A humble sadness is closer to joy
Than all the fake happiness in the world
- 2008 April 21 Monday

Those who have visions for their children
Should ask their children if they have visions

The mind is a house full of windows
Opening and closing at all hours
Of the day and night
- 2001 October 21 Sunday

If one is never astonished to be alive
One is never truly alive
- 2001 February 02 Friday

It is not enough for me to breathe free
I must take others with me
- 2001 April 02 Monday

Without air there is nothing
Without fresh air there is nothing fresh
- 2001 August 29 Wednesday

There are crimes of passion
Then there are passions of criminals
- 2001 July 14 Saturday

Without values a man is like a ship
Without a rudder
He may have a sail but
He's only blowing in the wind
- 2001 February 08 Thursday

Please let me enjoy the sadness of age
For in my sadness
There are memories
- 2001 June 30 Saturday

There are birds singing in the park
Why would you bring
A radio to a symphony?
- 2001 July 07 Saturday

Sleep is the key to beauty
Beauty is the reason to dream
- 2000 April 30 Saturday

I had no idea that age comes this fast
It was not long ago
I was pure as the driven snow
- 2001 October 20 Saturday

Nothing robs a man
Like pursuit of riches
- 2003 July 19 Saturday

To be a rock star
You've got to get out of bed
Nineteen hours before the common man
And go to bed
Five hours later
- 2005 September 10 Saturday

Mankind isn't
- 2002 September 02 Monday

Those who reveal great secrets of the soul
Soon lose their membership in life
Among mortals
- 2009 July 16 Thursday
(inspired by reading Ginsberg's account of Kerouac declaring that "existence is suffering" in Beats at Naropa.

If you're still psychoanalyzing me
After I'm gone
Then perhaps I'm still here and
You're gone
- 2009 May 14 Thursday

Each man looks up to the same heaven
Yet looks down to a different hell
- 2008 February 15 Friday

If you want to meditate on God
Go to the temples
If you want to find God
Run from the temples
- 2007 September 08 Saturday

Everybody's hungry for blood
And thirsty for mercy
- 2002 April 24 Wednesday

What can be more mindless
Than the feverish desire to know everything?
Or more intelligent than to ponder the sum of it
In stupendous awe?
- 2008 February 25 Monday

I'm a writer
If I did not write in a vacuum
I'd be blown away
- 2003 April

The definition of pain changes
From injustice in youth
To fate in old age
- 2003 December 01 Monday

The whole world stops
For a child of the gloom
If a single clown sheds a tear
- 2006 Jan, 05 Thur. (See poem: Tears of a Clown)

Gray days are great days
For dreaming of blue skies
- 2003 June 06 Friday

Where the road turns to open highway
Is where danger begins
- (these aprox. words conceived in my sleep just before waking, 2001 Oct. 26 Fri - 12:30pm)

Q. How did you ever learn to write those incredible convoluted lines in Naked Lunch?
A. "You gotta get dirty"
- The only words exchanged when I met William Burroughs in a dream
- 1996 February 12 Monday (8:30am)

Man has modernized the state of life so much.
Now if he could only modernize the state of death!
- 2003 Dec. 02 Tuesday

Of all the creatures on Earth
Not one is smart as man
Nor as ignorant
- 2005 Sept. 05 Monday

When the soul is reaped
These trifling squables mean nothing
- 2002 March 31 Sunday (Easter)

Footnote - Maxims
Eloquent quotables are the essence of inspirational writing. They distill weighty issues and pressing thoughts into portable maxims or even myths. They are the heart of that great mixed bag of evil known as politics. They are gems of folklore. The common thread of all brief written maxims is their ability to spark deeper thought.

I write short bits that come to mind from nowhere at the most unexpected times. When they arrive they are not my wisdom speaking. They are the answers that come to me when I ponder.

© Vincent B. Rain

.