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81 " I had the dream again. I was leaning in the back corner of the elevator in my building looking down at the bundle of keys in my hand. Below my hand were the blurred outlines of my black leather lace-up boots and my frayed black jeans. There was ink all over my legs from the screen-printers in my shop. There was ink on the skin beneath the rips at my knee and my thigh where the rough edge of my work table had worn through... The detail was vivid, but there was an ethereal sparkle to everything around the edges. The periphery washed out of focus as if I was looking through a narrow lens... Then the elevator stopped and the door opened. A woman climbed on board. Her face was concealed behind large sunglasses. The realism of the dream became unsteady and I lost grip. The images became fleeting close-ups, stills, and sensations. She was looking at me and my heart began to race... A part of me worried that I was drunk and about to make an embarrassing pass at some poor woman from my building. But when I reached for her, she reached for me too... She pulled my hand down and then the elevator began to plummet. I realized I didn’t have much time. I was surrounded by her scent and warmth... I was so overwhelmed with the sensuality of everything that I lost myself in her... Then I watched her eyes fade into the blackness of my apartment as I woke up. "
82 " Voodoo GirlHer skin is white cloth,and she's all sewn apartand she has many colored pinssticking out of her heart.She has many different zombieswho are deeply in her trance.She even has a zombiewho was originally from France.But she knows she has a curse on her,a curse she cannot win.For if someone getstoo close to her,the pins stick farther in. "
― Tim Burton
83 " The TypeEveryone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else. -Richard SikenIf you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,you can let them look at you. But do not mistake eyes for hands.Or windows.Or mirrors.Let them see what a woman looks like.They may not have ever seen one before.If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,you can let them touch you.Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich. A Pulitzer. Another woman.But their hands found you first. Do not mistake yourself for a guardian.Or a muse. Or a promise. Or a victim. Or a snack.You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,you can let them hold you.All day they practice keeping their bodies upright--even after all this evolving, it still feels unnatural, still strains the muscles,holds firm the arms and spine. Only some men will want to learnwhat it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,admit they do not have the answersthey thought they would have by now;some men will want to hold you like The Answer.You are not The Answer.You are not the problem. You are not the poemor the punchline or the riddle or the joke.Woman. If you grow up the type men want to love,You can let them love you.Being loved is not the same thing as loving.When you fall in love, it is discovering the oceanafter years of puddle jumping. It is realizing you have hands.It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of womanmen will hurt. If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.It is hard to stop loving the ocean. Even after it has left you gasping, salty.Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still callmistakes when you tuck them in at night. And know this:Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.Let the statues crumble.You have always been the place.You are a woman who can build it yourself.You were born to build. "
― Sarah Kay
84 " Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and handand asshole holy!Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere isholy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's anangel!The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman isholy as you my soul are holy!The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice isholy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holyKerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-sady holy the unknown buggered and sufferingbeggars holy the hideous human angels!Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocksof the grandfathers of Kansas!Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bopapocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuanahipsters peace & junk & drums!Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holythe cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy themysterious rivers of tears under the streets!Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of themiddle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy MoscowHoly Istanbul!Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy theclocks in space holy the fourth dimension holythe fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy thelocomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy theabyss!Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!bodies! suffering! magnanimity!Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligentkindness of the soul! "
― Allen Ginsberg , Howl and Other Poems
85 " Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,You, at least, hail me and speak to meWhile a thousand others ignore my face.You offer me an hour of love,And your fees are not as costly as most.You are the madonna of the lonely,The first-born daughter in a world of pain.You do not turn fat men aside,Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,You are the meadow where desperate menCan find a moment's comfort.Men have paid more to their wivesTo know a bit of peaceAnd could not walk away without the guiltThat masquerades as love.You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort themAnd bid them return. Your body is more Christian than the Bishop'sWhose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.Your passion is as genuine as most,Your caring as real!But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,You, whose virginity each man may make his ownWithout paying ought but your fee,You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,You make more sense than stock markets and football gamesWhere sad men beg for virility.You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,At times you are shrewd and deceptive--grasping and hollow.The wonder is that at times you are gentle and concerned,Warm and loving.You deserve more respect than nuns who hide their sex for eternal love;Your fees are not so high, nor your prejudice so virtuous.You deserve more laurels than the self-pitying mother of many children,And your fee is not as costly as most.Man comes to you when his bed is filled with brass and emptiness,When liquor has dulled his sense enoughTo know his need of you.He will come in fantasy and despair, Maria,And leave without apologies.He will come in loneliness--and perhapsLeave in loneliness as well.But you give him more than soldiers who win medals and pensions,More than priests who offer absolutionAnd sweet-smelling ritual,More than friends who anticipate his deathOr challenge his life,And your fee is not as costly as most.You admit that your love is for a fee,Few women can be as honest.There are monuments to statesmen who gave nothing to anyoneExcept their hungry ego,Monuments to mothers who turned their childrenInto starving, anxious bodies,Monuments to Lady Liberty who makes poor men prisoners.I would erect a monument for you--who give more than most--And for a meager fee.Among the lonely, you are perhaps the loneliest of all,You come so close to loveBut it eludes youWhile proper women march to church and fantasizeIn the silence of their rooms,While lonely women take their husbands' armsTo hold them on life's surface,While chattering women fill their closets with clothes andTheir lips with lies,You offer love for a fee--which is not as costly as most--And remain a lonely prostitute on a street of pain.You are not immoral, little Maria, only tired and afraid,But you are not as hollow as the police who pursue you,The politicians who jail you, the pharisees who scorn you.You give what you promise--take your paltry fee--andWander on the endless, aching pavements of pain.You know more of universal love than the nations who thrive on war,More than the churches whose dogmas are private vendettas made sacred,More than the tall buildings and sprawling factoriesWhere men wear chains.You are a lonely prostitute who speaks to me as I pass,And I smile at you because I am a lonely man. "
86 " one day, when tenderness has become the single rule of the morning,/ I will wake in your arms. perhaps your skin will be overly gorgeous./ and the light will include the impossible understanding of love. "
― José Luís Peixoto , A Criança em Ruínas
87 " Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power.Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. "
― Andrew Marvell , The Complete Poems
88 " Landscape is my religion....God in a green legend, I lean over the poolIn a testament of leaves. I dangle my twinkling mood Before me in a cool cave roofed with branchesAnd floored with a skin of water. "
