Tag Archives: living

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More often then not, I have posted quotes here from a large number of poets, dramatists, novelists, thinkers, visual artists as well as no-label-individuals. My intent has always been to offer their sentiments about, contemplations on and analyses of the various layers of life and death to you as a platform from which we all may better understand one another. Today, I am leaving you with words by Marcel Proust. Read them, enjoy them (or not), reflect on them and share your own responses to them, should you so choose. Marcel Proust is no longer among the empirically living. We, however, still are…

My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.”

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. . .

1145-chicago-usa-trees

[Photo Credit: pdpics]

“The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.” ~ Osho

 

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Hani

Nazım copy

Hani derler ya,

Ben sensiz yaşayamam, diye.

Ben onlardan değilim.

Ben sensiz de yaşarım;

Ama,

Seninle bir başka yaşarım…

[Poetry and Image Source: Nazım Hikmet]

 

You know what they say:

“I can’t live without you.”

I am not one of them.

I’ll live also without you;

but

with you,

my life would surely be something else…

[Translation Source: Self]

 

May it be through Turkish, English or any other world language – how do you define “living”? How about “life”?

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NaPoWriMo Challenge: Day 18

Once again, I will meet a daily NaPoWriMo challenge, namely Day 18 by Cathy Evans – according to whom one is expected “to write a poem that begins and ends with the same word.”  Before I venture into my poem, though, I want to take us all to Encyclopedia Britannica for a background information on in medias res,the literary technique of mention within the same prompt:

“( Latin: ‘in the midst of things’) in narrative technique, the recommended practice of beginning an epic or other fictional form by plunging into a crucial situation that is part of a related chain of events; the situation is an extension of previous events and will be developed in later action. The narrative then goes directly forward, and exposition of earlier events is supplied by flashbacks. The principle is based on the practice of Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad, for example, begins dramatically with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon during the Trojan War. The Latin poet and critic Horace has pointed out the immediate interest created by this opening in contrast to beginning the story ab ovo (‘from the egg)—i.e., from the birth of Achilles.”

 

great despair

professional dead-end

labor-rich occupation

health concerns-laden living

gravely limited means

private life, non-existing

 

The alternative?

His sole question.

You loved not once

but twice

yet both have gone their ways

your stronghold – your mother

no longer

father, remarried

brother, wedded

but you…

I worry.

 

He, on a pedestal

same with my brother

they would know, I resolved

forced the heart’s un-yearning aside

stayed on, and on, and on

 

until it broke

the rope that held me back

 

went where I had left it off

 

inhaled

exhaled

exhaled again

again

and again

 

lived

euphoria

on the path

of the spirit

the authentic one

freed yet once again

from pre-natal melancholy

in a vane attempt

to pre-empt

the persistence of

great despair

 

 

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