the book

young man thinking of his future

where do clowns go?

where do clowns sleep?

what do clowns eat?

what do clowns do

when no one

but no one at all

laughs any more

mummy?

Miroslav Holub, from collection 'Totally Unsystematic Zoology', 1963

For a wanderer, common sense

is the most valuable equipment

Better than money for a poor man

Far from home.

(loose translation from The Elder Edda (Iceland)

Blame not my lute, for he must sound

Of this or that as liketh me:

For lack of wit the lute is bound

To give such tunes as pleaseth me

Then though my songs be somewhat strange

And speaks such words as touch thy change,

Blame not my lute.

attributed to Thomas Wyatt (16thC)

can he ever keep to his permanent childhood?

If, as I have, you also doe

Vertue'attir'd in woman see,

And dare love that, and say so too,

And forget the Hee and Shee;

And if this love though placed so,

From prophane men you hide,

Which will no faith on this bestow,

Or, if they  do, deride:

Then you'have done a braver thing

Then all the Worthies did,

And a braver thence will spring,

Which is,to keep that hid.

John Donne - from The Undertaking - circa 1600

man of vision who dreams of bringing order to these images

blossoming

while I am supplying the scent

of perfume bought in cheep store

next to the railway station

caressing that wander

with implied touch

It's in the rock but not the stone.

It's in the marrow but not the bone.

It's in the bolster but not the bed.

Its not in the living nor in the dead.

(children's riddle)

even giant needs reverie

I asked: what is poetry?

... ashes of dead man

his powdery residue

drifting by

to make you sneeze

I answered.

My mother raised me

happy and contend.

Rocking me to sleep

she used to say

"Lullaby, lullaby

you must become a marquis

a count or a gentleman."

But alas, I learned

to weave baskets.

All during January

I made baskets,

and during the summer

collected the money.

Such is the life

of a basketmaker.

"Lullaby, lullaby"...

Deep Song, by Frederico Garcia Lorca (On Lullabies)

Building the tower of Babel

like a trunk of a tree

but only a watery stem

this day

I have read

in smart magazine

smart article

on statistic

of electronic company

and advances in

millions of useful electronic gadgetry

billions of mobile telephones

trillions of computers

which generates

millionbilliontrillion of money

for the smart company

which has ninety percent of market share

with massive software ecosystem...

"What good were eyes to me?

Nothing I could see could bring me joy".

Sophocles

I was once young, journeying alone, and lost my way;

Rich I thought myself, when I met another.

Man is the joy of man.

(adapted translation from The Elder Edda (Iceland)

story of a boy with sporting potential

I don't like proud generals

with groomed beards.

To lead us, I want an officer

Short and sturdy

Feet planted apart.

Archilochos (7th C BC)

WE have a pretty witty king

Whose word no man relies on,

he never said a foolish thing

And never did a wise one.

John Wilmot Earl of Rochester on Charles II of England

"He knows instinctively that this space identified with his solitude is creative;

that even when it is forever expunged from the present, when henceforth, it is

alien to all the promises of the future, even when we no longer have a garret,

when the attic room is lost and gone, there remains the fact that we once loved a

garret, once lived in an attic. We return to them in our night dreams".

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, the house, from cellar to garret. the

significance of the hut, 1964

Jiri tibor Novak in 21st Century