Poetry, stories, art, and music from the desk of Jezzie G, a writer without a label
The Elder Futhark is considered to be the eldest of the Runic alphabets and was widely used throughout Europe and Scandinavia. The 24 runes of the Elder Futhark are shown below with a brief insight into their meaning. I will do each rune as a separate article in future posts.
In Love and Light
Raven )O(
When
1992
When I saw in the council chambers of the big city
the mouths of the council members
opening and coming down
on the fat sandwiches
that’d been delivered to their places,
coming down and chewing and leaning over talking
with half-stuffed mouths, or heads thrown back
laughing, their bellies chortling,
and all the while
one after another homeless person
stood not far from them
but far enough from them
before a microphone
requesting help for their most basic human wounds,
protesting against a syndrome without alternatives
except for skid-row hotels or a concentration
camp in the downtown desert; –
when I saw the indifference of this system
physically manifested
by those pigs of local government,
I thought: it can’t be quick enough
that they’re led to the sty they belong in;
it can’t be quick enough
that they’re forcibly removed
from the people’s chambers
and replaced by human animals who, at least,
can smell the heartbreak
and the enduring dignity of the American people.
Those pigs are worse than the rottenest
blue pork at the bottom of garbage-can Los Angeles.
Hungry men and women never should have to be
subjected to their poisonously filthy mold
Jack Hirschman
Born: 13 December 1922, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Hirschman is a poet and social activist, with an oeuvre of more than fifty volumes of poetry and essays. Born in New York City, he received a BA from the City College of New York in 1955, MA in 1957 and PhD(from Indiana University) in 1961.While studying at City College he worked as a copy boy for the Associated Press. At the age of 19 he sent a story to Ernest Hemmingway, who responded ‘I can’t help you, kid. You write better that I did ay 19.’ A copy of the letter was left with the Associated Press. When Hemmingway killed himself in 1961 ‘Letter to a Young Writer’ was disseminated by the wire service to be published around the world
Form: Raven’s Rovi Sonnet 113
A grain to grace the farmer’s field
An ocean of green on a breeze
It waves gently between the weald
And from the grain we make our bread
For nature brings us all our food
And from the dairy butter spread
For the mother to feed her brood
And poet writes for life rejoice
Before greed takes over the head
Without the grain we would be screwed
So give thanks for the farmer’s yield
From his field between woodland trees
Lift up the heart, give thanks a voice
We are lucky to have a choice
©JGFarmer2021
Danse sacrée et Danse profane
1904
Romantic
Claude Debussy
Romantic, Classical, Impressionist
Born: 22 August 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Nationality: French
Died: 25 March 1918, Paris France
Debussy was a composer. He is seen as the first impressionist composer, although he himself rejected the term. Among the first influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries he was born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement. He showed a musical talent enough to be admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, France’s leading musical college, at age ten. Initially a student of the piano, he found his vocation in innovative composition and took many years to develop his mature style. He was nearly forty when he achieved international fame with his only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande
Free Verse
Throughout the night it cries
among the trees
and around the houses
as if looking for something
something that is no longer there
and it cries
like a lost child in a supermarket
running from aisle to aisle
screaming MUMMY
howling down every chimney pot
calling
crying out in the night
and its path it leaves
a trail of destruction
tiles in the garden
trees broken
from the search
and it moves on still seeking
alone
to another night
©JGFarmer2021
Developed from the Cinquain by Richard Wilbur, the Rubliw is usually a message to a person, a group, or mankind. Usually iambic, it starts with monometer, each lime increasing by a foot until the fifth line in pentameter. The lines then decrease by a foot each time until the closing line in monometer.
Example
Birds by Terry Clitheroe
All birds
Of a feather,
Do flock together always
They argue each and every dawn
Chirping loudly an unnerving symphony
Flying screaming in pompous streams
Waking you from your dreams
But are you angry
Listen!
How can
One be angry?
It’s Nature waking you
Enjoy the day that is her way
Summer is a time of joy, so enjoy
The days are long, nights much shorter
Keep your Winters warmer
With memories
Of then
Runes should be kept in a box or bag by the reader’s bed. Each night ask one question: What have I learned today? Take a rune out of the bag and read up on it’s story and meaning either through a book or on the internet. Apply what you are reading to your own life and jot that down in a notebook. Keep doing this practice exercise until you have gone through all the runes OR for as long as you wish if you find it useful to you.
When you feel ready to do so, move on to asking a question when of the runes when you wake up and before doing anything else: What will I learn today? Again choose one rune at random. Using both your notes and what you have learned reading up the rune to interpret your coming day and jot it down in your notebook. At the end of the day write your feelings about your day in your notes.
When you need to be reminded of a rune’s meaning always refer to your notes first as the communication between you and your runes is a personal one, and your feelings, instincts and interpretations may be different to someone else’s.
By asking the question ‘What have/will I learn today?’ we build a strong relationship with our runes and become familiar with their meaning to us as individuals. With that understanding we can start working with a runes.
Working with runes can be as simple or as complex as the reader likes. From asking a question and randomly choosing one or two runes to complete Celtic spreads for an in-depth reading. Simple or complex the reader must be completely focused so it may be helpful to set the mood with meditation, incense and/or music.
A Simple Cast
When seeking guidance or asking a question it is vital to focus on that one question. If there is more than one question make a list of them, light a candle and incense and sit quietly with your runes in front of you or in your hand. I keep my runes in a bag and roll the bag in my hands as I focus.
Randomly draw out one rune and place it in front of you. If the answer needs clarification draw out one or two more runes and lay them in front of you. Runes cannot answer and either/or question, so remember to be clear in your question. For example: What will happen if do this? Is clearer than ‘Should I do this or that? The runes offer guidance and the reader will be shown opportunities to take and obstacles to avoid.
In love and light
Raven )O(
Adam and the Ants
Adam and the Ants were a rock band active during the late 1970s and early 1880s. The group lasted from 1977 to 1982 and existed in two incarnations both fronted by Adam Ant. The first incarnation, May 1977 to November 1977, achieved a cult following during the transition from punk rock to new wave. Dave Barbarossa, Matthew Ashman and Leigh Gorman at the suggestion of Malcolm McLaren went on to form the controversial Bow Wow Wow . The second incarnation of the Ants included Marco Pirroni on guitar and drummer-producer Chris Hughes. The band went on to achieve commercial success in the UK and abroad which continued into Adam Ant’s solo career
Deutscher Girls
Album: Jubilee
Date: 1978
Genre: New Wave
Lyrics by Adam Ant
We’ll do the tango
We’ll try the foxtrot
I’ll eat a mango
You’ll drink a straight scotch
You know I told you
You could be classy
So why did you have to be so nasty
Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine
I’ll fill your bath with
The finest champagne
I’ll lick your skin dry
I cherish your name
The stakes get higher
As your dress sparsely
So why did you have to be so nasty
Remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine
From down the Rhine
I love your blonde hair
I kiss your pigtails
And I could not share
The scratch of your nails
And though you mock me
Your eyes so glassy
Oh why did you have to be so nasty
I said remember the curls
Of the Deutscher girls
Lover of mine from down the Rhine
Saint Peter
1893
Now, I think there is a likeness ‘twixt St Peter’s life and mine
For he did a lot of trampin’ long ago in Palestine
He was ‘union’ when the workers first began to organize
And I’m glad that old St Peter keeps the gate of Paradise
When the ancient agitator and his brothers carried swags
I’ve no doubt he very often tramped with empty tucker-bags
And I’m glad he’s Heaven’s picket, for I hate explainin’ things
And he’ll think a union ticket just as good as Whitely King’s
When I reach the great head-station -which is somewhere ‘off the track’
I won’t want to talk with angels who have never been out back
They might bother me with offers of a banjo meanin’ well
And a pair of wings to fly with, when I only want a spell
I’ll just ask for old St Peter, and I think, when he appears
I will only have to tell him that I carried swag for years
‘I’ve been on the track,’ I’ll tell him, ‘an’ I done the best I could’
And he’ll understand me better than the other angels would
He won’t try to get a chorus out of lungs that’s worn to rags
Or to graft the wings on shoulders that is stiff with humpin’ swags
But I’ll rest about the station where the work-bell never rings
Till they blow the final trumpet and the Great Judge sees to things
Henry Lawson
Born: 17 June 1867, Grenfell, Australia
Nationality Australian
Died: 2 September 1922, Abbotsford, Australia
Lawson was a writer and bush poet. He is one of the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period. The son of the poet, publisher and feminist Louisa Lawson he was a vocal nationalist and republican and regularly contributed to The Bulletin helping to popularise the Australian vernacular in fiction writing. After he died in 1922 he became the first Australian writer to be granted a state funeral
Gardens in the Rain
1903
Classical
Claude Debussy
Romantic, Classical, Impressionist
Born: 22 August 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Nationality: French
Died: 25 March 1918, Paris France
Debussy was a composer. He is seen as the first impressionist composer, although he himself rejected the term. Among the first influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries he was born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement. He showed a musical talent enough to be admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, France’s leading musical college, at age ten. Initially a student of the piano, he found his vocation in innovative composition and took many years to develop his mature style. He was nearly forty when he achieved international fame with his only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande
Pava LXV
2003
Washington Colour School
Acrylic on wood
Artwork and Estate of Anne Truitt
Like a floating block of pure colour a warm red square sits on an elevated base. In contrast to Truitt’s slender columns that suggest a breezy, airy quality, Pava LXV has weight and density, suggestive of a sense of permanence. Truitt created this piece at aged 82, a year before she died, and in its solidity it reveals her strength, determination, and tenacity to keep creating her art
Anne Truitt
Washington Colour School, Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism
Born: 16 March 1921, Maryland, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 23 December 2004, Washington DC, USA
In the aftermath of Abstract Expressionism during the Cold War, Truitt created complex yet subtly nuanced sculptures that contradict their simplicity. Best known for her hand-painted columnar sculptures, she reconnoitred the dimensions of her emotional and psychological life with the minimal of means and media. Her interest in how we travel through the physical world, Truitt’s sculptures induce an embodied response from the viewer
Form: Raven’s Rovi Sonnet 112
Recalling old days, the Sunday market
You and me strolling the stalls, hand in hand
Picking up Sunday lunch, should we forget
Scents of veg echoed twenty pence a pound
As we paid for orange, yellow and green
A rib of beef, our table would be crowned
And the biggest apples our eyes had seen
Nothing will ever beat that tuna fish
Staring down at us stood there on the ground
And my head thinking a meal to be planned
To try something new I was quickly keen
And we agreed tuna for our basket
So Monday’s dinner a new kind of dish
With all the flavour of the deep sea’s wish
©JGFarmer2021
Form: Haiku
rhythm and soul sound
capturing the mood in song
he’s singing the blues
©JGFarmer2021
Media: Pencil on card
©JGFarmer2019
Form: Free Verse
Exquisite carved legs of days gone by
the sheen of mahogany reflecting the light
so many memories captured in wood
an heirloom passes through the generations
each stain tells a story
like the red wine spilt by an aunt before the war
stories passed into family history
©JGFarmer2021
Form: Haiku
within her branches
the sun dances with willow
nature in candlelight
©JGFarmer2021
Graded Exposure
1967
The Pictures Generation
Acrylic on canvas
Private Collection
Noland ventured into a new territory in the late 1960s with his Striped paintings. With ‘Graded Exposure’ measuring over six metres in width, he painted his stripes progressively thinner towards the top, suggesting the image is receding into the distance. The rainbow-effect also suggests a horizon extending beyond the canvas
Kenneth Noland
Colour Field Painting, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Washington Colour School
Born: 10 April 1924, North Carolina, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 5 January 2010, Maine, USA
Noland’s Colour Field painting was among the most focused and consistent art produced in America during the mid-20th century. Noland studied under Ilya Bootkoski and Josef Albers developing his own signature style characterized by strikingly minimalist compositions of shape and colour
Duran Duran
One of the most successful bands of the 1980’s, Duran Duran are a new wave band formed in 1978 in Birmingham, UK. The group were a leading band in the Second British Invasion of the US charts in the 1980s. Along with bands Spandau Ballet and Visage, Duran Duran were part of the New Romantic scene. The introduction of 24-hour music through MTV catapulted the band into the video age.
Rio
Album: Rio
Date: 1982
Genre: Pop
Lyrics by Nicholas James Bates, Andrew Taylor, Simon John Le Bon, Roger Andrew Taylor, and John Nigel Taylor
Moving on the floor now, babe, you’re a bird of paradise
Cherry ice cream smile, I suppose it’s very nice
With a step to your left and a flick to the right
You catch that mirror way out west
You know you’re something special, and you look like you’re the best
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines, she really shows you all she can
Oh, Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande
I’ve seen you on the beach and I’ve seen you on TV
Two of a billion stars, it means so much to me
Like a birthday or a pretty view
But then, I’m sure that you know it’s just for you
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines, she really shows you all she can
Oh, Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande
Hey now, woo, look at that
Did she nearly run you down?
At the end of the drive, the lawmen arrive
You make me feel alive, alive, alive
I’ll take my chance, ’cause luck is on my side or something
I know what you’re thinking,
I’ll tell you something, I know what you’re thinking
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twists across a dusty land
And when she shines, she really shows you all she can
Oh, Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande
Her name is Rio, she don’t need to understand
And I might find her if I’m looking like I can
Oh Rio, Rio, hear them shout across the land
From mountains in the north down to the Rio Grande
Mass for 4 Voices, SV 190
1651
Renaissance
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi
Renaissance, Opera, Baroque
Born: 15 May 1567, Cremona, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Died: 29 November 1643, Republic of Venice
Monteverdi was a composer, strings player, choirmaster, and priest. His compositions include both secular and sacred music, and he was a pioneer in the development of opera. In music history he is considered an important transitional figure between the Renaissance and the Baroque eras.
.
Nature has a way of calming your physical body
bringing peace to your busy mind and filling your
soul with the essence of the universe ..
Ahh Nature , you truly are my sanctuary …
~ Sandra Watson ~
Art by Kate Bedell
Text and image source: Snowwolfs Woodland Nook https://www.facebook.com/582555271766012/posts/4281677011853801/
Welcome to Week #49 of the Bird Weekly Photo Challenge. Week #49 challenge is birds using selective color with most of the photo being monochrome, black and white or sepia tone. Your choice of birds.
The feature image is a Laughing Gull approaching closer as we ate our picnic lunch on the beach at Little Talbot Island State Park. We don’t feed them, but if a chip blows out of our hands from the wind, we don’t rush to grab it from the sand.
Over the past week, I have shared some tutorials on how to perform selective colors in your photos using three different programs. I shared CorelPaint Pro 2021, Adobe Photoshop 2021 and Cee Nuener’s tutorials using Adobe Camera Raw. If you missed them and want to find out more, click on the following links:
There are many programs…
View original post 477 more words
Yellow
Glowing fields
Rape pollen fills nostrils
Suddenly Atishoo crikey
That’s strong
Form: Free Rhyme
Oh my darling, do you not see
Without you I am not able to be
Each morning you awaken my body and mind
And always beside me, you, I loyally find
I watch the steam pass free from your lip
I savour what is to come as I hear your first drip
Dark, strong, smooth and intoxicating
For you my love I don't mind waiting
Those strange noises you make each morning
The start of the day on my mind is dawning
Slowly you grunt into your rhythmic action
Making ready for our sweet chemical reaction
You give me so much each day, my darling one
Without you, my love, my day cannot be begun
You alone the cobwebs of my mind do shake
A day of sweet music we soon will make
You stir me, inspire me, not one drop from you will I waste
As at last you offer me that first oh so sweet taste
Silky heat as first you touch my eager lips
The delight and pleasure send my mind into back flips
Oh baby, baby, yes I love you such a lot
My darling, my beautiful, sweet coffee pot
©JGFarmer2008
Poet: Jack Prelutsky
Born: 8 September 1940, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Prelutsky is a writer of children’s poetry. He served as the first US Children’s Poet Laureate from 2006-08. Born in New York, USA he was still a baby when a fire killed his family, he was saved by his Uncle Charlie. He claims to have hated poetry when he was younger and after his teacher discovered his musical talents and suggest he attended The High School of Music and Art.
Prelutsky took odd jobs before becoming a writer. In the late 1960s, while singing in coffeehouses under the name of Jack Ballard he met Bob Dylan and the two became friends. Prelutsky loved to draw imaginary turtle animals and a friend encouraged him to send them to a New York publisher. He wrote poems to go with the drawings at the last minute and was amazed when the publishers wanted his poetry that took two hours and not the drawings that took six months to draw. He was 24 at the time, and the poems appeared in his first book, A Gopher in the Garden and Other Animal Poems, in 1967.
Prelutsky has authored more than 50 poetry collections, including Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep in 1976, and Something BIG Has Been Here in 1990. He has also compiled a number of children’s anthologies. He has, on the audio versions of his anthologies, set his poems to music, and often sings and plays guitar on them. Prelutsky was named the inaugural winner of the Children’s Poet Laureate award in 2006. Prelutsky has gained many awards throughout his career including citations for the New York Times Book of the Years, Library of Congress Book of the year, Parents’ Choice Award, and American Library Association Notable Children’s Recording. In 2018 his poem ‘Homework! Oh, Homework!’ featured in a commercial for Apple’s iPad.
The Creature in the Classroom
It appeared inside our classroom
at a quarter after ten,
it gobbled up the blackboard,
three erasers and a pen.
It gobbled teacher’s apple
and it bopped her with the core.
“How dare you!” she responded.
“You must leave us . . . there’s the door.”
The Creature didn’t listen
but described an arabesque
as it gobbled all her pencils,
seven notebooks and her desk.
Teacher stated very calmly,
“Sir! You simply cannot stay,
I’ll report you to the principal
unless you go away!”
But the thing continued eating,
it ate paper, swallowed ink,
as it gobbled up our homework
I believe I saw it wink.
Teacher finally lost her temper.
“OUT!” she shouted at the creature.
The creature hopped beside her
and GLOPP . . . it gobbled teacher.
Cats
1913
Rayonism
Oil on canvas
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York USA
Two cats at play, or fighting, used by Goncharova to illustrate the complex new movement of Rayonism. On a primarily yellow background the black and white rays of feline form splinter into shards and intersect with the ray of light. Painted lines instantly break up the unite form of the cats whist imbuing the animals with a dynamism and liveliness that suggests the qualities of the infinite and of connectivity. Embodying the intent of the Rayonist ideology of a futuristic, interpretation reflecting, intersecting and immersing rays of light.
Natalia Goncharova
Rayonism, Russian Futurism, Performance Art, Proto-Feminist Artists, Neo-Primitivism
Born: 21 June 1881, Nagaevo, Russia
Nationality:
Died: 17 October 1962, Paris, France
Goncharova was an avant-garde artist, painter, writer, costume designer, set designer, and illustrator. Her lifelong partner was the fellow avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov with whom she invented Rayonism. She was also a member of the German art movement Der Blaue Reiter. She moved to Paris in 1921 where she lived until her death. Her work profoundly influenced the Russian avant-garde
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John is a singer, songwriter, actress, activist and entrepreneur. She is one of the best-selling music artists of all time with over a 100 million records sold worldwide. She starred in the musical film Grease in 1978, and the soundtrack is one of the most successful in history, featuring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta’s two duets ‘You’re the One That I Want’ and ‘Summer Nights.’
Xanadu
Album: Xanadu
Date: 1980
Genre: Film and TV
Lyrics by Jeff Lynne
A place where nobody dared to go
The love that we came to know
They call it Xanadu
(It takes your breath and it’ll leave you blind)
And now, open your eyes and see
What we have made is real
We are in Xanadu
(A dream of it we offer you)
A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star
An everlasting world and you’re here with me, eternally
Xanadu, Xanadu
(Now we are here)
In Xanadu (Xanadu)
Xanadu, Xanadu
(Now we are here)
In Xanadu
Xanadu, your neon lights will shine for you, Xanadu
The love, the echoes of long ago
You needed the world to know
They are in Xanadu
(With every breath you drift away)
The dream that came through a million years
That lived on through all the tears
It came to Xanadu
(The dream you dream, well, it will happen for you)
A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star
An everlasting world and you’re here with me, eternally
Xanadu, Xanadu
(Now we are here)
In Xanadu (Xanadu)
Xanadu, Xanadu
(Now we are here)
In Xanadu (Xanadu)
Now that I’m here
Now that you’re near in Xanadu
Now that I’m here
Now that you’re near in Xanadu
Xanadu!
The Ballad of Booth
1991
Musicals
Stephen Sondheim
Musicals
Born: 22 March 1930, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Sondheim is a composer and lyricist known for his musical theatre work. He is recognised for recreating the American musical with shows that tackle unusual and unexpected themes .Sondheim’s shows have been acclaimed for addressing darker and more harrowing issues of the human experience. He is perhaps best known as the composer and lyricist musicals such as ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ (1961), ‘Follies’ (1971), and for writing the lyrics for ‘West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959)
Upon merciless hearts
From pitiless granite hewn
The laws immutable of the cosmos entire
By a diamond stylus were etched
Their mark a scar
That defaced the ugly beauty
Of the hardened stone
For the people of the world
Since time began
Had learnt not
The wisdom of the ages
In holy books writ
By sages prophets and kings
Now all did flee
At the approach of the time of trial
Strewn like grains of sand in a desert
By a sandstorm beset
Forgotten sudden
Were their dreams and their boasts
As clay forgets the pot
When to the potter’s floor it does fall
And shatters upon the hardness below
~ d.a.simpson ~
Image: BlackDog1966 on Pixabay
Thank you KL Caley, another great prompt – https://new2writing.wordpress.com/2021/05/27/writephoto-steps/. As always I go with my gut with KL’s prompts and wow this needed to be written
Bridge Between
Form: Free Verse
The day I was born
the first step done
and that bridge seemed a distance place
between here and there
the destination
just a babe holding daddy’s hand
didn’t understand
I started school
another step towards the bridge
still far off in time and place
learning the academics
to take more steps
just a child holding daddy’s hand
didn’t understand
growing up
passing exams
starting work as life had planned
making the steps on my own
no longer holding daddy’s hand
still didn’t understand
life
kids
work
becoming a man
my daddy guiding my way
I think I understand
I don’t
time
I want more time
because you reached the bridge
squeezing my hand to leave me behind
now I understand
my daddy waits for me
on the other side
RIP Daddy – Love you beyond time and place xxxx
©JGFarmer2021
Afternoon Everyone,
Welcome to the weekly #writephoto prompt!
This week’s prompt is a post with a difference – our MAY guest photo!
For visually challenged writers, the image shows steps up and over a bridge, with narrow alleyways at each side of the bridge.
A great big thank you to Jemima Pett for agreeing to be the featured photo this month. What a beautiful photo for us. Pop over to her blog at http://jemimapett.com/ to show her some love!
The regulars already know this bit, but for those that don’t:
View original post 197 more words
Ode to a Nightingale
1819
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
John Keats
Born: 31 October 1795, London, England
Nationality: English
Died: 23 February 1821, Rome, Italy
John Keats was an English Romantic poet and one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantics alongside Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. By the end of the 19th century he was one of the most beloved of the English poets and a significant influence on a vast and diverse range of poets and writers.
Untitled #264
1992
The Pictures Generation, Feminist Art
Chromogenic colour print
Guggenheim Museums and Foundation, New York, USA
Sherman’s intent was to shock the unsuspecting viewer with her series of Sex Pictures featuring anatomical dolls posed in compromising positions. Clearly set apart from actual pornography, photograph #264 cruelly comments on the dehumanization of women in life, as well as art, since the year dot. Her space is claustrophobic and the body nothing more than a tool of raw desire. Her tools of beauty such as a hairbrush and skimpy underwear are strewn chaotically around. Sherman extracts the conventions from their usual context, where they are obscured by a host of accompanying desires, and boldly portrays them as objects of intense, analytical attention. Effectively saying something neither medical investigations nor political speeches can convey with vivid precision.
Cindy Sherman
The Pictures Generation, Conceptual Art, Feminist Art, Post Modernism
Born: 19 January 1954, New Jersey, USA
Nationality: American
A contemporary master of socially critical photography, Sherman is a key figure of the Pictures Generation, a c circle of American artist who came into artistic maturity during the early 1980s, an era of rapid and widespread proliferation of mass media imagery. In art school painting in a super-realist style during the aftermath of American Feminism Sherman took up photography at the end of the 1970s to explore common female social roles and personas. She sought to question the seductive and oppressive influence of mass media on individual and collective identities
Goldberg Variations
1741
Baroque
Johann Sebastian Bach
Baroque
Born: 31 March 1685, Eisenach, Germany
Nationality: German
Died: 28 July 1750, Leipzig, Germany
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer and musician of the Baroque era. Best known for his instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and for vocal music such as St Matthew Passion. Since a Bach revival in the 19th century he has been regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time
Form: Ivorian Sonnet 63
When I was young and thought I knew it all
With an attitude that built a brick wall
With nothing to learn and always so right
Making mistakes and landing on my feet
And never afraid to face a dark night
I was stronger, so much better than you
In thinking the olds had nothing for me
No way they could tell me what I should do
I’m doing it my way just wait and see
Never admitting that life had me beat
Then truth and life hit me out of the blue
And shook my soul to my socks with the fright
I knew nothing, I knew nothing at all
I’m learning fast in life’s reality
©JGFarmer2021
AC/DC
AC/DC are a rock band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by the Scottish brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. The band went through several line-up changes before releasing their debut album ‘High Voltage’ in 1975. Lead singer and co-songwriter Bon Scott died in 1980 and the group considered disbanding. Instead, Brian Johnson was brought in and the band released the album ‘Back in Black’ in Scott’s memory
Big Balls
Album: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Date: 1976
Genre: Hard Rock
Lyrics by Angus Mckinnon Young, Malcolm Mitchell Young, and Ronald Belford Scott
Well I’m upper-upper class high society
God’s gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I’ve got
The biggest balls of all
I’ve got big balls
I’ve got big balls
And they’re such big balls
And their fancy big balls
And he’s got big balls
And she’s got big balls
(But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all)
And my balls are always bouncing
My ballroom always full
And everybody comes and comes again
If your name is on the guest list
No one can take you higher
Everybody says I’ve got
Great balls of fire
I’ve got big balls
Oh I’ve got big balls
And they’re such big balls
Fancy big balls
And he’s got big balls
And she’s got big balls
(But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all)
Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they’re held for pleasure
They’re the balls that I like best
My balls are always bouncing
To the left and to the right
It’s my belief that my big balls
Should be held every night
We’ve got big balls
We’ve got big balls
We’ve got big balls
Fancy big balls
He’s got big balls
She’s got big balls
(But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all)
And I’m just itching to tell you about them
Oh we had such wonderful fun
Seafood cocktail, crabs, crayfish
(But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all)
(Ball sucker)
(Ball sucker)
Politics of scars
We all bear the injuries to their lies
Falsehood of nobility, they won the nobel prize
Trips to London, they are always first in line
It’s been a sad journey from the dawn
My soul is depleting under the sun
The rays that should console are burning my lawn
Left to right it is fire burning from the ground
Politics of scars
We all bear the injuries to their lies
Falsehood of nobility, they won the nobel prize
Trips to London, they are always first in line
They say the lion’s heart will protect us when the storm comes
I guess we are doomed if the lions heart pilots the storm
It’s always raining under the sun but the tears does not fall from the sky
Soaked in the blood of the innocent, they enjoy their lives
We live through political scars
Chairs of responsibility are thrown…
View original post 135 more words
Form: Mathnawi
The dark eyes that look out on a summer’s day
Know twisted pain that can carry life away
When no one wants to understand words you say.
In the blue distance lie the grey shadowed hills
With pencil-marked trees where the lonely tear spills
As depression and fear weaves the heart’s tendrils.
The violet clouds swirl in the violent skies
When an artist finally lies down and dies
And no voices dare to ask the ’hows’ and ‘whys’.
Spiritual essence of nature on artist’s knife
Powerful strokes reflecting mental strife
Instead he used a bullet to take his life.
©JGFarmer2011
Nellie
After his shouts, the strops, her screams, the thrown things,
the doorslam, the bitter weeping,
out of the thin box, as the delicate paper was parted,
she’d lift the sheer mojud stockings
and run her fingertips along them,
slowly smiling girlishly again.
She’d begin singing a Perry Como song,
she loved Perry Como and would sing
the same song he sang, all day long,
on the Make-Believe Ballroom Time.
Then, in a black brassiere strapped to her freckled shoulders,
she’d sit on the bed, fit the stockings,
stand up and notch them to the garters
that hung down from her black girdle.
A ripple of fat ran round her waist, squeezed out
by the girdle, different from
the plumps that swelled out from her brassiere.
And I saw a blue bruise, the shadow
of a belt-buckle on her thigh.
But she was singing again, and over the girdle
she’d put on a pair of pink bloomers,
and over everything, then, a brown-and-white flower-print
summer-golden dress.
Her white heels had holes in the toes where her nail-polish
showed through. The bottle of polish, tweezers, lipstick,
rouge, brush and emeryboard were on the vanity table
over there looking in the mirror.
Her lips swam in the Como song with rose-red strokes,
reaching the end with shiny glow,
like the waxy cameo of her mother
on the brooch in the drawer.
She’d hold out her hand and say, “Come, darling…”
We’d walk hand in hand up and down our street in the twilight,
and the neighbors would cry out: “Hi, Nellie!” or “Hello,
Mrs. Hirschman,” and “Hi, Jackie. My, how you’ve grown!”
Jack Hirschman
Born: 13 December 1933, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Hirschman is a poet and social activist, with an oeuvre of more than fifty volumes of poetry and essays. Born in New York City, he received a BA from the City College of New York in 1955, MA in 1957 and PhD(from Indiana University) in 1961.While studying at City College he worked as a copy boy for the Associated Press. At the age of 19 he sent a story to Ernest Hemmingway, who responded ‘I can’t help you, kid. You write better than I did at 19.’ A copy of the letter was left with the Associated Press. When Hemmingway killed himself in 1961 ‘Letter to a Young Writer’ was disseminated by the wire service to be published around the world.
Created by Jose Rizal M. Reyes
Structure: Three quatrains and a couplet
Meter: Decasyllabic or pentameter
Schema: abca bcab cabc dd
Example
Achievements by PK Roy
On personal achievements everyone
feels too satisfied, nothing wrong, no sore;
But, when one allows success to define
who she’s, leads to misery as outcome.
To feel good too much attention goes for
accomplishing bigger things and combine
with aiming to reach pinnacle picks up
addiction to gratification more.
But, forgets the fact that achievements shine
though these are ephemeral and somewhat
becomes trap and we remain unaware.
To caution, wise men already confide.
Misfortune starts when one clings blatantly
to fugacious things what passes certainly
Henry Ford Hospital
1932
Surrealism
Oil on canvas
Dolores Olmedo Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
Many of Kahlo’s paintings from the early 1930s relate to religious ex-voto paintings of which she and Rivera possessed a large collection ranging over several centuries. Ex-votos paintings are a gesture of gratitude for salvation, a granted prayer or an averted disaster and are left at shrines and in churches. Generally painted on small-scale metal panels they depict the event and include the Virgin or saint to whom they are offered. In ‘Henry Ford Hospital’ Kahlo uses the ex-voto format but places herself centre stage, rather than recording a miracle deed of a saint. Kahlo paints her own story seemingly the work is not a thanks to the lord but an act of defiance, questioning why he brings her pain.
Frida Kahlo
Naïve art, Modern art, Surrealism, Magical Realism, Symbolism, Naturalism, Primitivism, Social realism, Cubism
Born: 6 July 1907, Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Died: 13 July 1954, Mexico City Mexico
The small pins that pierce Kahlo’s skin reveal that she still hurts following illness and accident and her signature tear reveals the ongoing battel with the subsequent psychological overflow. Typical of Kahlo, the use of visual symbolism of physical and psychological pain in an attempt to understand suffering. Prior to Kahlo the language of grief, death, and self, had been explored by some male artists, notably Goya and Munch, but it had not been dissected by a woman. Kahlo entered an existing language, and expanded it to make it her own. By exposing her own body in a broken and bleeding state Kahlo opened the viewer from the inside out to explain human behaviour. Throughout her career, she repeated motifs to create and articulate a means of discussing the most complex aspects of female identity
Man in Oriental Costume
1632
Baroque, Dutch Golden Age
Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA
An ambitious painting, ‘Man in Oriental Costume’ depicts the Dutch idea of a Near Eastern Potentate, an exotic subject that would appeal a knowledgeable and experienced collector. A stately and colossal figure draped in a golden garment sternly stares out, with his head and shoulders lit dramatically from the front and back. The gold of his garment gleams beneath a metallic scarf and silver turban. Rembrandt painted many Middle Eastern figures during the 1630s reflecting the commercial enterprises of the Dutch Republic in the Middle East
Rembrandt
Baroque, Dutch Golden Age
Born: 15 July 1606, Leiden, Netherlands
Nationality: Dutch
Died: 4 October 1669, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Rembrandt’s life and work were fuelled by an intense psychological study of people, objects, and their surroundings and a strong Christian devotion. Incredibly gifted, Rembrandt became a master of portraiture, historical, mythological, and biblical sense from a very young age. His techniques and use of materials was sensitive and spontaneous. His everchanging approach to colour, composition, and shadow produced powerfully moving and natural moments of the human existence. His mastery of light and texture emphasized emotional depth weaved a common theme through all his work confirming his status as one of art’s greatest and innovative masters
what can I say – it’s pengwings
This poetry shouldn’t be a challenge. This will be a celebration of unity & a place to unleash any sadness, tensions, exhaustion regarding the ongoing unjust killings due to racist ideologies & terrorist who like to re-invent their own history to match an idea in their head that was never theirs. Give us your feelings, give us your words. Tell us what you can do to encourage others, Tell us how you can help stop political & blue corruption, systemic racism, and most importantly give us words that you feel will stop these deaths.
It has been a year since George Floyd, longer for Breonna Taylor, longer for the shit that was Jim Crow Laws, Slavery, don’t forget Rodney King, don’t forget Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, thousands upon thousands others. Martin Luther King Jr gunned down for change. The leaders that preached for change always met…
View original post 6 more words
OMD
OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark), are an electronic band formed in Wirral, Merseyside, UK, in 1978.The band consists of co-founders Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals, along with Martin Cooper (various instruments) and Stuart Kershaw (drums). The only constant member is McCluskey. In 1979 the band debut single, ‘Electricity’, was released and they gained popularity throughout Europe with the 1980 anti-war song ‘Enola Gay.’
Messages
Album: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Date: 1980
Genre: Rock
Lyrics by Paul David Humphreys and Andrew McCluskey
It worries me this kind of thing
How you hope to live alone
And occupy your waking hours
We’re taking sides again
I just wept I couldn’t understand
Why you started this again
Every day you send me more
What makes it worse is this plan of yours
To ensure I don’t forget
I’d write and tell you that I’ve burnt them all
But you never send me your address
And I’ve kept them anyway
So don’t ask me if I think it’s true
That communication can bring hope to those
Who have gone their separate ways
It hardly touched me when it should have then
And memories are uncertain friends
When recalled by messages
Coded messages always hurt
Letters
Messages poison
The Knack
An American rock band, The Knack were based in Los Angeles and rose to fame with their first single ‘My Sharona in 1979. The band consisted of Doug Fieger (lead vocalist), Berton Averre (lead guitar, backing vocals and keyboards), Bruce Gary (drums), and Prescott Niles (bass guitar)
Let Me Out
Album: Get the Knack
Date: 1979
Genre: Rock
Lyrics by Douglas Fieger and Berton Averre
One two three four
Let me out come and get me out ’cause i’ve been stuck in for too long
Let me out come get me out baby maybe be where i belong
The time is right for stepping out in the light
My cup is full and i’ll be pulling the wool tonight
Let me out come get me out you know that she don’t understand
Let me out come get me out baby i’m just living for the band
It’s getting tighter and i’m feeling the bite
But i don’t care because i’m getting my share tonight
Tonight tonight tonight whoo
Let me out come get me out i’m just a prisoner of your love
Let me out out come get me out baby i will never have enough
I guess i’m getting while the getting is right
She may be faking but i’m taking my chance tonight
Let me out
Le Vampire
1857
You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,
To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
Infamous bitch to whom I’m bound
Like the convict to his chain,
Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
Accurst, accurst be you!
I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.
Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
“You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,
Fool! – if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!”
Charles Baudelaire
Born: 9 April 1821, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 31 August 1867, Paris, France
Baudelaire was a poet, essayist, art critic and a pioneer in the translation of Edgar Allan Poe. His most notable work, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), a book of lyric poetry in which the author expresses the changing nature of beauty in the mid -19th century Paris during a period of rapid industrialization
Jezzie G 