Mark Sink - Photographer




i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile







i shall imagine life by E.E. Cummings
Photography by Mark Sink

windows


THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW

"The gate never opens. The window’s so high
That at first panoramas to her appear:
Rivers, blue arcs, embrace woods and flow by;
Red birds traverse the green, and slender deer.

She’s no idea of how life’s lived below;
It must be splendid, though, so long she’s pined.
She wants embraces, but where can kisses go
Save her own shoulder, round and cool and kind?"


© 1998, Erven J. Slauerhoff / K. Lekkerkerker / Uitgeverij Nijgh & Van Ditmar
From: Alle gedichten
Publisher: Nijgh & Van Ditmar, Amsterdam, 2005
ISBN: 90 388 6956 8



© Translation: 2007, Paul Vincent


Giulio-Iurissevich - Artist



origins.

"You told me that you liked the way my name tasted. “Jenna,” you said. “It’s something about the way it feels in my mouth.” Sometimes people give you their thoughts like that and you just start wondering where they came from—start trying to trace them back to their origins. I’m always trying to pick apart syllables to find intention, trying to decipher you like a code I’ve been meaning to break."



by what's mine is yrs








The Stream's Secret



What thing unto mine ear
Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing,
O wandering water ever whispering?
Surely thy speech shall be of her.
Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
What message dost thou bring?

Say, hath not Love leaned low
This hour beside thy far well-head,
And there through jealous hollowed fingers said
The thing that most I long to know—
Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow
And washed lips rosy red?

He told it to thee there
Where thy voice hath a louder tone;
But where it welters to this little moan
His will decrees that I should hear.
Now speak: for with the silence is no fear,
And I am all alone.




Shall Time not still endow
One hour with life, and I and she
Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory?
Say, streams, lest Love should disavow
Thy service, and the bird upon the bough
Sing first to tell it me.

What whisperest thou? Nay, why
Name the dead hours? I mind them well.
Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
With desolate eyes to know them by.
That hour must still be born ere it can die
Of that I'd have thee tell.

But hear, before thou speak!
Withhold, I pray, the vain behest
That while the maze hath still its bower for quest
My burning heart should cease to seek.
Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek
His roadside dells of rest.

Stream, when this silver thread
In flood-time is a torrent brown,
May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?
Shall not the waters surge and spread
And to the crannied boulders of their bed
Still shoot the dead drift down?

Let no rebuke find place
In speech of thine: or it shall prove
That thou dost ill expound the words of Love.
Even as thine eddy's rippling race
Would blur the perfect image of his face
I will have none thereof.

O learn and understand
That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak
Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek
And eyes beseeching gave command;
And compassed in her close compassionate hand
My heart must burn and speak.




For then at last we spoke
What eyes so oft had told to eyes
Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs
Alone the buried secret broke,
Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke
Then from the heart did rise.

But she is far away
Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar
Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door,
The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray
And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day
When we shall meet once more.

Dark as thy blinded wave
When brimming midnight floods the glen,—
Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when
The dawn yields all the light they crave;
Even so these hours to wound and that to save
Are sisters in Love's ken.

Oh sweet her bending grace
Then when I kneel beside her feet;
And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet
The gathering folds of her embrace;
And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face
When breaths and tears shall meet.

Beneath her sheltering hair,
In the warm silence near her breast,
Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest;
As in some still trance made aware
That day and night have wrought to fulness there
And Love has built our nest.

And as in the dim grove,
When the rains cease that hushed them long,
'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,—
So from our hearts deep-shrined in love,
While the leaves throb beneath, around, above,
The quivering notes shall throng.

Till tenderest words found vain
Draw back to wonder mute and deep,
And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep,
Subdued by memory's circling strain,—
The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again
While all the willows weep.

Then by her summoning art
Shall memory conjure back the sere
Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year
Born dead; and, bitter to the heart,
The very ways where now we walk apart
Who then shall cling so near.

And with each thought new-grown,
Some sweet caress or some sweet name
Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same:
Making me rich with every tone
And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown
That filled my dreams with flame.




Pity and love shall burn
In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands;
And from the living spirit of love that stands
Between her lips to soothe and yearn,
Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn
And loose my spirit's bands.

Oh passing sweet and dear,
Then when the worshipped form and face
Are felt at length in darkling close embrace;
Round which so oft the sun shone clear,
With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere,
In many an hour and place.

Ah me! with what proud growth
Shall that hour's thirsting race be run;
While, for each several sweetness still begun
Afresh, endures love's endless drouth;
Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth,
Each singly wooed and won.

Yet most with the sweet soul
Shall love's espousals then be knit;
What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it
O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,
And on the unmeasured height of Love's control
The lustral fires are lit.

Therefore, when breast and cheek
Now part, from long embraces free,—
Each on the other gazing shall but see
A self that has no need to speak:
All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,—
One love in unity.

O water wandering past,—
Albeit to thee I speak this thing,
O water, thou that wanderest whispering,
Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.
What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
Its secret thence to wring?

Nay, must thou hear the tale
Of the past days,—the heavy debt
Of life that obdurate time withholds,—ere yet
To win thine ear these prayers prevail,
And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail
Yield up the amulet?

How should all this be told?—
All the sad sum of wayworn days,—
Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;
And on the waste uncoloured wold
The visible burthen of the sun grown cold
And the moon's labouring gaze?

Alas! shall hope be nurs'd
On life's all-succouring breast in vain,
And made so perfect only to be slain?
Or shall not rather the sweet thirst
Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd
And strength grown fair again?

Stands it not by the door!—
Love's Hour—Till she and I shall meet
With bodiless form and unapparent feet
That cast no shadow yet before,
Though round its head the dawn begins to pour
The breath that makes day sweet?

Its eyes invisible
Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade
Be born,—yea, till the journeying line be laid
Upon the point that wakes the spell,
And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell
Its presence stands array'd.

Its soul remembers yet
Those sunless hours that passed it by;
And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,
And feels the branches wringing wet
Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
Dumb tears from the blind sky.

But oh! when now her foot
Draws near, for whose sake night and day
Were long in weary longing sighed away,—
The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute,
Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute
Thrill to the passionate lay.

Thou know'st, for Love has told
Within thine ear, O stream, how soon
That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune.
O tell me, for my lips are cold,
And in my veins the blood is waxing old
Even while I beg the boon.

So, in that hour of sighs
Assuaged, shall we beside this stone
Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown
The twofold image softly lies,
Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes
Is imaged all alone.

Still silent? Can no art
Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,
To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:
Let happy lovers have no part
With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart
As thou hast spurned to-day.

To-day? Lo! night is here.
The glen grows heavy with some veil
Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;
And all stands hushed to eye and ear,
Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear
And every covert quail.

Ah! by another wave
On other airs the hour must come
Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
Between the lips of the low cave
Against that night the lapping waters lave,
And the dark lips are dumb.

But there Love's self doth stand,
And with Life's weary wings far flown,
And with Death's eyes that make the water moan,
Gathers the water in his hand:
And they that drink know nought of sky or land
But only love alone.




O soul-sequestered face
Far off,—O were that night but now!
So even beside that stream even I and thou
Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,
And in the zone of that supreme embrace
Bind aching breast and brow.

O water whispering
Still through the dark into mine ears,—
As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?—
Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
Wan water, wandering water weltering,
This hidden tide of tears.

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

the story of Lille




He went to sea for the day
He wanted to know what to say
When he's asked what he'd done
In the past to someone
That he loves endlessly
Now she's gone, so is he

I went to war every morning
I lost my way but now I'm following
What you said in my arms
What I read in the charms
That I love durably
Now it's dead and gone and I am free




I went to sleep for the daytime
I shut my eyes to the sunshine
Turned my head away from the noise
Bruise and drip decay of childish toys
That I loved arguably
All our labouring gone to seed




Went out to play for the evening
We wanted to hold onto the feeling
On the stretch in the sun
And our breathlessness as we run
To the beach endlessly
As the sun creeps up on the sea

-Lisa Hannigan


IMPOSSIBLE POEM

Helmut Newton



IMPOSSIBLE POEM

Let my touch know you for the last time
because I want to learn your face by heart,
because I want to start a poem with:
“In Segovia, on a night of towers, my soul could not,
was unable . . .”

Let me, yes, let me.
Let me at least tire your footprints
for this face-scented pillow
because I want to make a bird out of your skin
to awaken my dead heart.

I loved you head on, completely
and watched myself at length in your hands
seeking to grant forgiveness to my ancient thirst for a shore.

This way for this rose-faced sadness
as if the color carried my barefoot pain.
Sometimes there comes to me a silence of bells
always, always whistling under your skin…

You approached my life like a lone vegetable
stretching your eyes up to the tree’s fullness.
My life was simple, humble,
tender clay to the touch.

Now I am but a blind spring
fleeing the shadow in your gaze.
It’s true that everything was useless and painful;
a pity that you didn’t love me:
it’s been the greatest what a pity in the world.

But come, come near and die a little in my words.
Despite everything you’re my love, my you, my never.

And I can no longer cope with this fateless hollow
weighing inside me like God on the grass.
For neither can I cope with this taste of you in my lips.

Yes: in Segovia the sap died suddenly.
And I could not,
was unable.

© 1953, Eduardo Cote Lamus
From: Salvación del recuerdo
Publisher: José Janés, Barcelona, 1953



© Translation: 2010, Laura Chalar

A Dream Lies Dead

Ilse Bing


A Dream Lies Dead

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

Dorothy Parker

Deed

Anna Shishkina


XLI. DEED

A deed knocks first at thought,
And then it knocks at will.
That is the manufacturing spot,
And will at home and well.

It then goes out an act,
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its doom is audible.

Emily Dickinson

Beard Self Portrait in a Bacon Mirror


Photograph by Peter Beard


Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

"Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay
Posing in this place. It must move
As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.
But there is in that gaze a combination
Of tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerful
In its restraint that one cannot look for long.
The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,
Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
That is the tune but there are no words."
- John Ashbery

A System of Moments - Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010)


'warhol with flower' by Dennis Hopper



There's a place on my dresser beside my bed where three books sit, they've become permanent fixtures for years one of which is A System of Moments, inside is Dennis Hopper's culmination of work portraying the rising art and LA culture of the sixties. Inside you will read an INVITATION TO THE VOID."For this creator the void is an empty place between films , jobs acting, writing - "a system of moments" frozen like the flick of a candle forever licking the darkness, the splatter of wet paint caught in a dry burst coming out of a great angst and pain having been denied work in my medium of choice: movies. The explosion - to fill the void between film work, a system of moments occurred, paint photograph, manufacture, tape, plastic, lights, sets, shadow, assemblage, motion, found objects, with a rope of history binding me to Abstract Expressionism, action painting and Marcel Duchamp (whom I met in 1963) Duchamp said the artist of the future will merely point his finger and say it will be art. I was a part of the California School of Assemblage and New Realism with Walter Berman, George Herms, EdwardKeinholz, Llyn Foulkes, Bruce Conner and Edward Ruscha, and one of the founders of Conceptual Art with Proof (1963), and 'Wilhold the Mirror Up'."








Dennis Hopper: System of Moments
MAK, Vienna, May 30 - October 7, 2001


"You can't separate Hopper the actor from Hopper the painter or photographer. A good writer pens what he knows. Hopper knows the film world and his art is a reaction to it.
His art constantly reminds us that an ‘image' is an illusion."
- Graham Hüner

22-03-2001




This photograph is by Abbie Hoffman all other art is by Dennis Hopper.

Elisabeth Bletsoe - Poet



The Separable Soul

"seepage

like the memory of water
an interstitial filtrate
between stones, within speech

the weight of absence,
of meaning implicit in

these empty spaces

reading you in
reading between the lines
absorbing small shocks of recognition that
ripple back
from some projected future conflux;
sound-patterns skimming the surface like
the dreams of fish

my interoceptors resonant with
vast electrical slippage
down the sky,
avalanches of invisible lightning;
shifts in tectonic weather through which
I strive to detect your undersong
in each volution,
involucre;

to discover your cipher that
I envisioned as
underwriting the disjuncted chancel, this
footprint of a drowned house,
the seagrass meadows
“dotted with pulpy creatures
reflecting
a silvery & spangled radiance
upwards”

threads of occluded syllables
that bind me to the locale by
“strange & injurious ties”
dissolve to
incoherence
symbols like marks made by gulls in the sand

exploring the contextures of this
erotomania
(a nail in the vertex)
the exquisite salting of wounds

with each word I spoke
I was becoming less the person
you imagined,
a second biography encrypted
beneath my skin:
as if I had left my heart behind in the wrong place




as if my lungs were too low and that something was growing out of my sides

as if I were in a cave of unknowing

as if a distance could be measured between hollow and holy

as if my chest were full of tears

as if my bubble were slowly bursting

as if there were a need for a lighthouse so we knew where we were

as if the third star were missing and I found it at the bottom of the bed

as if a light spiralled upward and opened my head; the dandruff of old snapshots showering down

as if on your own you really do hear voices in the tide

as if I were so isolated I could have walked into the lake

as if water swallows light

as if a central sadness coalesced in the sternum

as if the lights were switched off when I was halfway up the stairs

as if I were trapped between white sheets

as if there were something lodged in my throat like chalcedony

as if the air had twelve edges

as if my head felt hot like a bird with high fever

as if a pain formed in my face in the shape of a bill

as if I were to start a soul-journey of a thousand and one days

as if while painting the ceiling white the marriage felt like a mourning

as if the moon had assumed the fullerine structure of consciousness

as if my cream silk clothes were covered in a huge clot of blood

as if a baby with bulging eyes were trying to suckle through its beak

as if I had broken an egg in my hand; a tiny white bird detached from its yolk, breathing

as if this brackish lagoon were lipped by languages I was reluctant to translate

as if in a dream subsisting on eel-grass among Siberian refugees

as if I were cutting apart two fish that were joined at the tails

as if a stigmatic inflorescence sprang from my right palm

as if there were a pulsating code at the base of the spine

as if white mucus dribbled from one nostril

as if a series of cuts had formed on the high arch of the palate

as if the coles feminus were coated in pearl

as if I woke with the scrape of feathers between my legs

as if I were laying on folded wings



straying into the fault zone
as westerly cliffs of shear evolve
points of collapse;
your leave-taking abandoned me
poised on the brink of a conversation
for which I now dis(re)member the
language
scratches of light dissecting
the ridge of Corallian beds
once formed in clear shallows

suffering attrition, a trituration
becoming trite
detritus fetched up by the
overwash of storm-surge:
marine transgressions
inventing/reinventing my
somatology
as the beach rolls slowly
over itself
red & black chert, jasper, tourmalinised
quartz

locus of transitions
a constant state of mutagenesis;
dialogue perpetually rehearsed
but never spoken
tracing whole sentences
on the roof of my mouth with
my tongue
glossing over details that
you will neither read nor hear:

the inverse reflection of a tower cloud
condensed
in a drop of rain on a reed-blade,
a floating quill plastered
to the smoothness of stone,
defence-posts of small bunting territories;

the capriciousness of the revealed world

my cell plasma preserving
(it once was said)
a saline imprint of
that original sea

all things tending towards solution

“tiny cuspate spits of gravel, limestone slab
shells &
a little sand”

the residew be sparkelid


Abbotsbury swannery; Chesil and The Fleet


Poet's Note: Since the swan moves in the three elements of earth, water and air, it has been traditionally associated with shape-shifting, especially in the form of a young woman. Tales of the animal-wife as swan-maiden occur universally, telling of a lover lost when she resumes her original form. Usually this is due to the lover breaking a taboo or committing a misdemeanour through a lack of communication, whereupon she disappears silently back into her supernatural life. I am indebted to Jeremy Sherr’s Dynamis group for the homeopathic provings of Cygnus which provided a starting-point for this text."


© 2007, Elisabeth Bletsoe