“Rage, maybe rage would lift me up, make me stand, make me walk-” Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

“everything i’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” David Foster Wallace

“If you saw a lion
Not within a cage,
Would you tease and fret him
Till he roared in rage?
Would you tempt his anger
And his savage power,
Knowing he could crush you,
Kill you, and devour?
Yet, I know some people
Who, morn and noon and night,
Tease and fret with bitters
The lion-appetite.
It matters not what ails them,
For each disease and all
They seem to think there’s healing
In demon alcohol.
So they fret the lion,
And anger him, until,
In his awful power,
He springs up to kill.
Let me warn you, children,
From this foolish way.
Do not tease the lion,
Nor tempt him any day.
Don’t believe the doctors
If they say you need
Any wines or ciders;
For there are, indeed,
Better cures, and safer,
Than these drinks, that slay
More than a hundred people
Without fail each day.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Don’t Tease the Lion

“Be not swift to take offense;
Let it pass!
Anger is a foe to sense;
Let it pass!
Brood not darkly o’er a wrong
Which will disappear erelong;
Bather sing this cheery song-
Let it pass!

Strife corrodes the purest mind;
Let it pass!
As the unregarded wind,
Let it pass!
Any vulgar souls that live
May condemn without reprieve;
‘Tis the noble who forgive;
Let is pass!

Echo not an angry word;
Let is pass!
Think how often you have erred;
Let it pass!
Since our joys must pass away,
Like the dew drops on the spray,
Wherefore should our sorrows stay?
Let it pass!”
Let it Pass
“What hast thou seen, O wind,
Of beauty or of terror
Surpassing, denied to us,
That with precipitate wings,
Mad and ecstatical,
Thou spurnest the hollows and trees
That offer thee refuge of peace,
And findest within the sky
No safety nor respite
From the memory of thy vision?”
Clark Ashton Smith, The Mad Wind