David Given Schwarm

We like lists because we don’t want to die.

      Nor let us weep that our delight is fled       Far from these carrion kites that scream below;       He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;       Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.       Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow       Back to the burning fountain whence it came,       A portion…

The man was wearing a name tag that said NABOKOV, like the novelist.

       Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!       Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,       Thou noteless blot on a remember’d name!       But be thyself, and know thyself to be!       And ever at thy season be thou free       To spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow;       Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;       Hot…

Currently, reading the new R.A. Salvatore book with the D&D Novel Club on GoodReads!

       Our Adonais has drunk poison—oh!       What deaf and viperous murderer could crown       Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?       The nameless worm would now itself disown:       It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone       Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong,       But what was howling in one breast alone,       Silent with…

There were some things that music was no match for, and a horrible abandoned prison was one of them.

A Sand Book by Ariana Reines My rating: 5 of 5 stars Seriously this may be the best book of American poetry published during my life time. Absolutely unbelievable in terms of scope, content, language, focus, fun, and everything else that makes a book of poems memorable and worth reading–the heft of this book should…

       What softer voice is hush’d over the dead?       Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?       What form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,       In mockery of monumental stone,       The heavy heart heaving without a moan?       If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,       Taught, sooth’d, lov’d, honour’d the departed one,       Let me…