Aphorisms

I have always loved aphorisms – self contained, short, sometimes sharp bursts of words that pull you up short, make you smile in rueful recognition, take a quicker breath or they simply echo and chime:

A poem is a little machine for remembering itself
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All true poems are fugitive, being embarrassed by their human source
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Always an error to make someone profess what they will not volunteer – especially in love, where spontaneity of its declaration is all the language ever holds of it
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Only the dead have a past. As long as we breathe we can be called to account for everything
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Yes, there are only ever misreadings, of course; but mine is the correct one…
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Inconveniently, books are all the pages in them, not just the ones you choose to read…
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We turn from the light to see