David De Vries, “Room 103, small classroom…” (2001)
ENG 101
I heard his raspy old voice talking
about a poem
about a spider
and he even looked like Frost
but I was looking
out the door
out the window
at the ultrablue sky
and wondered
about designs
— J.S.
cf. video by Coverr-Free-Footage via Pixabay (detail) (edit)
Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover —
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.
— Wallace Stevens, O Florida, Venereal Soil (excerpt)
cf. photograph by Peter Mason via Unsplash
What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours?
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“Because The Night” – Patti Smith
Photograph by Morre Christophe via Unsplash
There is a Gull that rolls alone
over billows loud;
the Nightingale at night will moan
under her soft shroud.
—Allen Ginsberg, “A Very Dove” (excerpt)
David De Vries, “Room 103, small classroom…” (2001)
ENG 101
I heard his raspy old voice talking
about a poem about a spider
and he even looked like Frost
but I was looking
out the door out the window
at the ultrablue sky
and wondered
about designs
–J.S.
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1989 and Lightning : Calvin Company
“My mind is unsettled and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts; an unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest…”
—Johnson’s diary quoted in Boswell’s Life of Johnson
Ghosts appear and fade away…
“My dearest fellow, This will not reach you till some time after our
wedding day, which as usual has taken me aback; but I mean to send you
a despatch on the day itself, and this is for dessert. Not that I think so
much of that day; if I had some other dates, I would think more of them:
that of the day when I looked through the window…”
—Letter from Robert Louis Stevenson to his Wife, Fanny, May 15, 1888
I never knew love before
Then came you…
Konstantin Korovin, At The Window (1919)
But if your heart,
Your heart has been broken
And you don’t wear it on your sleeve
No one can tell,
Your hell goes unspoken
But there’s one thing you must believe…
Untitled photograph by R. E. Scaife (ca. 1919)
cf. Emma Justine Farnsworth, At Dusk (ca. 1893) and
RyanWilliams1987, Rainy City – YouTube
Bourgeois Tagg – “I Don’t Mind At All”
John Sapiro 