#on angels

[sweetvelvetdark]

divine machinery

[timebetrays]

webweave on the angels about god.

[godsopenwound]

— Rainer Maria Rilke, “The First Elegy” from Duino Elegies (tr. by Stephen Mitchell)

[upful]

can you imagine being an angel and watching the literal wings of your brethren burn off as they all fall from the sky

[soircieres]

‘… the heaven in the sky is, most likely, quite boring – and there is so much fluff there – seraphims’ – that, they say, smoking is forbidden. Sometimes, though, angels themselves smoke – in their sleeves. But when the archangel goes by, they throw their cigarettes away: this is what falling stars are (…).’

— Vladimir Nabokov on a letter to Véra, 17 January 1924.

[gregorygalloway]

All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems. Shorts is your stay here: now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, in a melody repeated by a bird, or in the smell of apples at close of day when the light makes the orchards magic. They say somebody has invented you but to me this does not sound convincing for the humans invented themselves as well. The voice -- no doubt it is a valid proof, as it can belong only to radiant creatures, weightless and winged (after all, why not?), girdled with the lightening. I have heard that voice many a time when asleep and, what is strange, I understood more or less an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue: day draw near another one do what you can. 

“On Angels” by Czeslaw Milosz (30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) 

[upful]

the fact that demonic smoke is completely unruly and unable to be controlled but angelic grace can be held in a vial. the humanity of it all … demonic smoke is just the demon’s essence it’s their twisted soul they’re still human at heart i think while angels are so far from human their versions of souls are built to be contained and manipulated