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.