some poems i dig...

"it is hard to believe
when i'm with you
that there can be anything as still as solemn
as unpleasantly definitive as statuary
when right in front of it
in the warm new york 4 o'clock light we are
drifting back and forth
between eachother
like a tree breathing
through its spectacles"

-frank o'hara, 1960

+++++

"You cannot describe it, you cannot picture it,
You cannot admire it, you cannot sense it.
It is your true self, it has nowhere to hide.
When the world is destroyed, it will not be destroyed."

- probably wumen huikai, around 13th century

+++++

"it isn't gentleness
that you and i are looking for
in the hills and valleys,
it is the cliff, the gorge,
the scraped ocher on the knees
of the slopes
and the red crevice in which the land
shows too, the brilliance of its wound."

-francisco segovia

Painting by Gerhard Richter, oil on board, 1991

+++++

ECSTASY OF CHAOS

"when the immense drugged universe explodes
in a cascade of unendurable colour
and leaves us gasping naked,
this is no more than the ecstasy of chaos:
hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love
which alone, as we know certainly, restores
fragmentation into true being."

-robert graves, 1960s

+++++

"Etoile qui brille
regard humide
fil de la vierge
pitie
flotte au vent
cette compresse sur mon coeur
trop vite trop vite et quel delire
quelque chose vient de se casser
dans la mecanique
de ma vie."

-paul dermee, dadaist

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DEVOTION PROCESS

"It was a crinkled feeling
-a recognition of stiff joy pleating:
a gentle iron stifling discoveries
and nudging calm into the folds.

Hot disquietude burned holes in me
like scorching cloves bearing your name.
Your invisible flames broke my stride
and forced me to decompose in shudders.

Everyday presented that familiar alley,
Where I would wander lost but certain
of my eventual collapse...
I could only turn my head to hide
my pupils screening
the humility of love. "

-m. fortuny

photo by scott payne

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SENSATION

"Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme."

-arthur rimbaud, 1870