[Image: “The 8th Floor,” by J. Michel Carriere (username “lazyartist”) on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!) The photographer provides few details about the photo, other than that it was taken in New York City — its caption simply reads, “Wishing you were here.” Maybe that means something, after all?]

From whiskey river:

Place to Be

Days the weather sits
in the endless sky,
the clouds drifting by

The winter’s snow,
summer’s heat,
same street.

Nothing changes
but the faces, the people,
all the things they do

’spite of heaven and hell
or city hall—
Nothing’s wiser than a moment.

No one’s chance
is simply changed by wishing,
right or wrong.

What you do is how you get along.
What you did is all it ever means.

(Robert Creeley [source])

…and:

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.

(Henry Miller [source])

…and:

Ungodly

You want to flee, but flee where? The urban concrete elsewhere
does not seethe, does not breathe the scent of carob trees.
Flee, you hear it everywhere, the taxi driver, the farmer at the laiki
tell you, Go! and are puzzled that you are still here,
you who could actually leave with your American passport.
Pack your clothes, leave behind the ruined lives, translate home into
longing, elsewhere you might lift your chin, live unburdened.

The government, the Americans . . . no one cares, the taxi driver complains,
and the farmer at the laiki selling you the sweetest pears, advises
to keep them fresh, Eat them cold, nearly frozen.
He shakes his head, murmurs Ellada . . . , this ancient land of rock cliffs,
seas that bleed their myths, Greece with its tales of flight
and light, returns and rebirths, keeps teaching the stubborn human lesson
still: the gods won’t save you, neither will you stop wishing it of them.
After all, you are human and they are not.

(Adrianne Kalfopoulou [source])

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