Pablo Neruda, Morse Peckham, Jose Saramago

Keeping Quiet    Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon
Translated by Stephen MitchellWho else reads him?

Morse Pweckham  Man’s Rage for Chaos: Behavior and Art (1965)

“An ideology is always out of phase with the situation in which it is employed, for an ideology has always emerged as a response to a preceding situation, the attributes of which are different from the current situation.” 


















Art and Pornography (1971)

He's saying that a society needs trivial areas for policing--like pornography--to establish its power over the rest of the structure.

Just Discovering José Saramago! Where have I been for 65 years?

“We never consider that the things dogs know about us are things of which we have not the faintest notion.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“As so often happens, the thing left undone tires you most of all, you only feel rested when it has been accomplished.”
― José Saramago

“Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you've never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn't frighten you...my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside”
― José Saramago, All the Names

“As my cat would say, all hours are good for sleeping.”
― José Saramago, Seeing