Gary Onderisin Poet Prose Poetry

The Wolf Is At the Door

Silver and gold are the deceiver.

The Material World is maya, is illusion.

(Succor and destruction, the glittering 

night turns outside the poor, beleaguered poet's basement window.)

He carefully sets his life's work --- a steamer trunk 

filled with his own original poetry --- in a cubby hole under his staircase in the

basement, for safe-keeping for the time being, for both his own sake and for 

posterity's sake.  He gives the trunk a last, loving pat.

And should the worst come to the worst, should his poetry be destined for

utter obscurity, should he only fail, he knows that, as surely regrettable as 

that must be, it's only failure, nothing more.


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"Art is the proper task of life." ;

"The great end of life is to strike the imagination with the power of a soul that 

refuses to admit defeat even in the midst of a collapsing world.";

"Creation --- that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's alleviation.

But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, and much 

transformation.";

"To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.";

"No artist can tolerate reality.";

"We have art in order not to die of the truth.";

"What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think, and feel without 

inner necessity, without deep personal desire, without pleasure --- as a mere 

automaton of duty?";

"Few are made for independence, it is the privilege of the strong.";

"The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.";

"The man who does not wish to be one of the mass only needs to cease to be 

easy on himself.";

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.";

"One who has found a why can surely find a how.";

"Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he puts forth such 

blossoms as religion and arts.  Pure knowledge could not have been capable 

of it.";

"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.";

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."


  ---  Friedrich Nietzsche


"There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either."


  ---  Robert Graves

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