“Rhiannon's Law #68: If you're going to fly by the seat of your pants, rock out with your cock out. The landing is going to hurt either way, and you might as well make an impression when you nail it.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“Rhiannon's Law #22. You can't lie to yourself, so don't bother trying. Doing so only multiplies your douchebag level to the umpteenth power and confirms what others have been saying for years - that you are an idiot.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“Rhiannon's Law #14: There is a reason the truth hurts. When you cease to feel the sting, it means you've stopped caring. And damn, wouldn't that be a total fucking waste?”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“You have a lot to answer for, love. I can't decide if I want to take you to my bed and bust that perfect ass of yours or rip off your clothing and take you here and now against the wall.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“The satisfying sound of bone giving way, as well as his outraged cry, made the you-had-it-coming-asshole angles sing.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“Who needs immortal strength when you've got weapons of mass destruction?”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“Come with me," he said quietly and extended his hand.
"Nuh-uh." I shook my head, scooting in the opposite direction . "I don't think so, All American Hero.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“The feature article made my holy-shit-o-meter blare like a banshee”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
“Fuck with the bull, assholes, and get the horns.”
― J.A. Saare, quote from The Renfield Syndrome
J.A. Saare
Born place: The United States
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“The Dying Man"
in memoriam W.B. Yeats
1. His words
I heard a dying man
Say to his gathered kin,
“My soul’s hung out to dry,
Like a fresh salted skin;
I doubt I’ll use it again.
“What’s done is yet to come;
The flesh deserts the bone,
But a kiss widens the rose
I know, as the dying know
Eternity is Now.
“A man sees, as he dies,
Death’s possibilities;
My heart sways with the world.
I am that final thing,
A man learning to sing.
2. What Now?
Caught in the dying light,
I thought myself reborn.
My hand turn into hooves.
I wear the leaden weight
Of what I did not do.
Places great with their dead,
The mire, the sodden wood,
Remind me to stay alive.
I am the clumsy man
The instant ages on.
I burned the flesh away,
In love, in lively May.
I turn my look upon
Another shape than hers
Now, as the casement blurs.
In the worst night of my will,
I dared to question all,
And would the same again.
What’s beating at the gate?
Who’s come can wait.
3. The Wall
A ghost comes out of the unconscious mind
To grope my sill: It moans to be reborn!
The figure at my back is not my friend;
The hand upon my shoulder turns to horn.
I found my father when I did my work,
Only to lose myself in this small dark.
Though it reject dry borders of the seen,
What sensual eye can keep and image pure,
Leaning across a sill to greet the dawn?
A slow growth is a hard thing to endure.
When figures our of obscure shadow rave,
All sensual love’s but dancing on a grave.
The wall has entered: I must love the wall,
A madman staring at perpetual night,
A spirit raging at the visible.
I breathe alone until my dark is bright.
Dawn’s where the white is. Who would know the dawn
When there’s a dazzling dark behind the sun.
4. The Exulting
Once I delighted in a single tree;
The loose air sent me running like a child–
I love the world; I want more than the world,
Or after image of the inner eye.
Flesh cries to flesh, and bone cries out to bone;
I die into this life, alone yet not alone.
Was it a god his suffering renewed?–
I saw my father shrinking in his skin;
He turned his face: there was another man,
Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.
Fish feed on fish, according to their need:
My enemies renew me, and my blood
Beats slower in my careless solitude.
I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed.
I think a bird, and it begins to fly.
By dying daily, I have come to be.
All exultation is a dangerous thing.
I see you, love, I see you in a dream;
I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum,
And that slow humming rises into song.
A breath is but a breath: I have the earth;
I shall undo all dying with my death.
5. They Sing, They Sing
All women loved dance in a dying light–
The moon’s my mother: how I love the moon!
Out of her place she comes, a dolphin one,
Then settles back to shade and the long night.
A beast cries out as if its flesh were torn,
And that cry takes me back where I was born.
Who thought love but a motion in the mind?
Am I but nothing, leaning towards a thing?
I scare myself with sighing, or I’ll sing;
Descend O gentlest light, descend, descend.
I sweet field far ahead, I hear your birds,
They sing, they sing, but still in minor thirds.
I’ve the lark’s word for it, who sings alone:
What’s seen recededs; Forever’s what we know!–
Eternity defined, and strewn with straw,
The fury of the slug beneath the stone.
The vision moves, and yet remains the same.
In heaven’s praise, I dread the thing I am.
The edges of the summit still appall
When we brood on the dead or the beloved;
Nor can imagination do it all
In this last place of light: he dares to live
Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings
Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.”
― Theodore Roethke, quote from The Collected Poems
“Some people thought of vampires as rock stars, but really they were more like Martha Stewart. Vampires were prissy. They had to follow rules. They had to look good.”
― John Joseph Adams, quote from The Living Dead
“There was another reason why I wasn't ready to tell you all this that night in the airport."
"What other reason?"
"Guess what today is?"
"Um, Tuesday?"
"Even better. It comes around once every four years. Last day of February? Ringing any bells?" He let that settle for a long moment before he curled his face into the half grin she loved so much. "It's leap day, baby.”
― Marie Force, quote from Everyone Loves a Hero
“We are here to witness. There is nothing else to do with those mute materials we do not need. Until Larry teaches his stone to talk, until God changes his mind, or until the pagan gods slip back to their hilltop groves, all we can do with the whole inhuman array is watch it.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
“This is the first day of the rest of my life. So why is my hair sticking up like a cockerel?”
― Louise Rennison, quote from Love Is a Many Trousered Thing
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