Sonny

“The music brought us what it seemed / We had long desired, but in a form / so rarefied there was no emptiness of sensation”
― John Ashbery, Some Trees

“I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.”
― John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure.”
― H.L. Mencken

“nerves


twitching in the sheets --
to face the sunlight again,
that's clearly
trouble.
I like the city better when the
neon lights are going and
the nudies dance on top of the
bar
to the mauling music.

I'm under this sheet
thinking.
me nerves are hampered by
history --
the most memorable concern of mankind
is the guys it takes to
face the sunlight again.

love begins at the meeting of two
strangers. love for the world is
impossible. I'd rather stay in bed
and sleep.

dizzied by the days and the streets and the years
I pull the sheets to my neck.
I turn my ass to the wall.
I hate the mornings more than
any man.”
― Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame