I Am At Home With Kafka
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I AM AT HOME WITH KAFKA
I am at home with Kafka -
I know his soul
I read it as mine own so many years ago-
His father as my father
And his face as my grandmother's,
Lean and white and long
With its own deep beautiful sadness-
Anxiety is mine-
And fear is mine-
And parable is mine-
And yet
His genius is his and not mine
He is Kafka
And I am only one of many readers-
I am at home with Kafka
I know his soul
But I am not Kafka-
Kafka is a genius of mankind
And I am a little man writing forgettable lines
Still alive
Many long years after the age
The holy genius went to his grave unrecognized.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Related quotes
With Kafka.
Kafka would have liked
the way you said that.
You kept his books on
the shelf next to those
of Burroughs and Joyce.
You like the painting on
the book’s paper cover.
Paperbacks are cheap
and soon worn out,
Thornton used to say.
He liked hard covered
books, first editions if
he could afford. He said
Kafka was too morbid
for you. You need a lighter
read, he said, something
that doesn’t mess with
your female head. You
take down the Kafka and
read again where you read
before, the whole drama
unfolding, the printed words
bringing a different world,
and ghostly by the window
with steady stare, Franz Kafka
in silence just sitting there.
poem by Terry Collett
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A poem for Kafka
My elder brother Lalith.P
Who taught me to read and write
And lot of things about fading life.
He's a humble Encyclopedia.
We drink together as friends
When our holey pocket bit sounds
And we had a common sickness
Allergy for money but not alcohol
Villagers amazed of our Brotherhood!
He who introduced me Kafka.
'You should read his The Trial, The Castle
Amerika, The Metamorphosis and the penal Colony.
Most of his unfinished novels published Posthumously.
And He's a German speaking-Jew.'
My brother was really mad of Kafka.
I read few lines of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story recently
'A friend of Kafka.'
And I write this brief poem underneath for him;
'I am sorry Kafka and still I couldn't touch
One of your golden books
But my inner feeling speaks
You're great among others.'
As I always respect of my Corsican brother's word!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Kafkaesque
After a lifetime
of describing
things as Kafkaesque
I finally read Kafka
and discovered
he's not Kafkaesque a bit!
he's a lot more like Kafka
in fact
to my untrained eye
than his Esque
would suggest
or seem to imply.
poem by Frank Bana
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Emily Dickinson Is Not Borges
EMILY DICKINSON IS NOT BORGES
Emily Dickinson is not Borges
And Borges is not Kafka
And Kafka is not Dickens
And no one is Shakespeare-
Each one is only one self
Except for those who are many selves
And those who are many selves
Do not know
Who they themselves are-
Lear is not Falstaff
And Falstaff is not Hamlet
And Hamlet is not Shakespeare
And Shakespeare is not Donne-
No one is anyone but themselves
And even those who are really ‘someone'
Are not all the others who also are-
And we who are nothing at all?
What are we?
We are not nothing at all.
We are not great
And no one will remember our names
But we are still here now
Reading Borges and Dickenson and Kafka and Shakespeare
And wondering how and why
There are those in a world of their own
With names of their own
They themselves will never completely know.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.
quote by Leslie Fiedler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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THE Metamorphosis of F. Kafka
one day
he finds himself converted into
a giant cockroach
he does not know about it at first
until he wakes up
and looks at himself in the mirror
he changes his taste for food
now attracted to left overs
dislikes water and
light
dislikes people and
events
and cannot relate to the morning
news on TV
his door has now remained closed
and no one is allowed to enter
except his dear sister
who feeds him
morsels
in time he begins to understand
how is it to be a cockroach
how humans have been too cruel
to their state
and then
he writes about Kafka and
The Metamorphosis
that is the real story
until the cockroach dies
until Kafka recovers again
away from
Ward 10.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I Learned My Literature As Myself
I learned my Literature as myself-
Kafka was my soul
In the days of my early anxiety-
Joyce was my soul
Also in literary striving -
Wordsworth my soul in calm and love of nature-
Salinger my soul
Bellow my soul
Singer my soul
Soul after soul
But when I came to write
Near the end
After all the meaning
I and all the other souls together conspired
A voice perhaps my own?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Bellow Can Only Be Bellow
BELLOW CAN BE ONLY BELLOW
Bellow can only be Bellow
Kierkegaard-Kierkegaard
Kafka- Kafka
Joyce- Joyce
Borges- Borges
Pessoa-Pessoa
There is only one of each of us-
And no matter how many pages we write
And how many names we give ourselves and our own characters
No matter how many styles we invent
Each one is only one-
And so this small poem too
Will not be for anyone else
Any more or other
Than so much else
Which has already failed to give me the kind of name
Only the truly great have-.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Writing, as a form of prayer.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My ""fear"" is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Kafka
Short of ending up like Kafka
Who toiled in obscurity
And died peniless
I work myself up
Not to allow myself down
Becoming one voice
For the community of
Published writers
Storming through the
Clutter of red tape
And desks covered in
Layers of dust
I dig my fingers into
Manuscripts
Of old
And allow my eyes
To file away alphbetically
The words
Words of virtue
Of nature
Of life
Of love
Written in free form
Or rhyme
Oh to wax poetic
With some unique prose
Nothing compares to
The poetic Rose
Got to raise myself up
From the words of before
Recapture their essence
In a more elegant form
Brainstorming creative
Issues is not all what it seems
Musn't end up like kafka
Lost in obscurity's
Almost famous dreams
poem by Theodora Onken
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I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Internal Kingdom
I wish I could feel forever what I feel this moment
Dead to the world but alive only in me
Each organ of mine soul playing like a German symphony
The music of genius to mine soul's fulfillment.
Feeling only what a love may bestow
But not loved, only loving, like a saint love's God
In mine own world, mine soul, my soul trod
Each step on each stair to myself I go.
To a kingdom wert enchanting music doth play
To mine mind, and mine mind only
Aloft in solitude, with itself and lonely
The only place to go the place I will stay.
Wert I hear my tears and I am beautiful
In my internal kingdom of beauty immutable.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.
quote by Franz Kafka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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