relationships – John Sapiro

“comme un reve singulierement profond”

January 27, 2022Posted in booksTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts, photoshopLeave a comment

cf. photograph by cottonbro via Pexels (edited)

“Yes, let’s,” Hans Castorp repeated, mechanically. They spoke in low tones, covered by the music. “Let us sit here, and look on, as though in a dream. For it is like a dream to me, that we are sitting like this — comme un reve singulierement profond, car il faut dormir tres profondement pour rever comme cela. Je veux dire — c’est un reve bien connu, reve de tout temps, long, eternel, oui, etre assis pres de toi comme a present…”

— The Magic Mountain

Dreams

“Nor jealousy was understood, the injur’d lover’s hell.”

January 25, 2022January 25, 2022Posted in booksTagged fiction, life, literature, love, music, people, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by cottonbro via Pexels

“You are hurt? You must not be. Let us put those feelings away, send them to Jericho. Do you agree? I have been wounded too sometimes — I will confess it, since we are sitting together like this. I have been angry with your phlegm, and your being such friends with him, on account of your egoistic craving for experience. Yet I was glad too, and grateful for the respect you paid him. You were loyal; if you were a bit impertinent too, after all I could make allowance for that.”

“Very kind of you.”

She looked at him. “You are incorrigible, it seems. And certainly I can’t quite tell how much esprit you have — but deep you are, a deep young man. Well, very good, one can do with it, and be friends. Shall we be friends, shall we make a league — not against but for him? Will you give me your hand on it? I am often frightened. — Sometimes I am afraid of the solitude with him — the inward solitude, tu sais — he is — frightening; sometimes I am afraid something may happen to him — it makes me shudder. — I should be glad to feel I had someone beside me. Enfin — if you care to know — that was why I came back here with him — chez toi…”

— The Magic Mountain (Tr. Lowe-Porter)

Hey Jealousy

Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages…

January 21, 2022Posted in booksTagged F. Scott Fitzgerald, life, literature, love, memories, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by El Salanzo via Unsplash

Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished…

— The Great Gatsby

You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)

“His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy…”

January 17, 2022Posted in booksTagged F. Scott Fitzgerald, inspiration, life, literature, love, memories, music, philosophy, photography, photoshop, psychology, quotes, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. photographs by Annie Spratt and Hector Reyes via Unsplash (edited)

I went in—after making every possible noise in the kitchen short of pushing over the stove—but I don’t believe they heard a sound. They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy’s face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.

“Oh, hello, old sport,” he said, as if he hadn’t seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands.

— The Great Gatsby

Mated

Tempus fugit, amor manet

January 15, 2022Posted in booksTagged illness, life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts, timeLeave a comment

cf. video by Tima Miroshnichenko via Pexels (edited)

“I have been up here a long time, Mynheer Peeperkorn, years. How long I hardly know myself, but it has been years of my life. My cousin, to visit whom I came up, in the first instance, was a soldier, an upright and honourable soul, but that was no help to him — he died, and left me, and I remained here alone. I was no soldier, but a civilian, I had a profession, as you may have heard, a good, two-fisted job, which is even supposed to do its share in drawing together the nations of the earth — but somehow it did not draw me. I admit this freely; but the reasons for it I cannot describe otherwise than to say that they are veiled in obscurity, the same obscurity that envelops the origin of my feeling for Madame your mistress — I call her that expressly to show that I am not thinking of undermining the situation as it exists — my feeling for Clavdia Chauchat, and my intimate sense of her being, which I have had since the first moment her eyes met mine and bewitched me, enchanted me, you understand, beyond all reason. For love of her, in defiance of Herr Settembrini, I declared myself for the principle of unreason, the spirituel principle of disease, under whose aegis I had already, in reality, stood for a long time back; and I remained up here, I no longer know precisely how long. I have forgotten, broken with, everything, my relatives, my calling, all my ideas of life. When Clavdia went away, I waited here for her return, so that now I am wholly lost to life down below, and dead in the eyes of my friends. That is what I meant when I spoke of my destiny, and said there might be some justice in a complaint over my present state…”

— Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (Tr. Lowe-Porter)

Oh Yeah!

Are you gatherin’ up the tears? Have you had enough of mine?

November 21, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Ian Dooley via Unsplash

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy’s brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.

— Longfellow, “My Lost Youth”

Reelin’ In The Years

“Forget not yet”

November 19, 2021Posted in poetryTagged literature, love, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Kate Cox via Pixabay

The Lover beseecheth his Mistress not to forget his steadfast Faith and true Intent

FORGET not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since whan
The suit, the service none tell can;
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!
Forget not! oh! forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is
The mind that never meant amiss,
Forget not yet!
Forget not then thine own approv’d,
The which so long hath thee so lov’d,
Whose steadfast faith yet never mov’d:
Forget not this!

— Sir Thomas Wyatt

Sweetheart

“Comin’ through the rye”

November 17, 2021November 17, 2021Posted in poetryTagged couple, literature, love, movies, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Brief Encounter (1945)

GIN a body meet a body
Comin’ through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Every lassie has her laddie,—
Ne’er a ane hae I;
Yet a’ the lads they smile at me
When comin’ through the rye.
Amang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo’e mysel’;
But whaur his hame, or what his name,
I dinna care to tell.

Gin a body meet a body
Comin’ frae the town,
Gin a body greet a body,
Need a body frown?
Every lassie has her laddie,—
Ne’er a ane hae I;
Yet a’ the lads they smile at me
When comin’ through the rye.
Amang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo’e mysel’;
But whaur his hame, or what his name,
I dinna care to tell.

— Robert Burns

Why Does It Have To Be Wrong Or Right?

“Lines on the Mermaid Tavern”

November 16, 2021November 16, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, music, people, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Dollar Gill via Unsplash

SOULS of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host’s Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

— Keats

Don’t Rock The Jukebox

“My Heart and I”

November 14, 2021Posted in poetryTagged collage, couple, digital art, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychology, relationshipsLeave a comment

cf. photograph by cottonbro via Pexels (edited collage)

Yet Who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by!
And if before the days grew rough
We once were lov’d, us’d,—well enough,
I think, we ’ve far’d, my heart and I.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The First Cut Is the Deepest

Autumn 1818

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021Posted in booksTagged biography, books, inspiration, Keats, life, literature, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Anthony Tran via Unsplash

Some disturbing news was waiting for him as he stopped at the Dilkes’ the night of August 18 on his way home to Well Walk, looking, said Mrs. Dilke, “as brown and as shabby as you can imagine, scarcely any shoes left, his jacket all torn at the back, a fur cap, a great plaid, and his knapsack.” He quickly guessed that further trouble had arisen. But he sat back in the unaccustomed comfort of the cushioned chair (as Joseph Severn later heard), looked up with a tired smile, and quoted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.”

— Walter Jackson Bate, John Keats

Best of Both Worlds

“We are led to believe a lie when we see not thro’ the eye”

November 11, 2021November 11, 2021Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, life, literature, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Olya Kobruseva via Pexels

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.

— Blake

“Eros”

November 7, 2021Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, romance, videoLeave a comment

cf. Prelinger Archives, “Home Movie” (ca. 1963)

THE SENSE of the world is short,—
Long and various the report,—
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it;
And, how oft soe’er they ’ve turned it,
Not to be improved.

— Emerson

“Porphyria’s Lover”

November 6, 2021Posted in poetryTagged 3D, art, collage, digital art, GIF, literature, love, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

cf. Delphin Enjolras, “The Fireplace” and The Best Fireplace Video

THE rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listen’d with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneel’d and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soil’d gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And call’d me.

— Robert Browning

“To a Greek Marble”

November 5, 2021November 5, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. photograph by The New York Public Library via Unsplash

I have whispered thee in thy solitudes
Of our loves in Phrygia,
The far ecstasy of burning noons
When the fragile pipes
Ceased in the cypress shade,
And the brown fingers of the shepherd
Moved over slim shoulders;
And only the cicada sang.

I have told thee of the hills
And the lisp of reeds
And the sun upon thy breasts,

And thou hearest me not,
Pótuia, pótuia
Thou hearest me not.

— Richard Aldington

All For Leyna

Somebody To Love

October 30, 2021October 30, 2021Posted in booksTagged art, books, Le Petit Prince, life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

I was, therefore, dying for love without an object…

— Rousseau, Confessions

The Eve of St. Agnes

October 24, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

So, purposing each moment to retire,
She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.

— Keats

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

October 21, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, Shakespeare, Sonnets, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Andrea Riondino via Unsplash

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.

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.

October 20, 2021Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Aalto University Commons, “Students in laboratory” (ca. 1960s)

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life

— Wordsworth

September Gurls

Here in the bar the piano man’s found another nail for my heart

October 19, 2021Posted in musicTagged As Time Goes By, Casablanca, films, love, mashup, memories, movies, music, photography, psychology, relationships, romance, Thoughts, videosLeave a comment

Casablanca (1942)

Another Nail In My Heart

“Astrophysics (Halley’s Poem)”

October 18, 2021Posted in poetryTagged art, literature, love, memories, music, photography, photos, poem, poems, poetry, quotes, relationships, romance, writingLeave a comment

Photograph by Adrienne Crow via Unsplash

Astrophysics (Halley’s Poem)

on a planet that is spinning
things move away from you at 1,037 miles per hour
on your knees
you need something to hold
it only comes near every 75 or 76 years —
it was last seen in 1986
“eppur si muove” she said

— J.S.

“To the couple that were kissing at the Greyhound Bus Station, July, 1981”

October 17, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, memories, music, photography, photos, poem, poems, poetry, relationships, vintage, writing, youthLeave a comment

Charles O’Rear, “Train passengers bound for St. Louis, Missouri, board a chartered bus…” (1974)

To the couple that were kissing at the Greyhound Bus Station, July, 1981

You probably don’t remember me.

I was standing next to you waiting.

I was the guy with the guitar and the paperback copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.

You’re in your sixties now.

You’ve been married for 40 years.

It doesn’t seem possible

Because the sun is still reflecting off the luggage compartment door

And the driver is still getting impatient

And her blonde hair is still glistening in the late afternoon haze

And I knew I was going to be late.

— J.S.

“A Caesura”

October 16, 2021Posted in poetryTagged art, digital art, GIF, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, poem, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, writingLeave a comment

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.

She’s My Ex

October 15, 2021Posted in photographyTagged 3D, animation, digital art, GIF, life, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, portrait, psychology, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Keystone View Co., “Citizenship lessons: father washing in the morning” (ca. 1929)

She’s My Ex

Miss Hodges of Salem

October 11, 2021Posted in poetryTagged literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, womanLeave a comment

Southworth and Hawes, “Miss Hodges of Salem” (ca. 1850)

All … demolish … burn …
I gain control … I suffer …
shameful … O!…

— Alkaios, Fragment From Papyri Oxyrhncus (7th-century BC)

Burnin’ For You

“Aristotle Agonistes”

October 10, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Yan Krukov via Pexels

Aristotle Agonistes

spontaneous generator
took him
from the Lyceum
to the agora
not Platonic dialogues
the Socratic method

— J.S.

The Jean Genie

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks

October 5, 2021Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, romance, Shakespeare, Sonnets, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Photograph by cottonbro via Pexels

If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

Anna Mirabilis

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021Posted in poetryTagged couple, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Trinity Kubassek via Pexels

Anna Mirabilis

she did lie
in her pavilion—cloth-of-gold, of tissue—
o’erpicturing that Venus where we see
the fancy outwork nature
“I thought
she was going
to ask you out!”
let’s not confound the time
with conference harsh
there’s not a minute of our lives
should stretch without some pleasure now
what sport tonight?

— J.S.

I’m On Fire

The Honky Tonk Blues

September 26, 2021September 26, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, loneliness, love, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Ron Lach via Pexels

Qui de nous n’a eu sa terre promise, son jour d’extase et sa fin en exil?

— Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu, Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du?

September 25, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, T.S. EliotLeave a comment

photograph by Anthony Tran via Unsplash

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.

— The Waste Land
99

Eleventh Song

September 9, 2021Posted in poetryTagged college, life, literature, long distance relationships, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

photograph by Jane Palash via Unsplash

WHO is it that this dark night,
Underneath my window plaineth?
It is one who from thy sight,
Being, ah! exiled; disdaineth
Every other vulgar light.

Why, alas! and are you he?
Be not yet those fancies changèd?
Dear! when you find change in me,
Though from me you be estrangèd;
Let my change to ruin be.

Well in absence this will die.
Leave to see! and leave to wonder!
Absence sure will help, if I
Can learn how myself to sunder
From what in my heart doth lie.

But time will these thoughts remove:
Time doth work what no man knoweth.
Time doth as the subject prove,
With time still th’affection groweth
In the faithful turtle dove.

— Sir Philip Sidney

Daisy Jane

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

September 3, 2021Posted in literatureTagged breaking up, Hamlet, literature, love, memories, music, photography, photos, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ShakespeareLeave a comment

unknown photographer, Workers of printing house having a pre-Christmas coffee (1959)

“O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!”

Endymion

August 28, 2021Posted in poetryTagged fashion, John Keats, life, literature, love, memories, music, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, videoLeave a comment

O SOVEREIGN power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
Have become indolent; but touching thine,
One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine,
One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days.
The woes of Troy, towers smothering o’er their blaze,
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks—all dimly fades
Into some backward corner of the brain;
Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain
The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet.
Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat!
Swart planet in the universe of deeds!
Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds
Along the pebbled shore of memory!…

— Book II

“Studies In The History Of The Renaissance”

June 9, 2021Posted in poetryTagged bipolar disorder, creative writing, literature, memories, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

James Jowers, “St. Marks Place” (1968)

“Studies In The History Of The Renaissance”

Pater,
once
I burned
with your
hard gem-like flame
once
maintained this ecstasy
It will not last the night
burning still
a lovely light

— J.S.

Candy’s Room

Monday, 11 o’clock.

May 14, 2021Posted in literatureTagged books, inspiration, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

photograph by gustavovillegas via Pixabay

Monday, 11 o’clock. Well, praised be God! here I am. Videlicet, Ruthin, sixteen miles from Wrexham. At Wrexham Church I glanced upon the face of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with [whom] I had been in habits of fraternal correspondence. She turned excessively pale; she thought it my ghost, I suppose. I retreated with all possible speed to our inn. There, as I was standing at the window, passed by Eliza Evans, and with her to my utter surprise her sister, Mary Evans, quam efflictim et perdite amabam. I apprehend she is come from London on a visit to her grandmother, with whom Eliza lives. I turned sick, and all but fainted away! The two sisters, as H. informs me, passed by the window anxiously several times afterwards; but I had retired.

Vivit, sed mihi non vivit—nova forte marita,
Ah dolor! alterius carâ, a cervice pependit.
Vos, malefida valete accensæ insomnia mentis,
Littora amata valete! Vale, ah! formosa Maria!

My fortitude would not have supported me, had I recognized her—I mean appeared to do it! I neither ate nor slept yesterday. But love is a local anguish; I am sixteen miles distant, and am not half so miserable. I must endeavour to forget it amid the terrible graces of the wild wood scenery that surround me. I never durst even in a whisper avow my passion, though I knew she loved me. Where were my fortunes? and why should I make her miserable! Almighty God bless her! Her image is in the sanctuary of my heart, and never can it be torn away but with the strings that grapple it to life. Southey! there are few men of whose delicacy I think so highly as to have written all this. I am glad I have so deemed of you. We are soothed by communications.

— Letter from Coleridge to Robert Southey, Sunday, July 15, 1794

Amie

Turning Points

May 7, 2021Posted in poetryTagged 3D, art, creative writing, digital art, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, poems, psychology, relationships, romance, writingLeave a comment

If Only You Knew

What Counsel Has The Hooded Moon?

May 5, 2021May 5, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, drama, inspiration, James Joyce, life, literature, music, photography, plays, poetry, relationships, romance, theaterLeave a comment

cf. video by Yaroslav Shuraev via Pexels

BERTHA:
Did you think of me last night?

ROBERT:
[Comes nearer.] I think of you always—as something beautiful and distant— the moon or some deep music.

BERTHA:
[Smiling.] And last night which was I?

ROBERT:
I was awake half the night. I could hear your voice. I could see your face in the dark. Your eyes… I want to speak to you. Will you listen to me? May I speak?

— Joyce, Exiles

Moonlight Feels Right

Book 2, Chapter VII

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, depression, life, literature, love, mental illness, music, photography, psychiatry, psychology, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Fernando @cferdo via Unsplash

Nicole’s world had fallen to pieces, but it was only a flimsy and scarcely created world; beneath it her emotions and instincts fought on. Was it an hour ago she had waited by the entrance, wearing her hope like a corsage at her belt?

. . . Dress stay crisp for him, button stay put, bloom narcissus–air stay still and sweet.

“It will be nice to have fun again,” she fumbled on. For a moment she entertained a desperate idea of telling him how rich she was, what big houses she lived in, that really she was a valuable property–for a moment she made herself into her grandfather, Sid Warren, the horse-trader. But she survived the temptation to confuse all values and shut these matters into their Victorian side-chambers–even though there was no home left to her, save emptiness and pain.

“I have to go back to the clinic. It’s not raining now.”

Dick walked beside her, feeling her unhappiness, and wanting to drink the rain that touched her cheek.

“I have some new records,” she said. “I can hardly wait to play them. Do you know–“

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

Love Cries

Impression Du Matin

May 2, 2021Posted in poetryTagged art, collage, digital art, life, literature, love, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

cf. Unknown, “Street with Lamp Post and Wine Shop” (ca. 1850s) (edited negative)

…But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.

— Oscar Wilde

How Long

At Sundown, Burning Drift-wood

April 25, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, art, life, literature, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Degas, “The Collector of Prints” (1866)

BEFORE my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly’s unlaid ghosts return.

O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?

— John Greenleaf Whittier

You Take A Heart

The Triumph of Time

April 7, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, couple, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

George Eastman Museum, “Couple” (ca. 1910)

Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,
To think of things that are well outworn?
Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,
The dream foregone and the deed forborne?
Though joy be done with and grief be vain,
Time shall not sever us wholly in twain;
Earth is not spoilt for a single shower;
But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,
Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.
The singing seasons divide and depart,
Winter and summer depart in twain.
It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,
The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;
Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,
With sullen savour of poisonous pain.

I have put my days and dreams out of mind,
Days that are over, dreams that are done…

Yea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine,
Mine in the blood’s beat, mine in the breath,
Mixed into me as honey in wine,
Not time, that sayeth and gainsayeth,
Nor all strong things had severed us then;
Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men,
Nor all things earthly, nor all divine,
Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death.

— Swinburne

The First Cut Is The Deepest

You got lucky

March 27, 2021Posted in poetryTagged literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Photograph by Ghaly Wedinly via Unsplash

When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.
But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.

How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,
How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,
But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

Then spake fair Venus’ son, that proud victorious boy,
Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day I could take any rest.
Wherefore I did repent that I had said before:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

— Queen Elizabeth I, When I Was Fair and Young

You Got Lucky

Endymion

March 13, 2021March 13, 2021Posted in poetryTagged couple, GIF, inspiration, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

cf. video by C Technical via Pexels

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

— Keats

I, Oh I

Non Semper Erit Aestas

February 26, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, fiction, literature, love, memories, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Tom McCarthy, “Renaissance of the Upper West Side” (New York Magazine, 1969)

“What is time?” A mystery, a figment — and all-powerful. It conditions the exterior world, it is motion married to and mingled with the existence of bodies in space, and with the motion of these. Would there then be no time if there were no motion? No motion if no time? We fondly ask. Is time a function of space? Or space of time? Or are they identical? Echo answers. Time is functional, it can be referred to as action; we say a thing is “brought about” by time. What sort of thing? — Change! Now is not then, here not there, for between them lies motion. But the motion by which one measures time is circular, is in a closed circle; and might almost equally well be described as rest, as cessation of movement — for the there repeats itself constantly in the here, the past in the present…

— Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (Tr. Lowe-Porter)

I Need You

Whiskey Tango Charlie

February 22, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, creative writing, fiction, life, literature, music, photography, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

photograph by Hari Nandakumar via Unsplash

Whiskey Tango Charlie

at the airport lounge
nothing gold can stay

— J.S.

Third Rate Romance

But when it comes down to fooling you now, honey, that’s quite a different subject.

February 17, 2021Posted in photographyTagged books, literature, love, music, photography, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Shakespeare, womanLeave a comment

cf. LIFE (1972)

HAMLET: …I did love you once.
OPHELIA: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Tears Of A Clown

“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws”

January 17, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Shakespeare, Thoughts, writing2 Comments

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1968)

DEVOURING Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

— Sonnet XIX

I Just Wanna Stop

My Star

January 13, 2021Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1968)

All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

— Robert Browning

Midnight Blue

Omnia Vincit Amor

January 8, 2021Posted in literatureTagged couple, inspiration, literature, love, music, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1969)

“When I compare the aspect of the world to me now with what it was twelve months ago, I am far from desponding or complaining. I seem to have a motive and a rallying-word in the fight of life: …Alles für Ruhm und Ihr!”

— Letter from Thomas Carlyle to Jane Welsh

Anybody in their right mind could see it’s you and me…

Tears, Idle Tears

December 13, 2020Posted in poetryTagged couple, life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts2 Comments

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1969)

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

— Tennyson

The Weekend

reliquiae

December 5, 2020Posted in poetryTagged couple, inspiration, life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1969)

YOU left me, sweet, two legacies,—
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

— Emily Dickinson

Marlene on the Wall

old and grey and full of sleep

December 1, 2020Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, Thoughts, writing2 Comments

cf. Prelinger Archives Home Movie (edited)

old and grey and full of sleep

runaway
train
I reached
for
then you were
gone

— J.S.

We May Never Pass This Way (Again)

The Book Of The Courtier

November 27, 2020Posted in booksTagged books, couple, fashion, life, literature, love, music, photography, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, writingLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1969)

…the custom of all the gentlemen of the house was to betake themselves straightway after supper to my lady Duchess; where, among the other pleasant pastimes and music and dancing that continually were practiced, sometimes neat questions were proposed, sometimes ingenious games were devised at the choice of one or another, in which under various disguises the company disclosed their thoughts figuratively to whom they liked best.

— Castiglione, “The Book Of The Courtier” (1528)

Queen of Hearts

Chapter 5

November 16, 2020Posted in booksTagged 1970s, books, couple, fiction, literature, love, music, photography, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, writingLeave a comment

Nationaal Archief, “Men’s fashion fair at the RAI in Amsterdam” (1973)

Recovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.

“I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.”

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher–shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such–such beautiful shirts before.”

— Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I’ll Be Good To You

“When Diana Lighteth”

November 15, 2020Posted in poetryTagged art, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

Thomas Watson (After Henry Robert Morland), “A Girl Singing Ballads By a Paper Lanthorn” (1767–81)

When Diana lighteth
Late her crystal lamp,
Her pale glory kindleth
From her brother’s fire,
Little straying west winds
Wander over heaven,
Moonlight falleth,
And recalleth
With a sound of lute-strings shaken,
Hearts that have denied his reign
To love again…

— Latin; twelfth century (Tr. Waddell)

Almost Hear You Sigh

“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?”

November 11, 2020Posted in poetryTagged art, collage, creative writing, digital art, love, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

Photograph by Les Anderson on Unsplash (edited collage)

if you ever fall in love
to the sounds of violins
and bells
and a melody that wraps itself
around your heart
look for her
one more time

— J.S.

Bells of St. Augustine

Chapter 7

November 9, 2020Posted in booksTagged books, fiction, life, literature, lost love, love, magazine ads, music, photography, quotes, reading, relationships, romanceLeave a comment

cf. Spy Magazine (1986)

“I’ve got something to tell YOU, old sport,—” began Gatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention…

— Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Even It Up

November 1, 2020November 1, 2020Posted in photographyTagged life, music, parody, people, photography, portrait, psychology, relationships, satire, vintage, womanLeave a comment

Harry Wayne McMahan, “The Television Commercial” (1954)

Even It Up

Reunited

October 31, 2020Posted in poetryTagged 1970s, inspiration, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, schoolLeave a comment

Marion S. Trikosko, “Working College Students” (1971)

Soon, O Ianthe! life is o’er,
And sooner beauty’s heavenly smile:
Grant only (and I ask no more),
Let love remain that little while.

— Walter Savage Landor

See A Little Light

Il fuoco dell’amore

October 30, 2020October 30, 2020Posted in booksTagged 1970s, books, couple, inspiration, life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, relationshipsLeave a comment

Thomas J. O’Halloran, “Students leaving school” (1977)

Ne regarde pas la figure,
Jeune fille, regarde le cœur.
Le cœur d’un beau jeune homme est souvent difforme.
Il y a des cœurs où l’amour ne se conserve pas.

Jeune fille, le sapin n’est pas beau,
N’est pas beau comme le peuplier,
Mais il garde son feuillage l’hiver…

— Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris

The First Cut Is the Deepest

To His Coy Mistress

October 29, 2020Posted in poetryTagged couple, fashion, literature, love, music, parody, people, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, relationships, romance, satireLeave a comment

Warren K. Leffler, “New York Scenes” (1969)

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may…

— Andrew Marvell

Love Machine

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems…

October 26, 2020Posted in poetryTagged books, couple, life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationshipsLeave a comment

E. Anthony Valainis, “A Thin Line” (Indianapolis Monthly Magazine, 1996)

SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed…

— Emily Dickinson

Cherish

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