feetand QUOTES

1 " a spider and a fly

i heard a spider
and a fly arguing
wait said the fly
do not eat me
i serve a great purpose
in the world

you will have to
show me said the spider

i scurry around
gutters and sewers
and garbage cans
said the fly and gather
up the germs of
typhoid influenza
and pneumonia on my feet
and wings
then i carry these germs
into households of men
and give them diseases
all the people who
have lived the right
sort of life recover
from the diseases
and the old soaks who
have weakened their systems
with liquor and iniquity
succumb it is my mission
to help rid the world
of these wicked persons
i am a vessel of righteousness
scattering seeds of justice
and serving the noblest uses

it is true said the spider
that you are more
useful in a plodding
material sort of way
than i am but i do not
serve the utilitarian deities
i serve the gods of beauty
look at the gossamer webs
i weave they float in the sun
like filaments of song
if you get what i mean
i do not work at anything
i play all the time
i am busy with the stuff
of enchantment and the materials
of fairyland my works
transcend utility
i am the artist
a creator and demi god
it is ridiculous to suppose
that i should be denied
the food i need in order
to continue to create
beauty i tell you
plainly mister fly it is all
damned nonsense for that food
to rear up on its hind legs
and say it should not be eaten

you have convinced me
said the fly say no more
and shutting all his eyes
he prepared himself for dinner
and yet he said i could
have made out a case
for myself too if i had
had a better line of talk

of course you could said the spider
clutching a sirloin from him
but the end would have been
just the same if neither of
us had spoken at all

boss i am afraid that what
the spider said is true
and it gives me to think
furiously upon the futility
of literature

archy "

― Don Marquis , Archy and Mehitabel

2 " Up past the old lime kiln
built into the side of a hill
we take a hard right at a clearing
lined by brittle apple trees
still willing to bear fruit.

I snap sticks beneath my feet
and steal pictures of the view
while you reach for something
sweet, as much as it bows
to you. "

― Kristen Henderson

3 " The Sad Boy

Ay, his old mother was a glad one.
And his poor old father was a mad one.
The two begot this sad one.

Alas for the single shoe
The Sad Boy pulled out of the rank green pond,
Fishing for fairies
On the prankish advice
Of two disagreeable lovers of small boys.

Pity the unfortunate Sad Boy
With a single magic shoe
And a pair of feet
And an extra foot
With no shoe for it.

This was how the terrible hopping began
That wore the Sad Boy thin and through
To his only shoe
And started the great fright in the provinces above Brent
Where the Sad Boy became half of himself
To match the beautiful boot
He had dripped from the green pond.

Wherever he went weeping and hopping
And stamping and sobbing,
Pounding a whole earth into a half-heaven,
Things split where he stood
Into the left side for the left magic,
Into no side for the missing right boot.

Mercy be to the Sad Boy
Scamping exasperated
After a wide boot
To double the magic
Of a limping foot.

Mercy to the melancholy folk
On the Sad Boy's right.
It was not for want of wandering
He lost the left boot too
And the knowledge of his left side,
But because one awful Sunday
This dear boy dislimbed
Went back to the old pond
To fish up another shoe
And was quickly (being too light for his line)
Fished in.

Gracious how he kicks now
All the little ripples up!
The quiet population of Brent has settled down,
And the perfect surface of the famous pond
Is slightly pocked, marked with three signs,
For visitors come to fish for souvenirs,
Where the Sad Boy went in
And his glad mother and his mad father after him. "

― , The Poems of Laura Riding: A Newly Revised Edition of the 1938/1980 Collection

4 " I’m a keeper of flocks.
The flock is my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my eyes and with my ears
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.

Thinking about a flower is seeing and smelling it
And eating a piece of fruit is knowing its meaning.

That’s why when on a hot day
I feel sad from liking it so much,
And I throw myself lengthwise on the grass
And shut my hot eyes,
And feeling my whole body lying on reality,
I know the truth and I’m happy. "

― Fernando Pessoa , The Keeper of Sheep

5 " May the nights always be aglow
with the bliss of the day
with unharmed hands and feet
and kissed cheeks. "

― Sanober Khan , A Thousand Flamingos

6 " Mr. Edwards and the Spider" I saw the spiders marching through the air,Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed dayIn latter August when the hayCame creaking to the barn. But whereThe wind is westerly,Where gnarled November makes the spiders flyInto the apparitions of the sky,They purpose nothing but their ease and dieUrgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;What are we in the hands of the great God?It was in vain you set up thorn and briarIn battle array against the fireAnd treason crackling in your blood;For the wild thorns grow tameAnd will do nothing to oppose the flame;Your lacerations tell the losing gameYou play against a sickness past your cure.How will the hands be strong? How will the heart endure?A very little thing, a little worm,Or hourglass-blazoned spider, it is said,Can kill a tiger. Will the deadHold up his mirror and affirmTo the four winds the smellAnd flash of his authority? It’s wellIf God who holds you to the pit of hell,Much as one holds a spider, will destroy,Baffle and dissipate your soul. As a small boyOn Windsor Marsh, I saw the spider dieWhen thrown into the bowels of fierce fire:There’s no long struggle, no desireTo get up on its feet and flyIt stretches out its feetAnd dies. This is the sinner’s last retreat;Yes, and no strength exerted on the heatThen sinews the abolished will, when sickAnd full of burning, it will whistle on a brick.But who can plumb the sinking of that soul?Josiah Hawley, picture yourself castInto a brick-kiln where the blastFans your quick vitals to a coal—If measured by a glass,How long would it seem burning! Let there passA minute, ten, ten trillion; but the blazeIs infinite, eternal: this is death,To die and know it. This is the Black Widow, death. "