Jim Finnegan, proprietor of the always enlightening ursprache blog as well as the aphoristically amazing Tramp Freighter, sends news of another of his aphoristic discoveries: Mark Leidner (@markleidner), author of The Angel in The Dream of Our Hangover (Sator Press). “Philosophers often use the aphorism as a spur to more fully developed thought,” Jim writes. “Salon wits use the aphorism to score points in bright conversation. Poets, being prone to concision, also have an affinity for the aphorism. But for poets the aphorism is a sine qua non sufficient to itself. It doesn’t have to do anything but be. Occasionally, Mark Leidner repeats some familiar postmodern pieties, but I forgive him for that, because he has the gift of pith.There are some longer entries and a few true poems interspersed in this collection, but here is a selection in the sententious mode from this lovely small book”:

when complex things combine to form something complex, there is no mystery

a win without surprise is a loss worse than loss

the better at listening you are the better at forgetting you better be

what is most strange and what is most common both point at what is most ancient

anything worth doing is worth taking your lifetime to do

weddings before you’re aware of your mortality are farces

the mountain thinks it’s left the earth

history is the first enemy, and in the end, the only companion, of every visionary

missing someone is like what the wind feels like to itself