Posts in Category: Still Life
Some black birds in a desolate garden
“Oh, says the rook and eke the crow,
The reason why in black we go
Because our love has us forsook,
So pity us poor crow and rook!”
(J. Clare in Birds’ lament)
Liège (B)
He thought he saw an Elephant
“He thought he saw an Elephant
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
‘At length I realize,’ he said,
‘The bitterness of Life!'”
(Lewis Caroll in Sylvie and Bruno)
Moelingen (B)
“Magasin à louer”
“In the canyons of your mind
I will wander through your brain
To the ventricles of your heart, my dear
I’m in love with you again!”
(Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in Canyons of your mind)
Brussel (B)
Torture of art
“The heart asks pleasure – first,
And then excuse from pain.
And then those little anodynes
That deaden suffering.
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.”
(E. Dickinson no title from Poems from Emily Dickinson)
Antwerpen (B)
The art of dumping a star
“O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!”
(W. Whitman in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d)
Ougrée (B)