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Willis Barnstone Quotes

Browse 240 quotes about Willis Barnstone.

Willis Barnstone Quotes

“The sky is a dark bowl, the stars die and fall. The celestial bows quiver, the bones of the earthgods shake and planets come to a halt when they sight the king in all his power, the god who feeds on his father and eats his mother. The king is such a tower of wisdom even his mother can't discern his name. His glory is in the sky, his strength lies in the horizon like that of his father the sungod Atum who conceived him. Atum conceived the king, but the dead king has greater dominion. His vital spirits surround him, his qualities lie below his feet, he is cloaked in gods and cobras coil on his forehead. His guiding snakes decorate his brow and peer into souls, ready to spit fire against his enemies. The king's head is on his torso. He is the bull of the sky who charges and vanquishes all. He lives on the stuff of the gods, he feeds on their limbs and entrails, even when they have bloated their bodies with magic at Nesisi, the island of fire. He cooks the leftover gods into a bone soup. Their souls belong to him and their shadows as well. In his pyramid among those who live on the earth of Egypt, the dead king ascends and appears forever and forever.”

Willis BarnstoneEgyptianThe Cannibal HymnTony Barnstone
Author:Anonymous
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“One verse by the blind poet of Chios is indelible: 'The life of man is like a summer's leaf.' Yet few who hear these words take them into their heart, for hope is rooted in every youthful soul, the lovely flower of youth grows tall with color, life will have no end, or there is no place for growing old, for death; and while in health, no fear of foul disease. Poor fools! in islands of illusion, for men have but a day of youth and life. You few who understand, know when death is near the food you give your soul must be supreme.”

Willis BarnstoneHomerSemonides
Author:Semonides
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“I gave you wings to fly looming high and easy over unboarded sea and the entire earth. At every meal and banquet you will be present on the lips of guests. Graceful young men will sing of you in limpid lovely notes to the clean piping of the flutes. When you go under the dark vaults of earth to the mournful chambers of sad Hell, even when you lie dead you will not lose your glory. Your name will be recalled among men always, Kyrnos. You will wheel high over the mainland and Greek islands and cross the unharvested sea pulsing with fish, not by horse but carried to those who love you in the gifts of Muses capped in violet flowers. You will be like a song to the living as long as there is sun, earth. Yet you ignore me and trick me as if I were a child.”

Willis BarnstoneTheognis
Author:Theognis
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“My nurse was the island of Tyros, and Attic land of Syrian Gadara was my birthplace. I was sired by Eukrates —I, Meleagros, friend of the Muses and first to waken to the Graces of Menippos. A Syrian? What if I am? Stranger, we all live in one country: the world. Out of one chaos were all men born. In my old age I traced these letters on the slab before my grave, knowing that old men are neighbors to death. Passerby, wish me well, the talkative old man, and you may also reach a loquacious old age.”

Willis BarnstoneMeleagros
Author:Meleagros
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“Only great peace brings wealth to men and a flowering of honey-throated song, and to the gods ox-thighs burning and long-haired sheep flaming yellow on the sculpted altars, and to the young a love of wrestling and the flute and Bakchic dance. In the iron-covered shield the brown spider hangs his web. The sharpened spear and double-edge sword are flaked with rust. The noise of the brass trumpet is dead, and the honey of our dawnsleep is not dried from our eyelids. Streets clamor with happy outdoor banquets, and the lovely hymns sung by children spring like fire up into the bright air.”

Willis BarnstoneBakchylides
Author:Bakchylides
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“Goatherd, when you turn the corner by the oaks you'll see a freshly carved statue in fig wood. The bark is not peeled off. It is legless, earless, but strongly equipped with a dynamic phallus to perform the labor of Aphrodite. A holy hedge runs around the precinct where a perennial brook spills down from upper rocks and feeds a luxuriance of bay, myrtle and fragrant cypress trees. A grape vine pours its tendrils along a branch, and spring blackbirds echo in pure transparency of sound to high nightingales who echo back with pungent honey. Come, sit down, and beg Priapos to end my love for Daphnis. Butcher a young goat in sacrifice. If he will not, I make three vows: I will slay a young cow, a shaggy goat and a darling lamb I am raising. May God hear you and assent.”

Willis BarnstoneTheokritos
Author:Theokritos
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“Many poplars and many elms shook overhead, and close by, holy water swashed down noisily from a cave of the nymphs. Brown grasshoppers whistled busily through the dark foliage. Far treetoads gobbled in the heavy thornbrake. Larks and goldfinch sang, turtledoves were moaning, and bumblebees whizzed over the plashing brook. The earth smelled of rich summer and autumn fruit: we were ankle-deep in pears, and apples rolled all about our toes. With dark damson plums the young sapling branches trailed on the ground.”

Willis BarnstoneTheokritos
Author:Theokritos
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