ART & Thoughts
ART
Sylvia Plath “Insomniac”
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of starsLetting in the light, peephole after peephole . . .A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.Under the eyes of the stars and the moon’s rictusHe suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessnessStretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions. Over and over … Continue reading
Wislawa Szymborska: The three oddest words
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no non-being can hold. By Wislawa Szymborska Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh Wislawa Szymborska The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996 … Continue reading
The crunch: Charles Bukowski
— too much too little or too late too fat too thin or too bad laughter or tears or immaculate unconcern haters lovers armies running through streets of pain waving wine bottles bayoneting and fucking everyone or an old guy in a cheap quiet room with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe. there is a loneliness … Continue reading
Alejandra Pizarnik “All night I hear the noise of water sobbing”
All night I hear the noise of water sobbing. All night I make night in me, I make the day that begins on my account, that sobs because day falls like water through night. All night I hear the voice of someone seeking me out. All night you abandon me slowly like the water that … Continue reading
Éloge du lointain: Paul Celan
Dans la source de tes yeux vivent les nasses des pêcheurs de la mer délirante. Dans la source de tes yeux la mer tient sa parole. J’y jette, cœur qui a séjourné chez des humains, les vêtements que je portais et l’éclat d’un serment : Plus noir au fond du noir, je suis plus nu. … Continue reading
“For Sile” Wei Wu Wei / Saul Leiter
When the beetle sees, it is I that am looking, When the nightingale sings, it is I that am singing, When the lion roars, it is I that am roaring. But when I look for myself, I can see nothing — for no thing is there to be seen. Síle cannot see me either, for when … Continue reading
A streetcar named desire : Tennessee Williams
BLANCHE: I don’t want realism. I want magic! [Mitch laughs] Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!–Don’t turn the light on! [Mitch crosses to … Continue reading
The Street: Stephen Dobyns / Balthus
The Street Across the street, the carpenter carries a golden board across one shoulder, much as he bears the burdens of his life. Dressed in white, his only weakness is temptation. Now he builds another wall to screen him. The little girl pursues her bad red ball, hits it once with her blue racket, hits … Continue reading
A Child of Our Time: Michael Tippett
A Child of Our Time is a secular oratorio by the British composer Michael Tippett (1905–98), who also wrote the libretto. Composed between 1939 and 1941, it was first performed at the Adelphi Theatre, London, on 19 March 1944. The work was inspired by events that affected Tippett profoundly: the assassination in 1938 of a German diplomat by a young Jewish refugee, … Continue reading
Return to My Native Land: Aimé Césaire
My far distant happiness which makes me aware of my true misery: a lumpy road plunging into a hollow where it scatters a handful of huts: a tireless road charging at full speed towards a hill at whose top it is brutally drowned in a stagnant pool of dwarfish houses, a road madly climbing, recklessly … Continue reading
Ask Me by William Stafford
Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will … Continue reading
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept : Paulo Coelho
But he went on. “For the past two weeks, I haven’t been able to stand the sadness in my soul. I went to my superior and told him what was happening to me. I told him about my love for you and what had begun when we were taking the inventory.” A light rain began … Continue reading
Qu’est-ce que l’acte de création ? Gilles Deleuze
Pour le philosophe Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), l’œuvre d’art est irréductible au champ de la communication et constitue un moyen de s’opposer aux injonctions du pouvoir. Créer, c’est résister à ce qui entend contrôler nos vies. par Gilles Deleuze La communication, c’est la transmission et la propagation d’une information. Or, une information, c’est quoi? Ce n’est pas … Continue reading
Georges Bataille: The Impossible
“After all, the moment of ruin, when you don’t know if you’re going to laugh or cry, if it weren’t for the fatigue, the sensation of musty eyes and mouth, of nerves slowly worn out, has the greatest leaping power. Later at the window (at the moment when the unpredictable light of a lightning flash … Continue reading
A dream within a dream: Edgar Allan Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the … Continue reading
ART & Thoughts 