quiet improvisation, New Blue Sun.
“Art is the Tree of Life”, William Blake’s Laocoön.
“they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
[…]are you ready?
June Jordan, These Poems
IMG_20231128_115305 or things that I do
AG2023_1066488aab or an ordering
” the exotic was better fabricated than discovered”
“the recognition that in their [Matisse, William Morris] respective societies (and it is even more true today) the mere demand for something like happiness is a kind of rebellion. They recognized, too, that art can offer the counterimage of an order in which the material reproduction of life leaves no space or time for those regions we designate as the “beautiful”.” (Kristin Ross, Elsewhere as Pastiche)
Dreaming of a way
They looked long and hard …, expectant and dreaming of a way out. (SH)
I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,
Assigning each brief storm its allotted space in time,
Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried in my eyes.
And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,
And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,
And in the imaginary forest, the shingled hippo becomes the gray unicorn.
No, my traffic is not with addled keepers of yesterday’s disasters,
Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday’s pains.
Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.
And yes, I have searched the rooms of the moon on cold summer nights.
And yes, I have refought those unfinished encounters.
Still, they remain unfinished.
And yes, I have at times wished myself something different.
The tragedies are sung nightly at the funerals of the poet;
The revisited soul is wrapped in the aura of familiarity.
“I Have Folded My Sorrows,” by Robert Kaufman
AG2022_2040228a or where every true thing is okay
“sneaking a touch, […] each detail was a jolt of pleasure”
“In this place every true thing is okay.”
“after she spoke, the smile that followed made the sun look like a fool.” (TM)
AG2023_1011957a or beyond survival
Beth’s Story, Carlos Rafael Rivera, The Queen’s Gambit (Music from the Netflix Limited Series)
Playing Townes, Carlos Rafael Rivera
“… let us dream towards
what we want
beyond survival
Amir Rabiyah, Our Dangerous Sweetness
Document-111323-page010 or only generously given
“… cannot be earned, merited or deserved, only generously given”
“There was a bracketed place in her brain where things were both true and not true simultaneously. […] Live two lives. Escape and be at home” (ZS)
“we must tap the well of our own collective imaginations” (RK)
“… it lies in patterns of meaning, in invocations of values, and in connection to the life the reader is living and the world she wants to see.” (RS)
Document-111323-page025 or and live old scenes anew
Again, as always, when the shadows fall,
In that sweet space between the dark and day,
I leave the present and its fretful claims
And seek the dim past where my memories stay.
I dream an old, forgotten, far-off dream,
And think old thoughts and live old scenes anew,
Till suddenly I reach the heart of Spring—
The spring that brought me you!
I see again a little woody lane,
The moonlight rifting golden through the trees;
I hear the plaintive chirp of drowsy bird
Lulled dreamward by a tender, vagrant breeze;
I hold your hand, I look into your eyes,
I touch your lips,—oh, peerless, matchless dower!
Oh, Memory thwarting Time and Space and Death!
Oh, Little Perfect Hour!
Jessie Redmon Fauset, Douce Souvenance
abc dot efg
Jeff Russo, Who is Dot? Fargo Year 5 (Soundtrack from the MGM/ FXP Series).