Mohamed Hayibor, Church of Christ, Scientist (2016)
Duet On Mass Ave, June, 1981
over the sound
of summer fountains
I heard your melody
echo
the city
ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too
bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
but to be young was very heaven!
— J.S.
cf. photograph by freestocks-photos via Pixabay (edit)
Charles (Henry) Studios, Home Movie (1976)
“All of a sudden everything was over,” Nick said. “I don’t know why it was. I couldn’t help it. Just like when the three-day blows come now and rip all the leaves off the trees.”
…The big thing was that Marjorie was gone and that probably he would never see her again. He had talked to her about how they would go to Italy together and the fun they would have. Places they would be together. It was all gone now.
— Ernest Hemingway, “The Three-Day Blow”
“Kiss Me, Baby” by The Beach Boys
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”
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
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
Lons Ramsdell, “School’s Out” (Home Movies Magazine, 1950)
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
New York Magazine, 1969
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming…
–John Keats, Fancy
“Summertime Blues” (Remixed Live At Leeds Version) by The Who
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, “Playing baseball…” (ca. 1910)
“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police
cf. Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 (1884/86) and LIFE (1965)
cf. photograph by Yoann Boyer via Unsplash
“…the situation of the man of genius who, in some accursed hour of his youth, has bartered away the fondest vision of that youth and lives ever afterwards in the shadow of the bitterness of the regret…the fancy of his recovering a little of the lost joy, of the Dead Self, in his intercourse with some person, some woman, who knows what that self was, in whom it still lives a little.”
—The Notebooks of Henry James
Tom Hubbard, August Brings the “D’aug Days” to Fountain Square… (1973)
And that was the end of the attempt by the flatlands to reclaim Hans Castorp. The young man admitted quite openly to himself that such total failure, which he had seen coming, was of decisive importance for his relationship to the people down there. For the flatlands it meant a final shrug, the abandonment of any claim; for him, however, it meant freedom finally won, and by now his heart no longer fluttered at the thought.
–Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
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.
Television Commercials (1950s-1960s)
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
–T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (excerpt)
Well, I’m a bum in the sun and I’m having fun
And I know you know I got no special plans
All the bills are paid
I got it made in the shade
And all I need is the woman…
LIFE (1966)
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date…
–Sonnet XVIII
LIFE (1965)
cf. Piotr Szczepankiewicz, Evening relax (edited) (2015)
You are in love. Occupied until the month of August.
You are in love. —Your sonnets make Her laugh.
All your friends go off…
–Arthur Rimbaud, “Novel”
Remember when I was young and so were you
and time stood still
and love was all we knew…
cf. Fenno Jacobs, Southington, Connecticut Amusement Park (edited) (1942)
cf. Edward Steichen, On the house-boat–“The Log Cabin” (1908)
A show of the summer softness—a contact of something unseen
—an amour of the light and air,
I am jealous and overwhelm’d with friendliness,
And will go gallivant with the light and air myself.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
John Sapiro 