photograph by Natalie Parham via Unsplash
I still see
a reflection
in that strip mall shoe store glass
autumn winter sun winds whirling
but mine own
becoming myself
— J.S.
“Dramatis Personae (September, 1978)”
Tag: Thoughts
“Darkness”
photograph by Adam Winger via Unsplash
When hurrying home on a rainy night
And hearing tree-tops rubbed and tossed,
And seeing never a friendly star
And feeling your way when paths are crossed:
Stop fast and turn three times around
And try the logic of the lost.Where is the heavenly light you dreamed?
Where is your hearth and glowing ash?
Where is your love by the mellow moon?
Here is not even a lightning-flash,
And in a place no worse than this
Lost men shall wail and teeth shall gnash.Lightning is quick and perilous,
The dawn comes on too slow and pale,
Your love brings only a yellow lamp,
Yet of these lights one shall avail:
The dark shall break for one of these,
I’ve never known this thing to fail.
— John Crowe Ransom
Of longitudes
photograph by cottonbro studio via Pexels
To take a latitude
Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed
At their brightest, but to conclude,
Of longitudes, what other way have we,
But to mark when, and where the dark eclipses be?
— John Donne, “A Valediction of the Book” (excerpt)
“The Soul selects her own Society”
photograph by Haydn Golden via Unsplash
The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —
— Emily Dickinson
Lachrymae
Frederic Leighton, “Lachrymae” (1894–95)
But, in truth, I have wept too much! Dawns are heartbreaking.
Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.
— Arthur Rimbaud, “The Drunken Boat” (Tr. Fowlie) (excerpt)
“At ten o’clock of a winter eve”
photograph by cottonbro studio via Pexels
I HAD for my winter evening walk—
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.
— Robert Frost, “Good Hours”
“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”
Nationaal Archief, “Enjoying the sunshine” (1965)
WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
— Sonnet XXIX
Ode to a Nightingale
photograph by Matheus Bertelli via Pexels
“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination…”
— Letter from John Keats to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817
“EACH life converges to some centre”
photograph by Hadwt via Unsplash
EACH life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence
The sky!Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.
— Emily Dickinson
“the extent to which”
photograph by Gilles De Muynck via Unsplash
silhouette,
the extent to which
night has fallen
full moon
promises
follow on
I can’t forget
you
— J.S.
“Narcissus”
photograph by kevin turcios via Unsplash
Near the path through the woods I’ve seen it:
a trail of white candles.I could find it again, I could follow
its light deep into shadows.Didn’t I stand there once?
Didn’t I choose to go backdown the cleared path, the familiar?
Narcissus, you said. Wasn’t thisthe flower whose sudden enchantments
led Persephone down into Hades?You remember the way she was changed
when she came every spring, having seenthe withering branches, the chasms,
and how she had to return therehelplessly, having eaten
the seed of desire. What was itI saw you were offering me
without meaning to, there in the sunlight,while the flowers beckoned and shone
in their flickering season?
— Patricia Hooper
“the docent”
photograph by Pesce Huang via Unsplash
the docent
just before
closing time
i found myself
in european sculpture and decorative arts
lost in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
with so much to learn
and you resplendently reverberant
in a white blouse
like an impressionist painting
— J.S.
“BEFORE the ice is in the pools”
photograph by Korney Violin via Unsplash
BEFORE the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;That which sings so, speaks so,
When there’s no one here,—
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
— Emily Dickinson
“A Time to Talk”
photograph by Zac Ong via Unsplash
WHEN a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
— Robert Frost
vissi d’amore
photograph by Maksym Kaharlytskyi via Unsplash
Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. 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 who was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair.
— The Great Gatsby
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
photograph by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— Robert Frost
renaissance
photograph by Jonathan Borba via Pexels
Someone will walk into your life,
Leave a footprint on your heart…
— Gary Lenhart
“One half of me is yours, the other half yours— Mine own, I would say— but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.”
photograph by Andrik Langfield via Unsplash
The horses started up, amid farewells and hand-wavings from the bystanders; and then, as Frau Chauchat sank smilingly back against the cushions of the sleigh, her eyes swept the facade of the Berghof, and rested for the fraction of a second upon Hans Castorp’s face. In pallid haste he sought his loggia, thence to get a last glimpse of the sleigh as it went jingling down the drive toward the Dorf. Then he flung himself into his chair…
— The Magic Mountain (Tr. H. T. Lowe-Porter)
BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
photograph by Meghan Holmes via Unsplash
The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars.
— The Great Gatsby
“O despairer, here is my neck, By God, you shall not go down!”
photograph by SHVETS production via Pexels
I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
O despairer, here is my neck,
By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.
— “Song Of Myself”
“Who goes with Fergus?”
photograph by Tim Foster via Unsplash
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.
— W. B. Yeats
“Come, And Be My Baby”
cf. photograph taken from video by cottonbro studio via Pexels
The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that’ll burn
Some people wrap their lies around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering
where you’re going to turn
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
— Maya Angelou
“Bird-Understander”
photograph by Jordan Whitt via Unsplash
Of many reasons I love you here is one
the way you write me from the gate at the airport
so I can tell you everything will be alrightso you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal all the people
ignoring it because they do not know
what to do with it except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to deathit makes you terribly terribly sad
You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the birdAll you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly uselessbut you are wrong
You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them songThese are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurtyou have offered them
to me I am only
giving them backif only I could show you
how very useless
they are not
— Craig Arnold
“Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain”
photograph by Joshua Teichroew via Pexels
THY gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character’d with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity…
— Sonnet CXXII
“Dreams”
photograph by Yan Krukov via Pexels
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
— Langston Hughes
I get confused ’cause I don’t know where I stand
photograph by Jared Sluyter via Unsplash
To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans,
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading
moment’s mirth
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labor won;
How ever, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquishèd.
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona
For rain that’s fallen halfway down the sky I apologize
photograph by Joshua Sukoff via Unsplash
Admiringly, my liege. At first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue;
Where the impression of mine eye infixing,
Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
Which warped the line of every other favor,
Scorned a fair color or expressed it stol’n,
Extended or contracted all proportions
To a most hideous object. Thence it came
That she whom all men praised and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.
— All’s Well That Ends Well
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old”
photograph by Anthony Tran via Unsplash
TO me, fair friend, you never can be old
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion…
— Sonnet CIV
“The mystery of your loneliness”
photograph by João Jesus via Pexels
Now I see
The mystery of your loneliness and find
Your salt tears’ head.
— All’s Well That Ends Well
I remember the night the Green–Schwarz mechanism was discovered
Northeastern University Course Catalog, 1984-85
String Theory
I remember the night the Green–Schwarz mechanism was discovered —
It was a stormy summer night in 1984.
The lightning that flashed across the equations on the blackboard
also flashed across my curtains,
two oranges on the dining room table,
a Pat Metheny album on the blue shag carpet.
I, too, thought I had solved something.
I, too, thought I was free of anomalies.
But the next day I still couldn’t figure it out.
— J.S.
“thermodynamics”
Jamaica, 1986 (digital edit)
thermodynamics
incandescent light burns
down frayed wires—
spectral radiance.
I move my finger across the frost
on the window.
— J.S.
“Think Not All Is Over”
photograph by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
Think not, when the wailing winds of autumn
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,—
Think not all is over: spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt see.Think not, when the earth lies cold and sealed,
And the weary birds above her mourn,—
Think not all is over: God still liveth,
Songs and sunshine shall again return.Think not, when thy heart is waste and dreary,
When thy cherished hopes lie chill and sere,—
Think not all is over: God still loveth,
He will wipe away thy every tear.Weeping for a night alone endureth,
God at last shall bring a morning hour;
In the frozen buds of every winter
Sleep the blossoms of a future flower.
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Flirtation”
photograph by Christian Lue via Unsplash
Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugsand night strewn salt
across the sky. My heartis humming a tune
I haven’t heard in years!
— Rita Dove (excerpt)
“A Drinking Song”
cf. Charles O’Rear, “Passengers enjoy the view in the observation car…” (1974)
WINE comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
— Yeats
“His soul has in its Autumn”
photograph by Shaan Johari via Pexels
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
— Keats, “The Human Seasons”
It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference
“a chainless soul with courage to endure.”
photograph by Emmeline T. via Unsplash
’Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul
With courage to endure.
— Emily Bronte, “The Old Stoic”
“Fear not, Cesario. Take thy fortunes up.”
photograph by Richard Jaimes via Unsplash
Fear not, Cesario. Take thy fortunes up.
— Twelfth Night
A Million Miles Away
photograph by Clay Banks via Unsplash
A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d
Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d
And ached for wings, because I knew the three;
The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name…
— Keats, “Ode on Indolence”
“Full souls are double mirrors”
cf. The Glucksman Library, “Interior of Foundation Building” (edited digital collage)
Full souls are double mirrors, making still
An endless vista of fair things before,
Repeating things behind.
— Middlemarch, Epigraph to Chapter LXXII
There’s no other
photograph by Jackson Simmer via Unsplash
’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.
— Measure for Measure
“My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.”
photograph by Kindel Media via Pexels
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.
— Sonnet L
“I would not creep along the coast”
photograph by National Cancer Institute via Unsplash
I would not creep along the coast but steer
Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.
— Middlemarch, Epigraph to Chapter XLIV
I Can Help
photograph by Edward Howell via Unsplash
“Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,
And you her father. Every gentle maid
Should have a guardian in each gentleman.”
— Epigraph to Middlemarch, Chapter VIII
“The Milleres Tale”
cf. photograph by Christian Wiediger via Unsplash
He hadde moore tow on his distaf
Than Gerveys knew…
— Chaucer, “The Milleres Tale”
“Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d’un monde?”
Image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay
Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm; serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been—
— Matthew Arnold, “Obermann Once More”
“I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day”
cf. video by Yaroslav Shuraev via Pexels
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
— Gerard Manley Hopkins
“SUCCESS is counted sweetest”
photograph by Zane Lindsay via Unsplash
SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.
— Emily Dickinson
“Convalescence”
photograph by Oveth Martinez via Unsplash
From out the dragging vastness of the sea,
Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous seaweed strands,
He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands
One moment, white and dripping, silently,
Cut like a cameo in lazuli,
Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands
Prone in the jeering water, and his hands
Clutch for support where no support can be.
So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch,
He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.
— Amy Lowell
“no measure”
photograph by Raychan via Unsplash
CONRADE:
What the goodyear, my lord, why are you
thus out of measure sad?DON JOHN:
There is no measure in the occasion that
breeds. Therefore the sadness is without limit.
— Much Ado About Nothing
“La Fraisne”
photograph by Les Anderson via Unsplash
Once when I was among the young men …
And they said I was quite strong, among the young men …
Once there was a woman …
… but I forget … she was …
… I hope she will not come again.… I do not remember …
I think she hurt me once, but …
That was very long ago.
— Ezra Pound
“Orpheus in the underworld”
photograph from “Documerica” via Unsplash
Orpheus in the underworld
Eurydice
a fever,
longing still
I turned back
seeing the sun again
and you were gone
— J.S.
“GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him—”
photograph by Jan Tinneberg via Unsplash
“GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him—
Tell him the page I did n’t write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.
Tell him just how the fingers hurried,
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow;
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.“Tell him it was n’t a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him—No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.“Tell him night finished before we finished,
And the old clock kept neighing ‘day!’
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended—
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious,
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow,—happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!”
— Emily Dickinson
“I flipped through one story after another until finally I came to a story about a fig-tree.”
photograph by Cody Doherty via Unsplash
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
— Plath, The Bell Jar
Troilus and Cressida
photograph by Andrej Nihil via Unsplash
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion…
— Troilus and Cressida
“Kind Are Her Answers”
photograph by Hello Revival via Unsplash
Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers
From their own music when they stray:
All her free favors
And smooth words wing my hopes in vain.
O did ever voice so sweet but only feign?
Can true love yield such delay,
Converting joy to pain?
— Thomas Campion
“The Soul has Bandaged moments”
photograph by Joe Pohle via Unsplash
The Soul has Bandaged moments –
When too appalled to stir –
She feels some ghastly Fright come up
And stop to look at her –
— Emily Dickinson
“Ophelia”
photograph by Jizo via Pexels
Ophelia
strutting
now
fretting
his hour
upon the stage
now
the time gives it proof —
I did love you once
— J.S.
“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
photograph by Riccardo Mion via Unsplash
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
— Wallace Stevens
“Second Fig”
photograph by Ángel López via Unsplash
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
— Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Thou Dusky Spirit Of The Wood”
photograph by David Tran via Unsplash
Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
Bird of an ancient brood,
Flitting thy lonely way,
A meteor in the summer’s day,
From wood to wood, from hill to hill,
Low over forest, field and rill,
What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat,
And bears thee up above the clouds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low?
— Henry David Thoreau
“I Hear a River thro’ the Valley Wander”
photograph by Devin Avery via Unsplash
I hear a river thro’ the valley wander
Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.
A rainbow stands and summer passes under.
— Trumbull Stickney
“Elms”
photograph by Lisanto 李奕良 via Unsplash
All day I tried to distinguish
need from desire. Now, in the dark,
I feel only bitter sadness for us,
the builders, the planers of wood,
because I have been looking
steadily at these elms
and seen the process that creates
the writhing, stationary tree
is torment, and have understood
it will make no forms but twisted forms.
— Louise Glück
John Sapiro 