Inspirations, etc.

[anatomy--of--melancholy]

[memoryslandscape-deactivated202]

“It had been the idea of the darkness falling independently of [us]. […] as the light outside […] retreated from the trees and the forest floor to shimmer faintly for a short while in the sky, before it too darkened and the only light left in the landscape came from the shining moon, spectral in its reflection on the surface of the bay. Yes, that was it. That nothing ever stopped, that everything only went on and on, day became night, night became day, summer became autumn, autumn became winter, year followed year, and [we] were a part of it, at that very moment, […]. As if the world [was] a room [we] visited,”

— Karl Ove Knausgaard, from The Morning Star, trans. Martin Aitken (Penguin, 2021)

[hiddenshores]

“The deep parts of my life pour onward,

as if the river shores were opening out.

It seems that things are more like me now,

that I can see farther into paintings.

I feel closer to what language can't reach.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Moving Foward”, trans. Robert Bly

[hiddenshores]

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

— W. S. Merwin, “To the New Year”

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Audre Lorde, from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde; “Coal,” wr. c. 1962

[womansart]

Virginia Patrone, contemporary Uruguayan painter who is based in Spain

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Cemal Süreya, from “In Your Country,” featured in Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry

[lifeinpoetry]

Memory is not in the head only. It’s midnight, you existed once, you exist 

again, my entire skin sensitive as an eye, 

imprint of you glowing against me, burnt-out match in a dark room.

— Margaret Atwood, “Memory,” You Are Happy

[lifeinpoetry]

                                                                                      now you’re a snarling tiger

                                                                                    now you’re a quiet memory

                                                                                                    you’re a dull ache

                                                                                                you’re goosebumps

                                                                                                     this is all there is

— Juliane Okot Bitek, from “this is all there is,” Sublime: Lost Words

[lachantefleurie]

interpreting my dream:

“Are butterflies angels? Are they messengers from the realms of spirit?”

“Something glowing can represent life energy, hope, goodness, or assistance—especially when it appears in the darkness. A glow around a symbol in a dream may also mean you would benefit by paying closer attention to whatever that symbol represents.”

“Seeing a blue/indigo butterfly suggests some personal transformation going on. This would be linked to the spiritual dimensions in your third eye region…The butterfly appearing in your dream might suggest to open up the gift of inner sight and outer worlds. This dream might be a suggestion for increased psychic abilities and enhanced vision that will come your way.”

“the 4th house, moon, and cancer is your soul record of birth, spiritual and familial ancestors and subconscious memories of your past lives, star maps and song lines, the esoteric embryonic inheritance and tribe. your elders are here, your past and present spirit guides and soul sisters.”

“When the butterfly lands on your body it’s important to understand that this is associated with your inner transformation…for butterflies to land on you during your sleep is supposed to be a spiritual message from above.”

[heteroglossia]

“If you are sleeping when the axe buries itself in the stump outside your home, wake and walk softly through your halls. Walk softly through this house that is like your heart, built in the solace of these woods from things you claimed as your own.

Touch everything. Touch it roughly, and think of the heartbeats of the trees giving their lives, each swaying wood grain a skipped beat of gasping titans beneath your hands, your careful eyes, your gentle push, the settling of these quiet things.

But your hands are not in this house. Your heart is not in this house. Your love is not in this house. This house was not built from tall, certain things, but from the surest things you could find: roots, nests, not clocks but the parts hidden behind their faces, reminders of belief in always moving forward.

One morning you will wake in this home that is like your heart to find that the axe, the certain and the strong, has buried itself in the wet stump outside, you will touch everything roughly, this house will sound no longer like your heart but your heart will sound like this house, built tall from imagined things, high ceilings, echoes, stopped clock pieces, empty nests, gasping roots. Your heart will feel like this house. You will burn it to the ground.” 

– Lewis Mundt, “After Stephen Dunn”

[hiddenshores]

“When we are driving in the dark,

on the long road to Provincetown,

when we are weary,

when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,

I imagine us rising from the speeding car.

I imagine us seeing everything from another place–

the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless

fields of the sea.

And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,

but which we cherish.

And what we see is our life moving like that

along the dark edges of everything,

headlights sweeping the blackness,

believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.

Looking out for sorrow,

slowing down for happiness,

making all the right turns

right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,

the swirling waves,

the narrow streets, the houses,

the past, the future,

the doorway that belongs

to you and me.“

— Mary Oliver, “Coming Home”, in Dream Work (1986)

[last-picture-show]

Jenny Holzer, Public Art, Times Square, New York, 1982

[lifeinpoetry]

It was the Christmas the brother killed himself & she was crying into my shirt & someone (I can’t remember who) said: everything will be all right; one day it will be better & I said: No, no & I said: you will never forget & there was never a time when you were happy without a darkness lurking & you & he were powerless to stop it & there was nothing you could do & I could not fix my mouth to say how I came to this knowing because every heart has its solstice & its ache is unrelenting.

— TJ Jarrett, from “Along the Way to Dockery Farms,” Zion

[lachantefleurie]

“The sea spoke to me softly of angels but they were not white roses nor faery queens they were black besses and bussas who came sculling over the reef in their bateaus the sun made patterns on the water that gave birth to children the children, mmofra, sprats and sprays tin charcoal stickseyes bright as sapodilla seeds are black crack open with the suns glaze and weep through the air like pollen of tears”

– Kamau Brathwaite, Yellow Minnim (via lachantefleurie)

[lifeinpoetry]

                                       in this light, he looks—his body looks—like a set of instructions I don’t expect

                     I’ll need. Here’s how to keep what’s good from spoiling—

                           This is how you paint a sleeping bird.

— Carl Phillips, from “Hymns and Fragments,” The Rest of Love

[lifeinpoetry]

I no longer weaken into sleep. I no longer ash,

Ache. No carrion bird Blown into the city, No house on fire, no

— Joan Naviyuk Kane, from “Drawn Together,” Hyperboreal