Untitled

The days pass

Like judges in solemn robes

Ominous and obscene 

John A. Youril (2021)

#poetry

Maya

Three seasons have passed since I last traveled these gloomy roads

A new winter embraces the world in its silent yearnings

With each mile my limbs grow weaker, my breath heavier, my vision darker.

My last pilgrimage to where I left you

Deep in far mountains, too far now for my failing body to reach.

For all eternity you were with me

But now even eternity has betrayed us

Even more than death betrayed us

My heart is becoming one silence with your heart

Still and forever apart.

John A. Youril (2023)

#poetry

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In the cold twilight
When your eyes become one with the clouds and the stars
And my still breath settles in your unbeating heart
Still we dream
Alone
Dreaming of our dreaming.

John A. Youril (2023)

#poetry

Prologue from Lives (A Novel)

It is night now.  And how well I know you.
There is a light near the horizon, but it is not the dawn.  There are more hours still to pass before the dawn.

It is warm here--and peaceful.  Like those nights when I rested my fingers on your flesh in sleep.  Like the rains that came swiftly from the west and looked upon our silent windows.  If you were here now, I would tell how unfathomable this world is, and how sadly empty.  But you are not here.

In the distance, when the wind subsides for a moment, I can hear the waterfall.  Or perhaps that too is only the sound of the wind.  So many memories confuse this moment--so many nights have combined themselves and become this night.  This night of wakefulness.  These memories soon to pass into the dark waters of time.  This life soon to be extinguished.
To begin this tale, any hour of my life would serve us equally.  For I know that each moment has the same weight as the next, and that each is as significant or insignificant as all the others.  That each of those moments was life itself--that there is no summation.
So let the beginning be ruled by chance--as all beginnings are ruled.  Let me say that it began here.  And while we pass the time, let us pretend that the truth was not otherwise.

— John A. Youril

Henri Cartier-Bresson

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” -- Henri Cartier-Bresson

Absurdity

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity -- Albert Camus

Perspectives on Politics - Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

Perspectives on Politics - Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens