(Photo: "ὁ θεòς ἀγάπη ἐστίν" ó theòs agape estín (Greek; trans. "God is love") on a stele in Mount Nebo.

I decided to let myself drift with the tide, to make not the least resistance to fate, no matter in what form it presented itself. Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed but my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact. Tomorrow there might be a revolution, a plague, an earthquake; tomorrow there might not be left a single soul to whom one could turn for sympathy, for aid, for faith. It seemed to me that the great calamity had already manifested itself, that I could be no more truly alone than at this very moment. I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.

 Henry Miller, The Tropic Of Cancer

Shagged by a rare parrot - Last Chance To See - BBC Two

Dead Wren

When I open your little gothic wings
on my whitewashed chest of drawers,
I almost fear you, as if today were my funeral.
Moment by moment, enzymes digest
your life into a kind of coffin liqueur.
Two flies, like coroners, investigate your feathers.
My clock is your obelisk, though only this morning
you lunged into my room, extravagant as Nero,
then, not seeing yourself in the sunlit glass,
struck it. Night - what beams does it clear away?
The rain falls. The sky is pained. All that breathes suffers.
Yet the waters of affliction are purifying.
The wounded soldier heals. There is new wine and oil.
Here, take my handkerchief as your hearse.

Pierre Julien - Dying Gladiator, 1779

Sometimes there are poems that I wish I could commit to memory-make them a part of me.
Poems that, even though I did not write, were written by me.

Spring

I call it exile, or being relegated.
I call it the provinces.
And all the time it is my heart.
My imperfect heart which prefers
this distance from people. Prefers
the half-meetings which cannot lead
to intimacy. Provisional friendships
that are interrupted near the beginning.
A pleasure in not communicating.
And inside, no despair or longing.
A taste for solitude. The knowledge
that love preserves freedom in always
failing. An exile by nature. Where,
indeed, would I ever be a citizen?

IHOP to take space in Chelsea's Limelight | The Real Deal | New York Real Estate News

IHOP to take space in Chelsea's Limelight | The Real Deal | New York Real Estate News



THAT"S IT-NEW YORK IS OVER!

"I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas."

Charles Bukowski

To see my father

Want so much
So much to blame this man
This man holding me
for my fears
for my loneliness
He's the source
but not the cause
He was severely damaged by his father
a father so incompetent
so evil in his selfishness that I hope that stories of hell
are true
I can't forgive him
I can see him
that is all I can do

Phaedrus,phobos.

A day of feeling-no more and definitely no less.
Should have been in the studio getting ready (less nervous by being active) for a visit in a few weeks-one which could get me back to showing.
Instead chose to be in a veritable "fetal position" at home.
Ok, so you probably think I'm scared. Well I am actually-I've never questioned the fact that my paintings should "be out there" just that I have to be a part of the process beyond giving them life-
I would have said " birth" but enough is enough.
Enough.
I'm scared showing them to complete strangers again. How can they know my works worth?
Just looked at what I said-what a fucking stupid statement. Why can't they discern what I always feel that I can of others work?!
Man. Am I nervous about all this.
My fear of success is rearing it's ugly face again.
I am that good.
I just hope someone else can see that-commit to that.
I don't want to die abandoning these paintings.
They're me.

A note never sent-refound

You say your not ready to talk.I understand. Yet
I had to ask twice- You could have emailed me-
you could have told me.
I'm not going to see you after the opening I suspect. This dance we've done, through Cooper - and
has ended.
I'm scared and
relieved
I for one don't know what to do.
I agree -
to talk before going or doing is important now. Essential.

There is so much to say- to know.
Of me.
Of you and
us.
Why I did what I did.
Why
Did you.

You say you cannot make art Now
You said , I think that it was a condition of our relationship.
For me.
Yes.
Up until tonight.
It was one of the Why
I did
Until tonight
my anxiety over us kept me from working.
even
sleeping.
Tonight I finally see I cannot influence any of this. I can't as you said decide how to be,to see you.
us
I will leave us alone
Now.
I'm here
now.
I think you think I miss our past
No
What I know is I
Miss us
You
Me
now

Yes- I don't want others
poets to speak for me anymore
yet
it's all I have now
until we talk
I thought of one of Rexroth's most famous poems tonight
I think it has much to do with why you cannot make art
I know it does with me



GIC TO HAR

It is late at night,cold and damp
The air is filled with tobacco smoke.
My brain is worried and tired.
I pick up the encyclopedia,
The volume GIC TO HAR.
It seems I have read everything in it,
So many other nights like this.
I sit staring empty-headed at the article Grosbeak,
Listening to the long rattle and pound
Of freight cars and switch engines in the distance.
Suddenly I remember
Coming home from swimming
In Ten Mile Creek,
Over the long moraine in the early summer evening,
My hair wet, smelling of waterweeds and mud.
I remember a sycamore in front of a ruined farmhouse,
And instantly and clearly the revelation
Of a song of incredible purity and joy,
My first rose-breasted grosbeak,
Facing the low sun, his body
Suffused with light.
I was motionless and cold in the hot evening
Until he flew away, and I went on knowing
In my twelfth year one of the great things
Of my life had happened.
Thirty factories empty their refuse in the creek.
The farm has given way to an impoverished suburb
On the parched lawns are starlings, alien and aggressive.
And I am on the other side of the continent
Ten years in an unfriendly city

John

"The Break Up"

For years

I wore you
like an old slipper

Now my fists
break

on your wooden
face

Beginning again

Fall is coming
I feel sure of it now
chilly more than not
the death of plants brings an odd beginning
again
gearing up
"here we go again"
"bet it's a bad winter this time"
"can you feel it?"
Fuck
how stupid is all this
again
increments
as if starting again
was
how stupid
all you ever have is bits
chips of memories
it's all so fucked
beginning again

Missing her.
Feeling that.
It's as if the actual space
around me
has an opening,
a gap
left by the loss
of someone I miss very much.
Weakened,
vulnerable.
Tense without her strength to bolster mine.
Unable to touch her or look into her eyes.
Miss her full/filling
my presence.
My place with the world. I am so much less without her.

Phaedrus

"Every one sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover? Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling principles which lead us whither they will; one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers. When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess. Now excess has many names, and many members, and many forms, and any of these forms when very marked gives a name, neither honourable nor creditable, to the bearer of the name. The desire of eating, for example, which gets the better of the higher reason and the other desires, is called gluttony, and he who is possessed by it is called a glutton-I the tyrannical desire of drink, which inclines the possessor of the desire to drink, has a name which is only too obvious, and there can be as little doubt by what name any other appetite of the same family would be called;-it will be the name of that which happens to be eluminant. And now I think that you will perceive the drift of my discourse; but as every spoken word is in a manner plainer than the unspoken, I had better say further that the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred-that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love."

CreatorFrank Duveneck
Artist
American, 1848-1919TitleReclining NudeWork TypePAINTINGSDatec. 1890MaterialOil on canvasMeasurementsImage: 22 3/4 x 49 in. (57.8 x 124.5 cm) Frame: 36 1/4 x 62 3/8 in. (92.1 x 158.4 cm)DescriptionSigned: Lower left: monogramRepositoryTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
1999.5

Thinking about a young painter

The Blood of the Fish
Erica Miriam Fabri

for Gustav Klimt

The painter is beautiful because he can see
the sway of a woman in a water snake. He names
a painting Hope and means with child. To him,
Eve is not the bedmate of a serpent, she is a soft,
china-colored body for Adam to rest on. What is
Voluptuousness ? A pot-belly. Excess? A river
of red hair. Poetry is a girl swimming in a white dress.
Love is a gypsy. Sleep is a witch. The most beautiful
girl in Vienna gave him her first kiss. She went to him
to find out what beauty was. And so, he covered her
in a blanket of carnations. Every woman he painted
had daisies sewn into their curls. What exactly does
a kiss do to a girl? It makes her face fold over,
and her toes turn like scallops in the grass.