Avatar

Watch Out For Intellect

@watchoutforintellect / watchoutforintellect.tumblr.com

I Sting With Life.
Avatar
Last year I saw the blossoms up close as if for the first time, the wind scattering them across the land and over the walls. I want the flower that could speak on my behalf to be tattooed on the part of me that is difficult to see. I want it to identify me if I leave, to adorn me and to speak of my need for decoration.

Amna Muhammad Abu Safat, from Popular and Known to No One (translated by Lena Tuffaha) featured in Poems from Palestine

Avatar
I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together.
Avatar
Not a red rose or a satin heart. I give you an onion. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises light like the careful undressing of love. Here. It will blind you with tears like a lover. It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief. I am trying to be truthful. Not a cute card or a kissogram. I give you an onion. Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithful as we are, for as long as we are. Take it. Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring, if you like. Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy - “Valentine” featured in Mean Time

Avatar
When Rumi went into the tavern I followed. I heard a lot of crazy talk and a lot of wise talk. But the roses wouldn’t grow in my hair. When Rumi left the tavern I followed. I don’t mean just to peek at such a famous fellow. Indeed he was rather ridiculous with his long beard and his dusty feet. But I heard less of the crazy talk and a lot more of the wise talk and I was hopeful enough to keep listening until the day I found myself transformed into an entire garden of roses.

Mary Oliver, “RUMI” featured in Blue Horses