trace_of_scarlet

Flist, bring me your favourite poems or quotes. Show me beautiful words. I'll start:

My birthday began with the water -
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days

I sang in my chains like the sea...

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
- Dylan Thomas

What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?

We have cracked the midnight glass
And loosed the racketing star-crazed night into the room

Go away girl, go away
and let me pack my dreams
now where did I put those yesteryears
made up with broken seams
Where shall I sweep the pieces
my God they still look new
There's a taxi waiting at the door
but there's only room for you
- Spike Milligan

"The air was soft, the stars so fine,
the promise of every cobbled alley so great
that I thought I was in a dream."
- Jack Kerouac

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
- Roald Dahl

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
- e.e. cummings

When and if I land my dream job at the Beeb, I plan on getting the following quote from warren_ellis tattooed on my leg, probably just above my right ankle. (Yes, I know, that area will hurt like hell. I'VE GOT MY HEART SET ON IT OKAY.)

"Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world."
(Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the Street)

My other dream tattoo would be one of the watercolour-style ones apiphile linked on Twitter ages back, but of a nebula in space with a tiny, tiny TARDIS and the words 'Across time and space...'. Not so much because I'm an utter Whoniverse geek (although I am, that wouldn't be enough for me to get a tattoo) but because of the four insane, wonderful, geeky years I've spent in Cardiff and the friends I've made and the things I've learned here.

(The it-could-never-happen-but-I'd-have-it-if-it-could tattoo would be the same as Briar Moss's from Tamora Pierce's Circle books: vines of tiny flowers tattooed all the way across his hands, which bud and flower and bloom of their own accord. I would kill for my hands to look like that.)

What do you guys want tattoos of? If you already have some, what do you think you'll get tattoos of next? And if you could get anything at all tattooed, what would it be?

I was wondering: someone is a recovering painkiller addict. They've been clean for a while and they go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Would they also tend to stay away from other addictive substances, even those that they've never had a problem with? Specifically, would they not have an alcoholic drink in a pub with friends?