If (by Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

— Thanks to Alice

Blick durch ein verregnetes Atelierfenster / Weimar
 

Der Regen rinnt, der Regen rinnt.
Es weint in mir ein Kind, ein Kind

so traurig ist, wie Kinder sind
wenn Regen rinnt, wenn Regen rinnt.

 
(Peter Paul Althaus)

Ich habe vor ein paar Wochen einen tollen Spruch gehört:

Geschmack macht einsam.

[mit Dank an Julia]

Lass Dich fallen,
lerne Schlangen zu beobachten,
pflanze unmögliche Gärten,
lade jemand Gefährlichen zum Tee ein,
mache kleine Zeichen, die ‚Ja’ sagen und verteile sie überall
in Deinem Haus.

Werde ein Freund von Freiheit und Unsicherheit,
freue Dich auf Träume.

Weine bei Kinofilmen,
schaukle so hoch Du kannst
mit einer Schaukel bei Mondlicht.

Pflege verschiedene Stimmungen,
verweigere ‚verantwortliche’ zu sein,
tu es aus Liebe.

Glaube an Zauberei, lache eine Menge, bade im Mondlicht.

Träume wilde, phantasievolle Träume

Zeichne auf die Wände, lies jeden Tag.

Stell Dir vor, Du wärst verzaubert,
kichere mit Kindern.

Höre alten Leuten zu, freue Dich, tauche ein, sei frei.

Preise Dich selbst, lass die Angst fallen, spiele mit allem.

Unterhalte das Kind in Dir, Du bist unschuldig,
baue eine Burg aus Decken,
werde nass,
umarme Bäume,
schreibe Liebesbriefe.

— Josef Beuys

[mit Dank an Julia]

Wenn du vor mir stehst
und mich ansiehst
was weisst du von den Schmerzen
die in mir sind
und was weiss ich von deinen?

Schon darum
sollten wir Menschen voreinander
so ehrfürchtig
so nachdenklich stehen
wie vor dem Eingang zur Hölle…

— Franz Kafka, Brief an Oskar Pollak, 8. November 1903

And death shall have no dominion -Dylan Thomas

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.