Manifesto 2008

There are many facets to the new plan: No TV, less spending, more poetry, more walk to the talk. I'll let you know how my lifelong love of good enough meshes with my new love of diligence. I expect a painful but rewarding trip.

And now on with the poetry:

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Stephen Mitchell
We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.