L.H.O.O.Q.

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Georges Braque - Paysage A La Ciotat, 1907, oil on canvas

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This is so Matisse-esque it’s so pretty. 

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

Their Lonely Betters

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made, It seemed to me only proper that words Should be withheld from vegetables and birds. A robin with no Christian name ran through The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew, And rustling flowers for some third party waited To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying, There was not one which knew that it was dying Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters Who count some days and long for certain letters; We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep: Words are for those with promises to keep.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,   Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,   The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run,   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,   When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,   And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime,   You may forever tarry.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape       Of deities or mortals, or of both,               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied,         For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love!         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,                For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above,         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore,         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed;         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!         When old age shall this generation waste,                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

The Windhover

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

  No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reason why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go, And the brooks and soldiers run away; Will Time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you I would let you know.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart,         Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task         Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,         Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

[thephilosophicalenquiry]

POETRY NIGHT

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Judith and the Head of Holofernes (Gustav Klimt, 1901).

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Gustav Klimt - Danae (1907-1908)

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One of my favourite

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“The Kiss”, Gustav Klimt.

Did you know? some paintings of Klimt were burned by the nazis.

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Monday’s Much-loved Works of Art:

Adele Bloch-Bauer’s Portrait (1907) by Gustav Klimt

I read about this painting’s history today. How it was seized by the Nazi Government when Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Adele’s husband, had to flee Austria. How his heir, who was his niece, Maria Altmann didn’t get it back until 2006 and had to sue Austria for it because the goverment kept blocking her attempts to claim it. .

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Olympic

Jean-Michel Basquiat

1983