables us to go anywhere and do anything exactly as our whims dictate.”
― Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 70s