cf. Gustave Caillebotte, “Interior, Woman at the Window” (detail) (1880) and photograph via unsplash (edit)
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster…
— Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
“Life Goes On Without You” — Jill Sobule
Jerome B. Thompson, “A Pic Nick in the Woods of New England” (detail) (ca. 1855)
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all…
— Emily Dickinson
“All Right” by Christopher Cross
Le feu follet (1963)
Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
— Robert Frost
“It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” — Alison Krauss
photograph by Jonathan Dubon via Unsplash (edit)
tanglewood in blue
a moment
I held
once forever
in the summer grass
steadfast bright stars
still turning
—J.S.
—Yes. So you think…
The door closed behind the outgoer.
Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and brooding air.
A vestal’s lamp.
Here he ponders things that were not… what might have been: possibilities of the possible as possible: things not known…
— Joyce, Ulysses
“Fifty Years After The Fair” — Aimee Mann
Horacio Villalobos, “Housewife in the Kitchen…” (ca. 1975)
“The problem with life is that it’s too daily.”
— Sarah E. Sapiro
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest…
— T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land
cf. photograph by Genessa Panainte via Unsplash (edit)
open tuning (august, 1981)
under the proscenium arch
seeming you near me
staccato heartbeats
inspired and altered
what chord is that?
and I answered
I don’t
even
really
know
—J.S.
Tom Hubbard, “…Public Plaza, Fountain Square…” (1973)
doppelgänger
long ago
I diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel
long I stood
and looked as far as I could
doubting I should ever come back
I am telling this with a sigh
traveling by
has made all the difference
—J.S.
“Bridge of Sighs” — Robin Trower
LIFE, 1970
Who will in fairest book of nature know
How virtue may best lodg’d in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices’ overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And, not content to be perfection’s heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws thy heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good:
But “Ah,” Desire still cries, “Give me some food!”
— Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella 71: “Who will in fairest book of nature know”
ROMEO:
[To A Serving man] What lady is that, which doth enrich the paw
Of yonder Daniel Striped Tiger?SERVANT:
I know not, sir.ROMEO:
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear—
Beauty too rich for use, for Earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows and X the Owl,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows and Lady Elaine Fairchilde shows…
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this episode aired on PBS.
“Whenever You’re On My Mind” – Marshall Crenshaw
cf. photograph by Gabriel Laroche (edit) via Unsplash
Muse, tell me why, for what attaint of her deity, or in what vexation, did the Queen of heaven drive one so excellent in goodness to circle through so many afflictions, to face so many toils? Is anger so fierce in celestial spirits?
— Virgil, Aeneid
“Carry On My Wayward Son” by Samantha Loren
Miroslav Sido, “Mother”
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away…
That lingers in the garden there.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, “To Any Reader” (excerpt)
cf. Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks” (detail) (1942) and Paul Gauguin, “The Siesta” (detail) (ca. 1892–94)
Poor Wisdom’s chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.
— Thomas Moore, “The Time Iʼve Lost in Wooing” (excerpt)
cf. video by go_see via Pixabay
Brightness
and with good luck
we will reach the harbor
and black earthWe sailors have no will
in big blasts of wind,
hoping for dry landand to sail
our cargo
floating aboutMany
labors
until dry land
—Sappho, “In Time of Storm” (Tr. Barnstone)
“Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya” – New England
cf. Jane Reece, “Interior” (edit) (ca. 1922)
but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” (excerpt)
“Only A Memory” – The Smithereens
cf. Harry C. Phibbs, “The Woodchopper’s Woman” (ca. 1922) and video by WolfBlur via Pixabay
winter
is it still
yes i think
snowing
did you
there is something
my letter
i have to
what time
tell you
—J.S.
cf. “Reflections”, after Bayard Jones (edit) (ca. 1903)
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: “’T will keep.”I woke and chid my honest fingers,—
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
—Emily Dickinson
“I’m Turning Around” – Gentle Giant
cf. “Waterproof”, After C. Clyde Squires (ca. 1907) and video by tmeier1964 via Pixabay
O Lear, Lear, Lear!
Beat at this gate that let thy folly in,
And thy dear judgment out!
cf. Eugene Aizelin, “Mignon” (photograph by S. Almquist, ca. 1921) and
John H. Stocksdale, “Margaret” (ca. 1920)
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
— Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
cf. J. Thornton Johnston, “The Short Cut” (ca. 1922)
nocturne
when pluto was still a planet
the universe was full of surprises
—J.S.
video by Coverr-Free-Footage via Pixabay
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this
in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee O soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters…
—Walt Whitman, Warble For Lilac-Time
Roger Powell – from “Architecture”
cf. photograph by Sam Soffes via Unsplash (edit)
the bends
under
fog of fluorescence
this watch said
5:07
Wednesday
26
November
1986
grey noises
office
voices
footsteps
windows
already dark
radiating winter
compressioned
and
descending
—J.S.
photograph by StockSnap via Pixabay
My tables—meet it is I set it down…
—Hamlet
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
—T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
“Black Sheets Of Rain” – Bob Mould
LIFE, 1972
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
—T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
cf. LIFE, 1972
PHOEBE:
Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.SILVIUS:
It is to be all made of sighs and tears,
It is to be all made of faith and service,
It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance…
—As You Like It
“Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole
Photograph by Bruce Mars via Pexels
KING LEAR:
Doth any here know me? This is not Lear.
Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied—Ha! Waking? ’Tis not so.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?FOOL:
Lear’s shadow.
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” – Elton John
Photograph by Easton Oliver via Unsplash
His railings and outbursts expressed not the conviction of failure but the passion for success. They touched off his disappointment, his injured self-esteem, his wounded pride, without ultimately concealing his determination to persevere — his finally unshakeable will to achieve. The strain of remonstrative self-pity and pessimism in Conrad was an overlay to the iron in him.
—Leo Gurko, “Joseph Conrad: Giant in Exile”
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
—Emerson, Self Reliance
On First Looking into Greene’s “Chord Chemistry”
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Greene speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
(cf. Keats, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer)
You Go to My Head / Willow Weep for Me by Ted Greene
Photograph by Florian Pérennès via Unsplash
The Year Of Living Collinsly (1985)
there’s a girl that’s been on my mind
all the time
i’ve been sitting here so long
wasting time
just staring at the phone
ooh
you got me inside out
oh yes
they all warned me
they told me don’t lose your heart to her
she’ll never give it back
now i know that i’m too young
my love has just begun
Phil Collins – “Sussudio” (Fatu’s Edit) by Fatu (F82)
cf. LIFE, 1968 and Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat” (1887)
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
—Sara Teasdale, Barter (excerpt)
photograph by Annie Spratt via Unsplash
There’s not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.
—Thomas Hood, Ode to Melancholy
World Bipolar Day | International Bipolar Foundation
“Both Sides Now” by Kjartan Gullikstad
cf. photograph by Tim Gouw via Unsplash and Northeastern University Course Catalog, 1980-82
simultaneity
kaleidoscope,
I see you
through
two
eyes
one
now
one
then
—J.S.
cf. Thomas A. Morgan, “After The Dip” (edit) (ca. 1904)
And all those acts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.—I am gone
Away from my own bosom: I have left
My strong identity, my real self,
Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit
Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search!
Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round
Upon all space: space starr’d, and lorn of light;
Space region’d with life-air; and barren void;
Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell.—
Search, Thea, search! and tell me, if thou seest
A certain shape or shadow, making way
With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
A heaven he lost erewhile…
—John Keats, Hyperion
“Missing” by Everything But The Girl
cf. Sonnet 87 and photograph by Timo Stern via Unsplash (detail)
“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” – Meat Loaf
Camden Public Library, “The 6-masted schooner George W. Wells…” (detail) (ca. 1900)
a closed book
just for an instant
the future,
ionized and incandescent
split the sky
then was lost
—J.S.
G. F. Handel – Suite No. 2 – Adagio by Elina Christova
Terry Eiler, “Training Class For Havasupai Teachers in Reading and Language Instruction Methods” (ca. 1972)
Your voice and his I heard in those non-lectures —
Hammock chairs sprawled skew-wise all about;
Moore in the armchair bent on writing it all out —
Each soul agog for any word of yours…Poke the fire again!
Open the window!
Shut it! — patient pacing unavailing.
Barren the revelations on the ceiling —
Dash back again to agitate a cinder.
“Oh it’s so clear! It’s absolutely clear!”
—I.A. Richards, “The Strayed Poet” (excerpt)
“Learning To Fly” by Tom Petty / Heartbreakers
cf. photograph by Tyler Springhetti via Unsplash
back issue (june, 1981)
on the prudential tower escalator
the wind
and your smile
blithe spirits
moving beyond me
—J.S.
“I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” by England Dan & J.F. Coley
cf. Jean Antoine Houdon, “Bather” (1782) and video by Vimeo-Free-Videos via Pixabay
They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Abolish his Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –
—Emily Dickinson
cf. video by Ventus17 via Pixabay
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!
You would play upon me;
You would seem to know my stops;
You would pluck out the heart of my mystery;
You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass;
and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ;
Yet cannot you make it speak…
—Hamlet
LIFE, 1965
It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Give All to Love (excerpt)
“Change Of Heart” – Eric Carmen
cf. photographs by Noel Y. C., Artful Dioramas of North American Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History and Warren Wong via unsplash
returner
into the diorama
quickly by the buffalo
down the mountain
along the freeway
I flag down the driver
of a 1965 ford fairlane
—J.S.
“The Middle Ages” by Mary Chapin Carpenter
The Finnish Museum of Photography, “The counter of a café at the new Centrum department store of Voima cooperative.” (detail) (1961)
What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.
O poor Orlando! Thou art overthrown.
—As You Like It
“Magnet and Steel” – Walter Egan
cf. photograph by Mike Fox via Unsplash
O, brave new world
That has such people in’t!
—The Tempest
“Method of Modern Love” – Daryl Hall & John Oates
The Finnish Museum of Photography, “At Hotel Aulanko’s Cafe Terrace” (ca. 1950’s)
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe…
—The Waste Land
Read my palm and tell me why do lovers come and go…
cf. Finnish Museum of Photography, “Osuusliike Mäki-Matin uuden liikekeskuksen ravintolasali.” (1958)
fluorescence
a long time ago
someone told me
reflected light waves travel out into space
eternally
if you turn around
from someplace far away
you will see
the past
again
eternally
now
I understand
—J.S.
“Sweet Baby” – George Duke / Stanley Clarke
cf. UL Digital Library, “Interior of Foundation Building”
errata
so much milk spilled
so much bridged water
so much greener grass
so much silver lining
so much unglittered gold—
so much unsaid
so much unsaid,
even now
–J.S.
Patricia D. Duncan, “Sunset View of a Horse in Pastureland…” (1975)
As my eyes search the prairie
I feel the summer in the spring.
—Anonymous, “Spring Song” (Tr. Frances Densmore) from Chippewa Music II Bulletin 53 (1913)
“Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey
cf. photographs via Unsplash and video (rain) by Vimeo-Free-Videos via Pixabay
Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thomas Hardy, The Voice (excerpt)
Russell Lee, “Visitors’ hour at the Cairns General Hospital at the FSA (Farm Security Administration) farmworkers’ community” (1942)
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life” (excerpt)
“Box of Rain” by Grateful Dead
Doug Cronk, “Supervalu Supermarket…” (1952)
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California (excerpt)
The Clash – “Lost in the Supermarket“
Marc St. Gil, “Den behind a Store Which Caters to the Teenage Group…” (1973)
I think about the first time I beheld you…
Petrarch, Canzoniere XX
“Whenever You’re On My Mind” – Marshall Crenshaw
Horacio Villalobos, “…a Member of the Parish Is Shown Playing a Guitar at a Folk Mass…” (1975)
Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer
afternoon
that one place where the valley floor opens out.
You will see
the white butterflies…
—William Stafford, How to Regain Your Soul (excerpt)
cf. Photograph by The Creative Exchange via Unsplash
One sound is saying, ‘You are not worth tuppence,
But neither is anybody. Watch it! Be severe.’
The other says, ‘Go with it! Give and swerve.
You are everything you feel beside the river.’
—Seamus Heaney, Casting and Gathering (excerpt)
The Finnish Museum of Photography, “A customer ascending to the fabrics department of Kyminlaakso cooperative’s new department store.” (1961)
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang…
—Sonnet LXXIII
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, “Youth at a restaurant night club…” (ca. 1941)
accompagnato
Scarlatti went to dinner with
Scriabin and Rameau
and at the table next to them were
Schoenberg and MilhaudScarlatti sang 440 “A”
to catch the waiter’s ear
Arnold sang eleven more
and Webern drank his beer
—J.S.
LITHIUM CARBONATE | Li2CO3 – PubChem
2. BOTTLES
Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.
—Jane Kenyon, “Having it Out with Melancholy” (excerpt)
cf. Provincial Archives of Alberta, “Vermilion Agricultural and Vocational College” (1970)
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once…
—William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey…
Finnish Museum of Photography, “Autoja ylittämässä salmea lossilla…” (1959)
I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try
Our horsemanships…
—Sir Philip Sidney, “Astrophil and Stella 49”
cf. Jonathan Petersson, “346” (2017)
antediluvian (august, 1986)
in my car at the red light
cascades of rain
silencing
and cold
fell
empty the town
for an eternity
I waited
then
tried to begin again
J.S.
cf. NASA/JPL, “Sunset at the Viking Lander 1 Site” (1976) and video by Vimeo-Free-Videos via Pixabay
Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
Robert Frost, Birches
Provincial Archives of Alberta, “Marten River Provincial Park, Alberta” (1970)
Lux Aeterna
suddenly the memory reveals itself
so then, what is time?
time past is time presentI begin again with that summer
(borne back ceaselessly)
(It avails not, time)wind waves
sun clouds glinting
forsaking the fragile
unredeemable future
I call to you
J.S.
“Come Back To Me” by Janet Jackson
cf. Library Company of Philadelphia, “Frankford Creek and Vicinity, Winter” (ca. late 19th century) and
photograph by Peter Gonzalez via Unsplash
Ashes denote that fire was;
Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature’s sake
That hovered there awhile.Fire exists the first in light,
And then consolidates,—
Only the chemist can disclose
Into what carbonates.
Emily Dickinson
One hand she press’d upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain…
Keats, “The Fall of Hyperion”
cf. Antonio Gai, “Meleager” (1735) and Mathew Brady’s studio, “Unidentified Man” (ca. 1860)
cf. Esther Bubley, “A Greyhound bus trip…” (1943)
cf. Katsushika Hokusai, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa…” (ca. 1830–32)
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
—Robert Frost, “A Line-storm Song” (excerpt)
cf. photograph (musician) by Andrew Robles via Unsplash
I showed her heights she never saw—
“Wouldst climb?” I said,
She said “Not so”—
“With me?” I said, “With me?”
—Emily Dickinson
“Shadows of the Night” (Live) by Pat Benatar
Léonard Misonne, “By The Mill” (ca. 1905)
And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “My Lost Youth” (excerpt)
“Yesterday Once More” – Carpenters
cf. photograph by Felix Russell-Saw via Unsplash
“Keats, walk a hundred yards over the rim”
Keats,
leave the Piazza di Spagna
walk a hundred yards over the rim
I have your penicillin
I won’t let you go
there are more poems to write
and she is still waiting for you
—J.S.
(cf. “The Twilight Zone”, Season 2, Episode 23, 1961)
cf. video by klimkin via Pixabay
These days were filled with puzzlement, with thoughts of the hopes of the past, of the changes that life brings, of the whole “Burden of the Mystery” — the phrase that had meant so much to him for so long. And the burden was greater now than any he had ever experienced before…
—Walter Jackson Bate, John Keats
“Fire And Rain” by James Taylor
cf. Alfred Stieglitz, “An Icy Night” (1898) and video by CAMERAGE via Pixabay
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star,
Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer’s day
Robs not one light seed from the feather’d grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad ‘mid her reeds
Press’d her cold finger closer to her lips…
—Keats, Hyperion (excerpt)
at the college art gallery, october, 1981
the ultrablue sunset sky
radiated around the white church spire
I walked into the art gallery
because I was a romantic
fair creature of an hour
was looking at chippendale furniture
but I shall never look upon thee more
my footfalls echoed around decorative arts
down the passage which I did not take
another door was opening
into another rose-garden
this fire is now my quarry
vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore
—J.S.
Southworth & Hawes, “Classroom in the Emerson School…” (detail) (ca. 1850)
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
—Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (excerpt)
But when I face the light
Somehow it all seems right…
cf. piano photograph by Free-Photos via Pixabay
Frequently he held in his hand a little present that Fanny Brawne had given him — a small, oval, white carnelian. It was the only tangible thing left to remind him of their engagement; for he would still not have her letters opened. Words struck home to him too powerfully.
—Walter Jackson Bate, John Keats
Elton John – “Love Lies Bleeding”
Photograph by Guy Sapiro (1962-2009)
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
—Emily Dickinson
cf. photograph by StockSnap via Pixabay
king of august
driving home from my first date
a symphony of street lights
and a million stars in the sky
an incandescent spark
flying through a dark street
midnight holds no secret
only my triumphant heart
—J.S.
cf. video by Coverr-Free-Footage via Pixabay
And now, my Marian, from its shackles free,
My wearied fancy turns for ease to thee;
To thee, my compass through life’s varied stream,
My constant object, and unfailing theme…
—Warren Hastings, “Ode to his Wife” (Written in Patna, 1784)
John Sapiro, “Sunflower” (pastel/digital) (1998/2017)
There is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire…
—Emily Dickinson
cf. C. E. Price – “Approaching Thunderstorm”
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed…
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, “No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.” (excerpt)
Ernst Halberstadt, “Faneuil Square Outdoor Market” (1973)
No, no, go not to Lethe…
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies…
—Keats, Ode on Melancholy
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness – Suicide Prevention Awareness Month
cf. photographs by Tim Wright (guitarist) and Benjamin Child (conference room) via Unsplash
The fox knows many things,
but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
—Archilochus (ca. 700 BC)
Left: H.E. Peck, “Cheer Up Lassie” (ca. 1908);
Right: H. E. Peck, “On Norway’s Coast” (ca. 1908)
The largest fire ever known
Occurs each afternoon,
Discovered is without surprise,
Proceeds without concern:
Consumes, and no report to men…
—Emily Dickinson
cf. Terry Eiler, “Bather Under Water…” (ca. 1972)
Recalled To Life
when I was 17
I jumped off a boat
after my friend’s fallen eyeglasses
now, dark, cold, and
sinking
never
abandon the light
–J.S.
Left: Cesare Guilio, “Palestra Bianca” (ca. 1940)
Right: A.K. Aster, “On Salons” (Camera Craft, 1940)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could…
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo…
cf. LIFE, 1971
Tarry, delight, so seldom met,
So sure to perish, tarry still;
Forbear to cease or languish yet,
Though soon you must and will.By Sestos town, in Hero’s tower,
On Hero’s heart Leander lies;
The signal torch has burned its hour
And sputters as it dies.Beneath him, in the nighted firth,
Between two continents complain
The seas he swam from earth to earth
And he must swim again.
—A. E. Housman
“The View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles” exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10/11/1956
Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!
—Emily Dickinson
Photograph by Les Anderson via Unsplash
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire…
—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Tookapic, “Woman Wearing Jacket Sitting On Concrete During Night Time” (via pexels.com)
Hyperion arose, and on the stars
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide
Until it ceas’d; and still he kept them wide:
And still they were the same bright, patient stars.
Then with a slow incline of his broad breast,
Like to a diver in the pearly seas,
Forward he stoop’d over the airy shore,
And plung’d all noiseless into the deep night.
—Keats, Hyperion (excerpt)
Elton John – “Love Lies Bleeding”
cf. photograph by Eric Nopanen via Unsplash
Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind,
Your music floats,
I’ll pore upon the stream,
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.I’ll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet’s song;
And there I’ll lie and dream
The day along:
And, when night comes, I’ll go
To places fit for woe,
Walking along the darken’d valley,
With silent Melancholy.
—William Blake
LIFE, 1972
O My Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June…
—Robert Burns
H. C. Benedict, “Original And Unique The P. and H. Process Of Negative Development” (1939)
The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these,
O me, O life?Answer.
That you are here — that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
I’m thinking of you Mary Anne…
Trevor T. White, “The Alley” (ca. 1938)
Transit Of Venus
half in sun
half in shadow
you smiled
the last time I saw you
turning away
eppur sim
u
o
v
e
—J.S.
“Walk On By” by Dionne Warwick
cf. Charles O’Rear, “Passengers of the Southwest Limited strolling beside the Amtrak train…” (1974)
When now the boy, whose childish thoughts aspire
To loftier aims, and make him ramble high’r,Grown wild, and wanton, more embolden’d flies
Far from his guide, and soars among the skies…
—Ovid, Metamorphoses
If I didn’t try, how would I know? how would I know?
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1973
“Portraits” (V-VIII)
V
(John Keats)The thought of her
in that darkest winter
fevered torment
but your eternal summer
will not fadeVI
(Jane Dornacker)You did not know me
but I was always listening
and when I lost you
I pulled my car over to the side of the road
and prayedVII
(Hans Castorp)As Spender said of Eliot,
A wonderful poet disguised as a businessman.
Just ask Clavdia.VIII
(F. Scott Fitzgerald)A romantic resting against a mantelpiece clock.
You were right, Scott—
the past is forever.
—J.S.
LIFE, 1967
Summer for thee grant I may be
When summer days are flown!
Thy music still when whippoorwill
And oriole are done!
—Emily Dickinson
“Portraits” (I-IV)
I
(Van Temple)I saw you singing that song again
and I thought of art
burning like a flame
through time and tide
and I was driving with the radio on
againII
(Arland D. Williams Jr.)When you boarded the plane
Did the other passengers recognize you?III
(Samuel Johnson)Put her letters in the fire
Striven back onto yourself
A place you’ve been beforeIV
(Walt Whitman)When you listened to the aria in New Orleans
Did it unravel and fathom your heart?
—J.S.
Tom Hubbard, “…Saturday Night” (1973)
reverie
your smile
on a summer night
the starlight
shining after light years
the light in the window
the wind and your voice
I looked up at the sky last night
and thought of you
—J.S.
“I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” by England Dan & J.F. Coley
Esther Bubley, “This boardinghouse room needs a heater in the winter and a fan in the summer” (1943)
Enough! Here’s the punishment.—Forward, march!
Ahhh! My lungs are burning, my skull roars!
Night rolls through my eyes by that sun!
—Rimbaud, A Season In Hell
William Alexander Alcock, “A lonely Vigil” (detail) (ca. 1922);
August Krug, “The Portal” (detail) (ca. 1922);
Sophie L. Lauffer, “A Canaan Evening” (detail) (ca. 1922);
Edwin B. Collins, “Good Cheer Within” (detail) (ca. 1922)
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
–John Milton, Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent
J. S. Bach, “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein” (“When we are in the greatest distress”)
John Dillwyn Llewelyn, The Upper Fall (1853–56)
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow…
–Robert Frost, Ghost House
Dave Thomas, “Girl With The Fishbowl” (LIFE, 1970)
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.
–Shakespeare, Sonnet 97: “How like a winter hath my absence been from thee”
Tom Hubbard, “…Tyler Davidson Fountain” (1973)
You ask me, from what source so oft I draw my songs of love and whence comes my book that sounds so soft upon the tongue. ‘Tis not Calliope nor Apollo that singeth these things; ’tis my mistress’ self that makes my wit. If thou wilt have her walk radiant in silks of Cos, of Coan raiment all this my book shall tell; or have I seen her tresses stray dishevelled o’er her brow, I praise her locks and she walks abroad in pride and gladness; or struck she forth music from the lyre with ivory fingers, I marvel with what easy skill she sweeps her hands along the strings; or when she droops those eyes that call for sleep I find a thousand new themes for song; or if, flinging away her robe, she enter naked with me in the lists, then, then I write whole Iliads long. Whate’er she does, whate’er she says, from a mere nothing springs a mighty tale…
—Propertius, The Elegies
Ernst Halberstadt, “Commonwealth Avenue between Arlington and Berkeley Streets” (1973)
The season’s final blossoms bring
More dear delight than buds of spring.
They stir in us a live communion
Of sorrowfully poignant dreams.
Thus oft the hour of parting seems
More vivid than a sweet reunion.
—Aleksandr Pushkin
cf. Harry W. Watrous, The Passing of Summer (1912)
Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off…
–Robert Frost, Directive
LIFE, 1955
Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.
Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!
–Emily Dickinson
Tom Hubbard, “Rainy Night…” (1973)
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the skyProclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
–Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night
cf. Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 (1884/86) and LIFE (1965)
F. J. Bandholtz, “Rock Island…” (detail) (ca. 1907)
Welby Sherman (After Samuel Palmer), “The Shepherd” (1828)
Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses (excerpt)
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Mental Health Month
David De Vries, “Room 103, small classroom…” (2001)
ENG 101
I heard his raspy old voice talking
about a poem about a spider
and he even looked like Frost
but I was looking
out the door out the window
at the ultrablue sky
and wondered
about designs
–J.S.
Ernst Halberstadt, Midsummer Siesta at City Hall Plaza (1973)
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
‘s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies
Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins, “My own heart let me more have pity on”
Anna Curtis Chandler & Irene F. Cypher, “Audio-Visual Techniques For Enrichment Of The Curriculum” (1948)
Kinderszenen
after school
I finished my Yodel and the telephone rang
unable to contain my excitement
I ran through backyards
until I reached her house
she lowered the tone arm
and I fell in love
–J.S.
Last Train To Clarksville by The Monkees
cf. Heinrich Krenes, Vor dem Pantheon (1908)
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime…
–Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
cf. Stockholm Vistas – Subway Station : Eva Vikström
A Caesura
We walked to the train stop
on a sunny fall day
strangely disoriented
and lost
for good
I turned around
and saw you
taking something
with you
–J.S.
Anna Curtis Chandler & Irene F. Cypher, “Audio-visual techniques for enrichment of the curriculum” (1948)
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun…
—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Grego, Street Musician (2014)
“Soli Deo Gloria”: Grand Central, December, 1982
onrushing out into the
42nd street passage
huddled in the corner
frayed and fallen
drifted from the street
in pieces and broken-down
Yamaha nylon string guitar
the third Brandenburg
reverberated, echoed, re-echoed
transfixed and transfigured
I put all my money in his well-worn open case
It was almost Christmas
–J.S.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 – III. Allegro by TXGQ
Keystone View Company, “In Olden Times…the Stork Would Bring a Baby Sweet and Fair” (1907)
“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking…”
—Walt Whitman
Seven Thirty Seven comin’ out of the sky
Oh! Won’t you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride,
I wanna move…
Travelin’ Band – Creedence Clearwater Revival
cf. Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, “Four Ladies Sitting around a Table…” (detail) (1758)
and Eugène Atget, “Bar de Cabaret” (ca. 1900)
Benjamin Balázs, “Where My Heart Belongs…”
at the music store, August, 1979
I had to reach way up
rosewood,
sunburst,
cigarette burn—the salesman plugged it into a Pignose
the sun was streaming in through the windows
He gave me an imitation tortoise-shell pick
my index finger pressed across
e
a
c#
a circuit closed
on the way home
the late summer afternoon sun was starting to set
I rolled down the car window and
reached for the Pat Travers 8-track tape on the passenger seat
–J.S.
cf. Home Movie PA 000111 and photograph by Kevin Lee via Unsplash
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending…
–T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
cf. Henry Farrer, Winter Scene in Moonlight (1869) and stock footage – STARS – Time Lapse – Night
Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men’s eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what’s gone.The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what’s gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.
–W.B. Yeats, Fallen Majesty
99, I’ve been waiting so long…
Bernard Spragg. NZ, “Canadian Goose (1)” (2008)
Oh! arctic goose of regal bearing —
Why the honking?
Why the staring?
–J.S.
Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can’t have much recollection of her.
She had been having a long look at you.
She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
‘Maple.’ I said it too: ‘Yes, for her name.’
She nodded. So we’re sure there’s no mistake.
I don’t know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree’s for us to guess…
–Robert Frost, Maple (excerpt)
Mohamed Hayibor, Church of Christ, Scientist (2016)
Duet On Mass Ave, June, 1981
Over the sound of water splashing in the fountain
and the warm summer night airI heard your melody echoing around the entire city
then I gave you my guitar and you played the introduction to Roundabout
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!
–J.S.
Eastman Kodak Company, “How to make good movies…” (1938)
The many faces of defeat
Invite you home:
They offer you such silence
As has no truck with time.
The face of horrid purpose,
The train of circumstance
There, the door is closed upon;
They shall no more advance.
Yet see in the uncertain sky
Above your uncertain station–
The sign she left you, passing,
Persists in affirmation.
—Ray Smith, The Sign
cf. Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco (1506–15) and Romeo and Juliet (1968)
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
—Sonnet CXVI
Ron Hoffman, Helping Hands Will Get This Skier’s Car off the Ice (1974)
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o’clock,It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s
’Bout out!” and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.
–Robert Frost, Brown’s Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide (excerpt)
Look on the map, I think we’ve been there before
Close up the doors, let’s roll once more…
cf. Lottie, “Train view” (2012)
Reading “Ivy Day In The Committee Room” On The Train, November, 1980
his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly reemerged into light. It was
a gray day with an almost constant and heavy rain beating down against the train window.
“What are you doing in the dark?” asked a voice.
The cabin lights were off. I stared at the distant red signal light in the mist and felt a chill. I fumbled for my book.
A denuded room came into view and the fire lost all its cheerful colour. The walls of the room were bare except for a
smoking compartment sign. I was alone. A voice asked for my ticket.
“Is that you, Hynes?” asked Mr. O’Connor.
“Yes. What are you doing in the dark?” said Mr. Hynes. advancing into the light of the fire.The train pulled out of the station and I thought about what you said.
“Tell me,” he said across the fire, “what brings our friend in here? What does he want?”
I guess I just wanted to see you one last time.
“What age are you?” he asked.
“Seventeen,” said the boy.As the train slowed into the station I looked for you. A man was getting into his car and heading home.
“Tell me, John,” said Mr. O’Connor, lighting his cigarette with another pasteboard card.
“Hm? ”
“What he is exactly?”
“Ask me an easier one,” said Mr. Henchy.
–J.S.
Ernst Halberstadt, “Westward” Sails Back to Long Wharf from Outing at Great Brewster Island… (1973)
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
–Robert Frost, Into My Own
Kansas – “Point Of Know Return”
cf. Corson Hirschfeld, “Sporting Life” (Cincinnati Magazine, 1977)
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye…
–W.B. Yeats, A Drinking Song
But I never seen nothing like you…
cf. “Miscellaneous Color Shots”
A Stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, ‘Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.’
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
‘Stranger, I wish I knew.’Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart’s desire.
The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;
But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.
–Robert Frost, Love and a Question
How could love be so wrong?
I don’t know why…
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light…
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
I never knew how complete love could be
Till she kissed me and said…
cf. Delphin Enjolras, The Fireplace and The Best Fireplace Video
cf. Deseronto Archives, “Woman standing outside Bismark Leroy Detlor’s bake shop…” (ca. 1920)
and photograph by Jeff Sheldon via Unsplash
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
–W. B. Yeats, “Vacillation” (IV)
