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Roman Payne

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Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
It’s not that we have to quit
this life one day, but it’s how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains... if only one
could leave this life slowly!
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains... If only one could leave this life slowly!
From Hope and Despair
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Whilst the wolflets bayed,
A grave was made,
And then with the strokes of a silver spade,
It was filled to make a mound.
And for two cold days and three long nights,
The father tended that holy plot;
And stayed by where his wife was laid, In the grave within the ground.
From Cities & Countries
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head—for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.
From The Wanderess
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness, Inspirational
Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
In life, more than in anything else, it isn’t easy to end up alive.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
A tired man lay down his head
in a dusty room so dim,
and for so long his wife did shake
and yell to waken him.

Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir
of sandy, red bullfights,
of powder-blasts in the air
and carnival delights.

Yet still his wife was in despair
in a dusty room so dim,
for she knew death was a whore
not far from tempting him.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Rest in Peace?’ Why that phrase? That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard! You die, and they say ‘Rest in Peace!’ …Why would one need to ‘rest’ when they’re dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne d’Arc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and I’m only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly won’t need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
When a Wanderess has been caged,
or perched with her wings clipped,
She lives like a Stoic,
She lives most heroic,
smiling with ruby, moistened lips
once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
It’s not that we have to quit
this life one day, but it’s how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains... if only one
could leave this life slowly!
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains... If only one could leave this life slowly!
From Hope and Despair
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Whilst the wolflets bayed,
A grave was made,
And then with the strokes of a silver spade,
It was filled to make a mound.
And for two cold days and three long nights,
The father tended that holy plot;
And stayed by where his wife was laid, In the grave within the ground.
From Cities & Countries
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head—for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.
From The Wanderess
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness, Inspirational
Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
In life, more than in anything else, it isn’t easy to end up alive.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
A tired man lay down his head
in a dusty room so dim,
and for so long his wife did shake
and yell to waken him.

Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir
of sandy, red bullfights,
of powder-blasts in the air
and carnival delights.

Yet still his wife was in despair
in a dusty room so dim,
for she knew death was a whore
not far from tempting him.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Rest in Peace?’ Why that phrase? That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard! You die, and they say ‘Rest in Peace!’ …Why would one need to ‘rest’ when they’re dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne d’Arc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and I’m only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly won’t need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
When a Wanderess has been caged,
or perched with her wings clipped,
She lives like a Stoic,
She lives most heroic,
smiling with ruby, moistened lips
once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
It’s not that we have to quit
this life one day, but it’s how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains... if only one
could leave this life slowly!
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains... If only one could leave this life slowly!
From Hope and Despair
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Whilst the wolflets bayed,
A grave was made,
And then with the strokes of a silver spade,
It was filled to make a mound.
And for two cold days and three long nights,
The father tended that holy plot;
And stayed by where his wife was laid, In the grave within the ground.
From Cities & Countries
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head—for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Sports
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.
From The Wanderess
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness, Inspirational
Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
In life, more than in anything else, it isn’t easy to end up alive.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
A tired man lay down his head
in a dusty room so dim,
and for so long his wife did shake
and yell to waken him.

Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir
of sandy, red bullfights,
of powder-blasts in the air
and carnival delights.

Yet still his wife was in despair
in a dusty room so dim,
for she knew death was a whore
not far from tempting him.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness
With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
Rest in Peace?’ Why that phrase? That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard! You die, and they say ‘Rest in Peace!’ …Why would one need to ‘rest’ when they’re dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne d’Arc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and I’m only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly won’t need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
From Rooftop Soliloquy
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
When a Wanderess has been caged,
or perched with her wings clipped,
She lives like a Stoic,
She lives most heroic,
smiling with ruby, moistened lips
once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Happiness