R.M. ENGELHARDT

Poet Writer Author Albany NY

Category: On Writing

  • by Ralph Waldo Emerson   What makes a nation’s pillars high And its foundations strong? What makes it mighty to defy The foes that round it throng? It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand Go down in battle shock; Its shafts are laid on sinking sand, Not on abiding rock. Is it the sword? Ask the…

  •   The problem with all students, he said, is that they inevitably stop somewhere. They hear an idea and they hold on to it until it becomes dead; they want to flatter themselves that they know the truth. But true Zen never stops, never congeals into such truths. That is why everyone must constantly be…

  •   “Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

  •   “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor…

  •               Poetry and cigarettes Will save your soul, Or what once Someone told me Before I grew old, And scotch and women? It’s all the same, For these four things Shall keep you quite sane But now that I’m older And wiser for wear I know it’s only love…

  • The Importance of Keeping a Journal: Anaïs Nin   “This diary is my kief, hashish, and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice. Instead of writing a novel, I lie back with this book and a pen, and dream, and indulge in refractions and defractions… I must relive my life in the dream.…

  •     Never Let Anything Or Anyone Ever Mess With Your Zen … ~ R.M. ENGELHARDT