Thoughts – John Sapiro

The Fountains

October 27, 2021Posted in poetryTagged books, grief, happiness, life, literature, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, wishesLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Luke Stackpoole via Unsplash

WHEN you are drinking the water of joy from the alabaster fountain, you may form your wish, and it shall be granted. As you raise your wish higher, the water will be sweeter and sweeter to the taste; but beware that you are not tempted by its increasing sweetness to repeat your draughts, for the ill effects of your wish can only be removed by drinking the spring of sorrow from the bason of flint, which will be bitter in the same proportion as the water of joy was sweet.

— Samuel Johnson

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

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

“thermodynamics”

October 13, 2021Posted in poetryTagged digital art, memories, music, people, photography, photos, photoshop, poem, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

Jamaica, 1986

thermodynamics

incandescent light burns
down frayed wires—
spectral radiance.
I move my finger across the frost
on the window.

— J.S.

Heaven Help Me
(RIP Deon Estus)

“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

What is Life?

October 8, 2021Posted in poetryTagged existentialism, life, literature, meaning, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1961)

And what is Life?—An hour-glass on the run,
A Mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?—A minute’s pause, a moment’s thought;
And happiness?—A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

— John Clare

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

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem amans amare.

September 22, 2021Posted in poetryTagged depression, life, literature, loss, lost love, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. video by cottonbro via Pexels

Art and eloquence,
And all the shows o’ the world, are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe ‘too deep for tears’ when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope,—
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
Nature’s vast frame, the web of human things,
Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.

— Shelley

Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)

The Docent

September 21, 2021Posted in poetryTagged art, inspiration, life, literature, memories, music, paintings, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

UMFA Docent Yearbook, 2014-2015

oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes those gleams
Of past existence,—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

— Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13, 1798”

Defying Gravity

“That sir which serves and seeks for gain and follows but for form will pack when it begins to rain and leave thee in the storm.”

August 24, 2021Posted in literatureTagged books, inspiration, life, literature, love, music, philosophy, photography, poetry, psychology, quotes, Shakespeare, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Noah Buscher via Unsplash

Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may’st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

— King Lear

All Broken Hearts Break Differently

Dum vivimus, vivamus!

June 20, 2021Posted in booksTagged aging, books, carpe diem, inspiration, life, literature, memories, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Video by MART PRODUCTION via Pexels

“It’s not too late for you, on any side, and you don’t strike me as in danger of missing the train; besides which people can be in general pretty well trusted, of course—with the clock of their freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do here—to keep an eye on the fleeting hour. All the same don’t forget that you’re young—blessedly young; be glad of it on the contrary and live up to it. Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that what have you had?
…But that doesn’t affect the point that the right time is now yours. The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have. You’ve plenty; that’s the great thing; you’re, as I say, damn you, so happily and hatefully young. Don’t at any rate miss things out of stupidity. Of course I don’t take you for a fool, or I shouldn’t be addressing you thus awfully. Do what you like so long as you don’t make my mistake. For it was a mistake. Live!”

— Henry James, The Ambassadors

Born to Run

“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

Hope

May 28, 2021Posted in booksTagged bipolar disorder, books, depression, inspiration, life, literature, mental illness, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

photograph by Victorien Ameline via Unsplash

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.

— William Styron, Darkness Visible

Don’t Let Go The Coat

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

May 22, 2021Posted in literatureTagged depression, inspiration, life, literature, music, people, philosophy, photography, psychiatry, psychology, quotes, reading, Thoughts2 Comments

photograph by Warren Wong via Unsplash

Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have lost the first of the ebb,” said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

— Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“So foul a sky clears not without a storm.”

— Shakespeare, King John

Whosoever unceasingly strives upward … him can we save.

— Goethe

Carry On Wayward Son

Icarus and Psyche

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, creative writing, life, literature, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

photograph by David Raichman via Unsplash

Icarus and Psyche

Keats, what thoughts I have of you tonight
O, Hyperion! O, aching time!
thoughts of the hopes of the past —
the burden of the mystery
of the wide world
I stand alone
a sick eagle
far from the fiery noon
and eve’s one star

— J.S.

Wouldn’t It Be Good

Roderick Hudson

May 11, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, fiction, inspiration, life, literature, music, perseverance, philosophy, photography, psychology, reading, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

photograph by REVOLT via Unsplash

“It’s greater happiness than you deserve, then! You have never chosen, I say; you have been afraid to choose. You have never really faced the fact that you are false, that you have broken your faith. You have never looked at it and seen that it was hideous, and yet said, ‘No matter, I’ll brave the penalty, I’ll bear the shame!’ You have closed your eyes; you have tried to stifle remembrance, to persuade yourself that you were not behaving as badly as you seemed to be, and there would be some way, after all, of compassing bliss and yet escaping trouble. You have faltered and drifted, you have gone on from accident to accident, and I am sure that at this present moment you can’t tell what it is you really desire!”

— Henry James, Roderick Hudson

Flaming Youth

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

Öd’ und leer das Meer

April 29, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, life, literature, love, memories, music, nostalgia, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1986)

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain…

— The Waste Land

Time Passages

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

Slough of Despond

April 17, 2021Posted in booksTagged books, digital art, life, literature, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

…it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground.

— Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

Finding Myself

April 13, 2021Posted in poetryTagged art, books, life, literature, music, paintings, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. William Hamilton, “Male Traveler in a Storm” (1770–80)

The little world, the subject of my muse,
Is a huge task and labor infinite;
Like to a wilderness or mass confuse,
Or to an endless gulf, or to the night:
How many strange Meanders do I find?
How many paths do turn my straying pen?
How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
Which seek to limb out this strange All of men?
Easy it were the earth to portray out,
Or to draw forth the heavens’ purest frame,
Whose restless course, by order whirls about
Of change and place, and still remains the same.
But how shall man’s, or manner’s, form appear,
Which while I write, do change from what they were?

— Thomas Bastard, Book 1, Epigram 5: Ad lectorem de subjecto operis sui.

I wish it would rain down

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

“Echoplex”

April 1, 2021Posted in poetryTagged aging, life, literature, memories, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

Photograph by Luka Reedy via Unsplash

Echoplex

I went looking for myself
in a reflection
in city glass
I saw long ago
on a windy day
radiating memory

— J.S.

Operator

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

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

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

February 1, 2021Posted in lifeTagged books, inspiration, letters, life, literature, music, philosophy, photography, psychology, purpose, quotes, reading, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. photograph by Vlad Bagacian via Pexels

In the last year of his life he wrote his daughter, “I wish now I’d never relaxed or looked back – but said at the end of “The Great Gatsby”: I’ve found my line – from now on this comes first. This is my immediate duty – without this I am nothing.”

— Arthur Mizener, “Gatsby, 35 Years Later”

Almost ten years ago I participated in the conference whose proceedings would become the volume “Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies: Consequences of Skepticism.” Stanley sat directly in front of me and listened attentively to my talk, thrilling and scary, not to say awkward, reading out “Cavell writes…” and “Cavell says…” with the man right there. After the Q and A, someone, I don’t remember who, brought me over and introduced us. Stanley shook my hand and with the other patted my shoulder and said, with a broad smile, “Stay on your path, young man.”

— Paul Grimstad, “Stay on Your Path, Young Man”

Point Of Know Return

“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

Opus 1

January 11, 2021Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, inspiration, life, literature, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

photograph by Brayden Law via Unsplash

the candle burns
the wind sits
in sails
nightfall is far
never or
now

— J.S.

Play Ball

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)

a diminished thing

November 18, 2020Posted in poetryTagged aging, art, creative writing, digital art, life, literature, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. from the Nationaal Archief collection, 1940 (edited)

broken
down
pure of heart
I could not save myself
and so
the lost time
and the person I was

— J.S.

A Man I’ll Never Be

“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

We are stardust, we are golden and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

November 2, 2020Posted in photographyTagged inspiration, life, music, people, philosophy, photography, psychology, ThoughtsLeave a comment

John Dominis, “Woodstock Music & Art Fair” (1969)

Woodstock

If music be the food of love, play on… (April, 1978)

October 14, 2020May 16, 2021Posted in photographyTagged GIF, home movies, inspiration, life, love, memories, music, people, photography, relationships, romance, Thoughts, vintageLeave a comment

cf. Videos by Life On Super 8 via Pexels

You’re The Love

O gentlemen, the time of life is short!

October 12, 2020Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, life, literature, magazine ads, music, people, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writing1 Comment

cf. Nation’s Business Magazine (1970)

the clock
unwinding
in the room
reminding
twenty
will not come again

— J.S.

Shooting Star

On a Dream

October 6, 2020February 18, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, magazine ads, music, people, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Cincinnati Magazine (1983)

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon’d and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So play’d, so charm’d, so conquer’d, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev’d that day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows—pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

— Keats, On a Dream

Love’s Train

Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay

October 3, 2020October 3, 2020Posted in poetryTagged art, books, collage, fashion, life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, Thoughts, womanLeave a comment

Zach Muhlbauer, “Wyeth Eyewear” (2019)

Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay,
My love lyke the Spectator ydly sits
Beholding me that all the pageants play,
Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in myrth lyke to a Comedy:
Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a Tragedy.
Yet she beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth nor rues my smart:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughes, and hardens evermore her hart.
What then can move her? if not merth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.

— Edmund Spenser, “Amoretti LIV: Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay”

Sin City

The Memory Of Laura

October 1, 2020Posted in poetryTagged books, fashion, inspiration, life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Kaye, “Plymouth Savoy in Australia” (ca. 1950s)

O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;
O plain, that hold’st her words for amulets
And keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,
And all spring’s pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!
O pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light canst catch the beam!
I envy thee her presence pure and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.

— Petrarch (Tr. Higginson)

Heaven Help Me

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte

September 29, 2020Posted in musicTagged couple, humor, inspiration, life, love, mashup, music, parody, people, photography, relationships, romance, satire, Thoughts1 Comment

State Archives of Florida, “Ski Champs in Action” (ca. 1955)

I got everything you wanted
Give you everything you need
Still you want that sugar daddy over me?

Who Wants To Be Lonely?

September 28, 2020Posted in musicTagged fashion, humor, music, parody, photography, relationships, romance, satire, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Sears advertisement (1972)

I want to say to you
Time is just passing us by…

Who Wants To Be Lonely

“A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved”

September 23, 2020May 16, 2021Posted in poetryTagged life, literature, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, reading, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writing3 Comments

cf. Video by Welton Souza via Pexels

ALAS! so all things now do hold their peace!
Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing;
The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,
The nightès car the stars about doth bring.
Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less:
So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,
In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.
For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring;
But by and by, the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting,
When that I think what grief it is again,
To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

— Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, “A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved”

Nights Are Forever Without You

There’s Only One Way To Rock

September 22, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in photographyTagged art, collage, couple, digital art, fashion, inspiration, life, music, photography, photoshop, relationships, Thoughts, womanLeave a comment

cf. Left: Maclean’s Magazine (1969) and Right: LIFE Magazine (1970)

There’s Only One Way To Rock

Was the past in color?

September 19, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged 1980s, couple, creative writing, fashion, fiction, life, magazine ads, music, photography, poems, poetry, relationships, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1987)

was the past in color?

1987 was in color
ablazedboldbrightbrilliant
bigger than life
but then again
it could have been
only black and white —
I can’t see in this light
late at night

— J.S.

Love T.K.O.

That time of year

September 14, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged aging, art, creative writing, fiction, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, relationships, Shakespeare, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

Image by Vicki Nunn via Pixabay

That time of year
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold…
autumn
leaves
me
again
every year
— J.S.

Always The Last To Know

now

September 12, 2020May 18, 2021Posted in moviesTagged aging, books, couple, first love, life, memories, music, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Wild Strawberries (1957)

But now he was an over-the-hill actor playing his younger self, and the setting was all wrong…

— Jonathan Rose, “The Literary Churchill”

Out of Touch

Who goes with Fergus?

September 10, 2020May 18, 2021Posted in literatureTagged films, inspiration, life, literature, music, perseverance, philosophy, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, strong, ThoughtsLeave a comment

8½ (1963)

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

— Yeats

Return of the Mack

time and tide

August 28, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, love, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, Shakespeare, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Charlotte Brooks, “Teenage driver Bill Kolb…driving his date in an MG convertible” (1958)

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie…

— Sonnet LXXIII

Top of the World

My wheel is in the dark

August 23, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, life, literature, motivation, music, philosophy, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, quotes, reading, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Image by Myriam Zilles via Pixabay

MY Wheel is in the dark,—
I cannot see a spoke,
Yet know its dripping feet
Go round and round.

My foot is on the tide—
An unfrequented road,
Yet have all roads
A “clearing” at the end.

Some have resigned the Loom,
Some in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ,
Some with new, stately feet
Pass royal through the gate,
Flinging the problem back at you and I.

— Emily Dickinson

Part of the Plan

“recuerdo”

August 22, 2020Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, inspiration, life, literature, music, photography, poems, poetry, psychology, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

Photograph by Juliane Mergener via Unsplash

recuerdo

upon a violin
Sentio, ergo sum
my musical Descartes
each song
deeper
deeper
deeper
into my heart
mercy I cried
but in her lantern slide
did see my life
as though magnified

— J.S.

Killing Me Softly With Her Song

The largest fire ever known

August 19, 2020May 18, 2021Posted in digital artTagged 3D, art, collage, digital art, literature, music, photo composition, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, Thoughts, womanLeave a comment

cf. Videos by mohamed Hassan (storm) and Moshe Harosh (woman) both via Pixabay (edited collage by me)

THE LARGEST fire ever known
Occurs each afternoon,
Discovered is without surprise,
Proceeds without concern:
Consumes, and no report to men,
An Occidental town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be again burned down.

— Emily Dickinson

10,000 Lovers (In One)

“The Conjurer”

August 18, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged creative writing, love, memories, music, photo composition, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, Thoughts, writingLeave a comment

cf. Photographs by Les Anderson via Unsplash (edit)

The Conjurer

late
on rainy nights
Orpheus
and Gatsby
have
nothing
on me

— J.S.

Almost Hear You Sigh

A Serenade at the Villa

August 15, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged art, digital art, literature, love, memories, music, photography, photoshop, poems, poetry, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1966) (edit)

I
That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.

II
Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music; that was I…

IV
What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing’s best was done,
To my lute I left the rest…

— Robert Browning, A Serenade at the Villa (excerpt)

Gabrielle

Insomnia

August 14, 2020September 25, 2020Posted in poetryTagged inspiration, life, literature, love, music, photography, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, relationships, romance, ThoughtsLeave a comment

Image by Arek Socha via Pixabay

Thin are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep,
And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
That wavers with the spirit’s wind:
But in half-dreams that shift and roll
And still remember and forget,
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Our lives, most dear, are never near,
Our thoughts are never far apart,
Though all that draws us heart to heart
Seems fainter now and now more clear.
To-night Love claims his full control,
And with desire and with regret
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Is there a home where heavy earth
Melts to bright air that breathes no pain,
Where water leaves no thirst again
And springing fire is Love’s new birth?
If faith long bound to one true goal
May there at length its hope beget,
My soul that hour shall draw your soul
For ever nearer yet.

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Insomnia

Sun And Moon

The Darkling Thrush

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020Posted in poetryTagged depression, depressive disorder, despair, life, literature, music, photography, photos, poems, poetry, quotes, reading, Thoughts2 Comments

Photograph by Mateo Avila Chinchilla via Unsplash

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

— Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush (excerpt)

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