Human Poems:
Considering Coldly, Impartially
Stumble between Two Stars
The Nine Monsters
-Cesar Vallejo

Another Poem:
Lost to Sight
-Cesar Moro

These are from The Peru Reader.


Then there's the poetry on the stairwells in the library building-- sometimes those words are the only thing that keep me going.

I've been writing some of my own poetry lately-- mostly in my journal, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. The only way I know to judge, or at least enjoy poetry is if I can relate to it, and of course I am going to relate to something I wrote (--that is actually not necessarily true). Even still, I am not objective about my own work. And if it is actually good, I might not want it all over the internet for everyone to see/steal/judge. Because perhaps judgment of poetry is meaningless: Judgment of the musings of another?; Judgment with the connotation of possibly depreciating thought?; precious, pure thought under scrutiny? Perhaps it is not.

On another note, I almost wanted to stop writing here after that last post because I liked it too much. I feel it too much. It may have been the most truth I have ever grasped.
If I continue, then I am a contradiction to myself. But then again, humans are a contradiction to themselves. As a human (or the particular type of human I am) I thrive on expression. And if I suppress that, maybe I will become less human. From what I have been thinking lately, perhaps that is a fortune. But, then again, I cannot draw a line between fortune and misfortune, good and bad, love and hate. I will repeat what is probably my most ultimate resolve as of yet (keeping with the assumption that anything I ever state as belief is subject to change). This current resolve is that the more intensely you love something, the more intensely you can or will hate it.

My hatred for people (what we do, how we act) is based on my love of them. I have seen what good we are capable of and am constantly disappointed when we fall so short of that. When I look in the mirror and despise myself-- I despise that I too fall short, I detest that I fall into the category of humanity. Humanity, who I love for our capacity to love; who I hate for our capacity to hate; who by our seeming nature, destroys ourselves both directly, AND by demolishing the very world that gives us life. "It is not that I love man the less, but nature the more." I disagree. I cannot love what destroys that which I love. With that too, I don't completely agree. I can, in fact-- as a part of humanity. "It is not that I love man the less, but nature the more." I disagree. We can love nothing more than we love ourselves, and so we can hate nothing more than we hate...
Again, we are contradiction. Myself too.

Myself included in all my critique of humanity. Why do I stretch myself so thin? To reach that zenith of capability. And since I am falling short, even with such a minimal effort, what am I actually worth? If not to improve this world, why am I a part of it? How am I worth being alive --especially with the destruction to which I contribute so much. If I do not create more than I destroy, then perhaps I am not worthy. And perhaps that is why I suffer. Punishment? Self-punishment? Essence?

But I cannot, I CANNOT continue to live without some purpose. "To be or not to be? That is the question." (I am doing this from memory, so gimme a break). "Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to... tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream--ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life! For who would bare the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy take, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bare to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that: the dread of something after death (the undiscovered country from who's bourn no traveler returns), puzzles the will and makes us rather bare those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus, the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with a pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry and lose thy name of action."

Speaking, typing, hearing this draws out tears. I feel it so strongly. But maybe I disagree, for me. You can tell me I keep alive out of fear. Maybe that is the truth... for many it is. But perhaps I am alive out of hope. And maybe hope and fear have the same roots, or maybe one is a reaction to the other. Maybe they are one and the same. Though I'm actually not sure if I believe that fear is enough to keep me alive (some days the "dread of something after death" could not compete with the dread of life). Maybe hope is, (some days hope that what I do is good enough, or hope that someday something I do will be, moves me along).

Or maybe love is enough. Love of the crescent moon and sparse stars shining through a milky veil of cloud; love of words that try to mimic the beauty and filth of the earth and its inhabitants; love of the questions of the uncertainty (from which we may or may not derive fear); love of hate; hate of love; all the things we embrace; all we feebly try to avoid; feeling alone, being alone, knowing our inherent aloneness, and then somehow finding connection, company, love (however fleeting); those brief moments of strict joy...