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.
“Orpheus in the underworld”
Tag: writing
“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.
“Susan other”
photograph by Manuel Meurisse via Unsplash
Susan other
Susan other
glinting fires
swim in your iris
while I,
the rocks at low tide
Öd’ und leer das Meer
— J.S.
“a string of mercies”
photograph by Christian Holzinger via Unsplash
a string of mercies
held to heart
intercessions
and counterpart
at evenfall
— J.S.
“lux aeterna”
“Elvis” (2022)
lux aeterna
for one
lightning strike
for one
brief hallowed hour
fortune
and
fate
Heaven’s gate
hands
over
— J.S.
“Abyssus abyssum invocat”
photograph by National Cancer Institute via Unsplash
bridges burning
wilderness alone
and the night
like wavesforever onward
— J.S.
“turning point II”
cf. photograph by Joanna Nix-Walkup via Unsplash
turning point II
where did you park your car?
— J.S.
“De consolatione philosophiae”
photograph by Khanh Tu Nguyen Huy via Unsplash
De consolatione philosophiae
I did the best that I could
— J.S.
“Middlemarch”
photograph by Ilnur Kalimullin via Unsplash
in Middlemarch
light is dark
a fire burns
skylark
— J.S.
“Aristotle and Pythias”
photograph by Scott Broome via Unsplash
Aristotle and Pythias
seems madam?
nay —
it is
I know not seems
— J.S.
“instructions”
photograph by Oswald Elsaboath via Unsplash
instructions
no user serviceable parts
broken hearts
the fault, dear Brutus
is ever Descartes’
— J.S.
“Schrödinger’s Reverie”
photograph by Nicate Lee via Unsplash
Schrödinger’s Reverie
she
is not here
and here
at the same
time
— J.S.
“true north”
photograph by Nathan Anderson via Unsplash
true north
ever ever spinning
your soul
encompassed
always
knowing
the way
— J.S.
“Keats, walk a hundred yards over the rim”
cf. photograph by Felix Russell-Saw via Unsplash (edited digital collage)
“Keats, walk a hundred yards over the rim”
Keats,
leave the Piazza di Spagna
walk a hundred yards over the rim
I have your penicillin
I won’t let you go
there are more poems to write
and she is still waiting for you
— J.S.
(cf. “The Twilight Zone”, Season 2, Episode 23, 1961)
“Requiem”
Requiem
a long time ago
you mailed me your copy of Ulysses
and I tried but
now
many years later
I realize
you were
summoning my muse
to sing
— J.S.
“spiritus mundi”
Northeastern University Course Catalog (1978-79)
spiritus mundi
things
fell
apart
— J.S.
“The Teenage (Romantic)”
cf. photograph by Eliott Reyna via Unsplash
The Teenage (Romantic)
arch ironist
cynical
sarcasm
world-weary
wag
how loud
his heart
reverberated
— J.S.
If he could hold her so close in his arms…again
Northeastern University Course Catalog (1985-86)
hearing your voice
reminds me
one summer
so long ago
was that me
as the radio played
nothing stands between love and you
— J.S.
“Archimedes in the Pleiades”
photograph by Eren Li via Pexels
Archimedes in the Pleiades
in the autumn night sky
I saw you
shining
circles undisturbed
stand in heaven
and move the earth
— J.S.
“LSAT”
Northeastern University Course Catalog (1982-83)
LSAT
10 people in a canoe
each is wearing a different colored hat
how far away is the man in the blue hat
from you?
— J.S.
“Ceci n’est pas une intersection.”
Photograph by Daniel Monteiro via Unsplash
Ceci n’est pas une intersection.
In the warm twilight
I am translated
refracted
at the red light
the song on the radio
preternatural
holding, as ‘twere,
the mirror up to nature
and unravels my heart
— J.S.
“Life Savers”
photograph by Leon Bublitz via Unsplash
Life Savers
the train rolled around the bend
Life Savers refracting in the glass
autumn aurorae
I ran all the way down the station stop
my heart in my head
and said
I love you
— J.S.
“Light Of The World”
A Christmas Carol (1984)
deepening,
deepening,
deepening,
deepening —
the soul aspires
to pure flame
— J.S.
On Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts”
Nationaal Archief, “Dutch family having a picnic” (ca. 1960s)
On Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts”
and what of Daedalus? —
secretly deeply sorrowed
while somebody mowed the lawn
— J.S.
“tempest”
photograph by SUHAIL RA via Unsplash
tempest
in another life
time unwound
I would see
your ordained eyes
O brave new world,
That has you in’t!
— J.S.
“mundus in igne”
photograph by christopher catbagan via Unsplash
mundus in igne
look around —
tells talks
disclose
frayed edges
peripherally —
near and far
loose threads
in cobweb corners
— J.S.
“on causation”
on causation
Claudius can’t see
in that autumn orchard
proximately
hebenon poured
his reflections —
Hamlet’s sword
— J.S.
“Astrophysics (Halley’s Poem)”
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”
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”
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.
“thermodynamics”
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”
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.
Anna Mirabilis
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.
“Studies In The History Of The Renaissance”
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.
Icarus and Psyche
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.
Roderick Hudson
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
Turning Points
If Only You Knew
“Echoplex”
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.
Whiskey Tango Charlie
photograph by Hari Nandakumar via Unsplash
Whiskey Tango Charlie
at the airport lounge
nothing gold can stay
— J.S.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
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”
“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws”
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
My Star
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
Opus 1
photograph by Brayden Law via Unsplash
the candle burns
the wind sits
in sails
nightfall is far
never or
now
— J.S.
Omnia Vincit Amor
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…
old and grey and full of sleep
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
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)
a diminished thing
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.
Chapter 5
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
“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?”
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.
Love and Life: A Song
cf. CIO Magazine (1987)
All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment’s all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
’Tis all that Heav’n allows.
— John Wilmot Earl of Rochester
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
cf. Nation’s Business Magazine (1970)
the clock
unwinding
in the room
reminding
twenty
will not come again
— J.S.
“A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved”
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
Was the past in color?
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.
Butterflies Are Free
Maclean’s Magazine (1976)
Jill: I’m not so sure you can’t hurt him. Maybe more than anybody. (Crosses above table.) I think you deserve all the credit you can get for turning out a pretty marvelous guy—but bringing up a son—even a blind one—isn’t a lifetime occupation. (Mrs. Baker turns U., away from Jill.) Now the more you help him, the more you hurt him. It was Linda Fletcher—not you— (Mrs. Baker turns and looks at Jill Slowly.) who gave him the thing he needed most—confidence in himself. (Crossing away L.) You’re always dwelling on the negative—always what he needs, never what he wants … always what he can’t do, never what he can. (Crosses D. end of sofa.) What about his music? Have you heard the song he wrote? I’ll bet you didn’t even know he could write songs! (Crosses above table.) You’re probably dead right about me. I’m not the ideal girl for Don, but I know one thing—neither are you!! And if I’m going to tell anyone to go home, it’ll be you, Mrs. Baker. YOU go home!! (Turns and exits into her apartment, closing door behind her. Mrs. Baker watches her go.)
I know it—and to know it is despair
Bright Star (2009)
The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life—My love has made me selfish.
— Letter from Keats to Fanny Brawne
That time of year
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.
Atomic Courtesy Collaboration – Jacobson
A collaboration with the talented Marcy Erb and featured on her eclectic blog Illustrated Poetry | Art by Marcy Erb
Atomic Courtesy
To smash the simple atom
All mankind was intent.
Now any day
The atom may
Return the compliment.
Ethel Jacobson
John Sapiro and I began our email correspondence about this little poem and the history of the atomic age a few months ago, before the early August anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but amidst the early chaos of the pandemic. It seemed almost ridiculous to be talking about yet another threat to worldwide health, peace, and humanity — and yet, it was the mood of the day. I couldn’t find an exact date for Ethel Jacobson’s poem, although it is in a book I have that has a copyright date of 1952. And so our conversation centered mostly around the cold war of the 1950s and 60s but veered around widely. We talked about the physicist Richard Feynman and his…
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“recuerdo”
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 Conjurer”
cf. Photographs by Les Anderson via Unsplash (edit)
The Conjurer
late
on rainy nights
Orpheus
and Gatsby
have
nothing
on me
— J.S.
The Heart wants what it wants
cf. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks (1942) and Maclean’s Magazine (1971) and letter from Emily Dickinson to Mary Bowles, Spring, 1862
(Thank you to Marcy at Illustrated Poetry | Art by Marcy Erb for the quotation.)
“The Model And The Statue”
cf. Video by Bassman5420 via Pixabay (edited and modified by me)
When divine Art conceives a form and face,
She bids the craftsman for his first essay
To shape a simple model in mere clay:
This is the earliest birth of Art’s embrace.
From the live marble in the second place
His mallet brings into the light of day
A thing so beautiful that who can say
When time shall conquer that immortal grace?
Thus my own model I was born to be–
The model of that nobler self, whereto
Schooled by your pity, lady, I shall grow.
Each overplus and each deficiency
You will make good. What penance then is due
For my fierce heat, chastened and taught by you?
— Michelangelo, The Model And The Statue
Call My Name
Horst Ehricht, “Spring!” (Maclean’s Magazine, 1971)
Last night I was in the garden till 11 o’clock. It was the sweetest night that e’er I saw. The garden looked so well and the jasmine smelt beyond all perfume. And yet I was not pleased. The place had all the charms it used to have when I was most satisfied with it, and had you been there I should have liked it much more than ever I did; but that not being, it was no more to me than the next field…
— Letter from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, Sunday, July 10th, 1653
John Sapiro 