They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
What constitutes a happy life?
Enough money to meet your needs
steady work
a comfortable fire
a clear distance from law
a minimum of city business
a peaceful mind and a healthy body
simple wisdom and firm friends
enjoyable dinners and plain living
nights free from care
a virtuous wife who’s not a prude
enough sleep to make the darkness short
contentment with the life you have,
avoiding the sneer, the poisoned sigh:
no fear of death
and no desire to die.
Lindsay and Patricia Watson, trans.
The slightest movement of the body,
whether of genuine revival
or only a false alarm
caused by pockets of air
trapped in the abdomen,
triggers a highly sensitive
release mechanism
housed in a spring-loaded ball
positioned over the heart.
If this ball is disturbed
by so much as a twitching nerve-end,
a message is transmitted
to a box on the surface,
which immediately flies open,
admitting air to the coffin.
A flag rises in warning,
a bell rings for half an hour,
a lamp burns after sunset.
As the ancient stories tell us, invisible
to mortal men, beauty dwells among
the high-capped rocks near a wind gap
arduous to climb. And you must almost
wear your heart out in the struggle
required to attain its height.
On Poetry
Like the bee, she consorts with flowers
to concoct her dream
of a scented, pollen-yellow honey.
On Poetry and Painting
The word is the image of the thing.
Poetry is painting that speaks.
Painting is poetry that’s silent.
translated by Sherod Santos in Greek Lyric Poetry
In fall 1984, at the first Hackers’ Conference, I said in one discussion session: ‘On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.’ That was printed in a report/transcript from the conference in the May 1985 Whole Earth Review, p. 49.” -Stewart Brand