Group of the Visual Poets (2 photos/day, no invite needed :) / Discussions

i could never pick just one, but here is one i love:
Now Are the Rough Things Smooth

Now are the rough things smooth, and the smooth
things stand in flickering slats, facing the slow tarnish of
sun-fall. Summer is over, or nearly. And therefore the
green is not green anymore but yellow, beige, russet,
rust; all the darknesses are beginning to settle in. And
therefore, why pray to permanence, why not pray to
impermanence, to change, to—whatever comes next.
Willingness is next to godliness. Once I watched a
swallow playing with a feather, high on the blue air.
The swallow wanted to fly and frolic; the feather just
wanted to float. Many times the swallow dropped the
feather, which drifted away, then went diving and
careening after it. There are so many things to do in
this world, and so many things to be done. Right now
I’m glad to be agile and insistent. But, later! Then, I’ll
be happy to give up the quick burst, oh darling and
important world, and just float away.


Mary Oliver, What Do We Know, p44

There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?

Hah, Psycho we have something in common!) I love this also...!

I mostly like Steps / Stufen from Herman Hesse:
STEPS/STUFEN

As every blossom fades
and all youth sinks
into old age,
so every life's design,
each flower of wisdom,
every good attains its prime
and cannot last forever.
In life, each call the heart
must be prepared courageously
without a hint of grief,
submit itself to other new ties.
A magic dwells in each beginning,
protecting us
tells us how to live.

High purposed we must traverse
realm on realm,
cleaving to none as to a home,
the world of spirit
wishes not to fetter us
but raise us higher,
step by step.
Scarce in some safe
accustomed sphere of life
have we establish a house,
then we grow lax;
only he who is ready
to journey forth
can throw old habits off.
Maybe death's hour too
will send us out new-born
towards undreamed-lands,
maybe life's call to us
will never find an end.
Courage my heart,
take leave and fare thee well

W. Shakespeare sonetts - the XIIth.

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can’t explain the goings
or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again
inside the majesty.

I thought you were dead. I was, but I caught your fragrance
again and came back to life.

~Rumi

A short story by Julio Cortázar...

"Preamble To The Instructions On How To Wind a Watch"
Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting you with a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren’t simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we hope it will last you, it’s a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren’t just giving you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist and walk along with you. They are giving you - they don’t know it, it’s terrible that they don’t know it - they are gifting you with a new fragile and precarious piece of yourself, something that’s yours but not a part of your body, that you have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of something hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the job of having to wind it every day, an obligation to wind it, so that it goes on being a watch, they gift you with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows to check the exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone service. They give you the gift of fear, someone will steal it from you, it’ll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the gift of your trademark and the assurance that it’s a trademark better than others, they gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches. They aren’t giving you a watch, you are the gift, they are giving you yourself for the watch’s birthday.
Julio Cortázar, from Cronopios and Famas

"Piensa en esto: cuando te regalan un reloj te regalan un pequeño infierno florido, una cadena de rosas, un calabozo de aire. No te dan solamente el reloj, que los cumplas muy felices y esperamos que te dure porque es de buena marca, suizo con áncora de rubíes; no te regalan solamente ese menudo picapedrero que te atarás a la muñeca y pasearás contigo. Te regalan -no lo saben, lo terrible es que no lo saben-, te regalan un nuevo pedazo frágil y precario de ti mismo, algo que es tuyo pero no es tu cuerpo, que hay que atar a tu cuerpo con su correa como un bracito desesperado colgándose de tu muñeca. Te regalan la necesidad de darle cuerda todos los días, la obligación de darle cuerda para que siga siendo un reloj; te regalan la obsesión de atender a la hora exacta en las vitrinas de las joyerías, en el anuncio por la radio, en el servicio telefónico. Te regalan el miedo de perderlo, de que te lo roben, de que se te caiga al suelo y se rompa. Te regalan su marca, y la seguridad de que es una marca mejor que las otras, te regalan la tendencia de comparar tu reloj con los demás relojes. No te regalan un reloj, tú eres el regalado, a ti te ofrecen para el cumpleaños del reloj."
J. Cortázar

This text with the photo is unforgatable for me - thak you for the enjoyment.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde, from the foreword to "The Picture of Dorian Gray"


But I also love "Steps" by Hermann Hesse!