Section 25 of GLARE by A.R. Ammons

it scares me to think that being 
just me won’t be enough to do it:

(I’ve had a problem feeling like it 
up to now) but it scares me

more to think I have to be more than 
I am because like I said I’m already

running a deficit: and it scares me 
even more to think I could get by

with less than just me: because if 
I’ve amounted to nothing up to now

wouldn’t I amount to less being 
less: well, but then you have to

think, how well does this thing that 
has to be done have to be done:

maybe nobody can do it as well as I 
think it should be done: if it’s

okay to do it well enough to get 
by, why then maybe I’m your man after

all because I’m OVERSIZE Average, 
and even the low range of my average

should do to do it: there you are: 
the thing is to do it, go ahead and

do it: and see what happens: people 
may appreciate it more than you

think: often people expect so little: 
there are so many things they’re

used to finding they can’t do any 
better than anyone else: and if

you’re really good, they can be 
resentful and jealous (and you, by

the way, can be removed from regular 
average into an object of some awe

and fear, and people will fear you 
then but they won’t like you): if

you do poorly but show 
resolve and courage, you may attract

a lot of mutual understanding and 
sympathy and from a few possibly a

few offers of help: what we have 
here, in other words, is some pretty

down to earth stuff in which a lot 
of shining on your part may not be

all that appropriate: when #1 looks 
up, there is no one to look up to, and

when he looks down, he has no equal 
and no friend: he attracts,

quite contrariwise, sleazers, weaslers, 
pleasers and outrageously impertinent

nobodies who think they should be #1 and 
have not once imagined the bad

side of that, be average (or a little less) 
the wide world of the average is the

widest world to inherit, whereas 
splendor lives by itself in a place

of icy mirrors and chilling rooms

The words of the LORD God to Israel (Leviticus 19:33-34)

If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Luis Buñuel on libido, from ch. 6 of MY LAST SIGH (translated by Abigail Israel)

With rare exceptions, we Spaniards knew of only two ways to make love—in a brothel or in marriage. When I went to France for the first time in 1925, I was shocked, in fact disgusted, by the men and women I saw kissing in public, or living together without the sanction of marriage. Such customs were unimaginable to me; they seemed obscene. Much of this has changed, of course, over the years; lately, my own sexual desire has waned and finally disappeared, even in dreams. And I’m delighted; it’s as if I’ve finally been relieved of a tyrannical burden. If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I’d decline. “Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,” I’d reply, “so I can go on drinking and smoking!”

From section 26 of GLARE by A.R. Ammons

I reject the North because it is not

my native ground, and I reject the 
South because it rejected me, and I

reject European clutterment because 
we fought to put that ocean between

us: I identify with no sort or kind: 
I am by myself: with me is the

thinking up and writing of this poem: 
I am for the poem: it tells me who

I am: as the poem becomes itself, 
so, I hope, do I: it is sad and

simple, yet true: if anyone loved 
me, or if I loved, I would be loving,

I would not be writing: I have not 
found any way yet to be what I want

to be: I’m looking: I’m writing as 
hard as I can . . .

Luis Buñuel on being alone & the modern lack of quiet (from OBJECTS OF DESIRE)

Solitude can be terrible, but also desirable. I can see this in myself: at times, when I am alone, I want a friend or two to come visit because I get bored looking at the tips of my shoes or watching a buzzing fly. But I also like to be alone with my soul, to daydream, to imagine the imaginable . . . and the unimaginable. What sense is there in going out into the street to see nothing but the hoods of cars and to suffer from the noise? Silence is nearly impossible today; it’s something precious that is very difficult to find anywhere. For example, if you went to the North Pole to enjoy the silence, I wouldn’t be surprised if an Eskimo immediately appeared on his sled . . . with a noisy portable radio. Can you imagine what the silence must have been like in the Middle Ages? Leaving a town or city, within a few steps you could find silence, or natural sounds, which are marvelous: songs of birds, of cicadas, or the murmur of the rain. We have lost this in our time. There is an infernal instrument that really could have been invented by the devil or by an enemy of mankind: the electric guitar. What diabolical times we live in: crowds, smog, promiscuity, radios, etc. I would happily return to the Middle Ages, as long as it was before the Great Plague of the fourteenth century.

Luis Buñuel on the medium of film (from OBJECTS OF DESIRE)

Rationally, I don’t believe a handless man can grow new hands, but I can act as though I believe it because I’m interested in what comes afterward. Besides, I am working in cinema, which is a machine that manufactures miracles. Thanks to cinema, we can see an actor who died fifty years ago now, or how a seed germinates and grows into a plant, or how a bullet leaves a gun barrel and strikes an urn, whose fragments settle to the ground with the grace of a dancer. And these miracles don’t even surprise us anymore. It’s a shame that cinema wasn’t invented centuries ago. The most trivial newsreel from the Middle Ages would be marvelous: Joan of Arc’s death at the stake, a society ball at the castle of Gilles de Rais, a documentary on the cultivation of beets in those times.

Pierre says that we must believe... (from Pt. 5, Ch. 12 of WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy)

“If there is a God and there is a future life, then there is truth and there is goodness; and the highest happiness of man consists in striving for their attainment. We must live, we must love, we must believe,” said Pierre, “that we are not only living to-day on this clod of earth, but have lived and will live for ever there in everything” (he pointed to the sky). Prince Andrey stood with his elbow on the rail of the ferry, and as he listened to Pierre he kept his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun on the bluish stretch of water. Pierre ceased speaking. There was perfect stillness. The ferry had long since come to a standstill, and only the eddies of the current flapped with a faint sound on the bottom of the ferry boat. It seemed to Prince Andrey that the lapping of the water kept up a refrain to Pierre’s words: “It’s the truth, believe it.”