“There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and your pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing, don’t try to lie to yourself.”

-Hermann Hesse, “Wandering” (from Whiskey River)

Digitized Manuscripts: The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Café et cigarette

Café et cigarette, a photo by - Maeva - on Flickr.

poetry (sober version)

Without a drop of alcohol,
I’m a man of few words
Morning comes all the while
I’m steadfast at work
Drunk with caffeine.