You are the moon pulling my black waters
You are the land in my dark closet
Stay by my side until it all goes dark forever
When silent the silence comes closer…

Aroganta/incoerenta, varianta in romana

Nu va e sila sa scrieti? Nu va e sila sa va ingramadati cele douaj’ de poezii pseudosentimentale, cu cuvinte putine, da’ cu cat mai multe paranteze, prefixe, sufixe smechere si etichete de genul cvasi-romantic-post-realist-ultra-formalist-cu-influente-avangardiste pe toate blogurile? Cum naiba poti sa pui creionul pe hartie/degetele pe tastatura fara sa te intrebi daca n’a mai scris cineva inainte ceva care suna cam asa; si daca te intrebi asta, si raspunsul e ‘ba da’, cum poti sa dai click acolo pe ‘publica’ si apoi sa arunci linku’ in sus si’n jos, ca orezu’ la nunta, pe facebook, pe mess, pe twitter, pe tumblr etc etc etc?
Ar trebui sa existe o rusine, o rusine a omului care scrie. Sa’ti fie rusine cand te gandesti ca inaintea ta si Shakespeare, si Pushkin, si Baudelaire, si Goethe au facut exact aceleasi gesturi: si’au aprins o lumanare, si’au suflecat o maneca, au tusit, s’au asezat la masa si au inceput sa mazgaleasca o foaie, cu acelasi extaz si cu sentimentul ala de mandrie pe care putini il recunosc, dar care vine odata cu scrisul. Sa te gandesti la miliardele de pagini rupte, arse, mototolite care erau de sute de ori mai valoroase decat ce’ti trece tie prin cap acum si sa ti se micsoreze incet-incet dorinta de a scrie si tu, mandria, nevoia sa contribui si tu la sufocarea in mediocritate a editurilor si a blogurilor. Ganditi’va inainte sa scrieti.

Take heed, dear heart

Most of the people I’ve loved in my life I’ve loved less than I love this band.

Fairy-ness!

This week with a splash of early Romanticism!

To Generalize is to be an Idiot
- W. Blake

Mister William Blake (1757-1827) was a British painter and poet, an interesting figure of the mature Pre-Romanticism and the young Romanticism. Left school at the age of 10, pursued certain artistic interests, but managed to quarrel with all of his ‘masters’. He developed a very interesting style, both in painting and poetry, marked by a poignant naivety (stylistically speaking, not ideologically) and his themes evolved from the countryside and the misery of the poor to representations of a peculiar mythology that he had made up as some sort of double to the Bible. People back then said he’d gone crazy, people now admire his creative freedom.

The painting today is Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (c. 1786)

(i apologize for the small size, wordpress says it’s either this or you just see half of it. feel free to google it and find a better version)
It’s a watercolour work, and I’m sure what I said earlier about ‘naivety’ is quite obvious here. The faces especially are nothing special, but the atmosphere, the composition and the white ethereal bodies are quite beautiful. You can almost see them spinning.
And, as this is inspired by Shakespeare, I couldn’t possibly skip the opportunity to quote him a little. Forgive me for taking things out of context and butchering it a little at the end, but I couldn’t possibly quote the whole thing.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V

Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train

OBERON

Through the house give gathering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire:
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And this ditty, after me,
Sing, and dance it trippingly.

TITANIA

First, rehearse your song by rote
To each word a warbling note:
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.

Song and dance

OBERON

Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature’s hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day.

Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train

PUCK

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
….

Arrogant and incoherent views on The Picture of Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray is not ‘beautiful’. You cannot begin to imagine how beautiful he is. It’s stupid to tell anyone they look like Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray is not a proper character, he is an abstraction. He is infinitely beautiful; his lips are the lips of hundreds of poets. (and I don’t mean this to be a cheap metaphor.)

The love in the book is not homosexual love. It is ‘the love we don’t speak of’. It is asexual love. It is not the painter’s love for the man he is fascinated by. It is not the painter’s love for the pinnacle of his artistic creation. It is the painter’s love for his sitter – the artist’s love.

This is the most beautiful ars poetica that I have ever read.

I was dominated, soul, brain, and power by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. (…) You would have never understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes – too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them. (…) And it had all been what art should be, unconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and your own time. Whether it was the Realism of the method, or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. There was love in every line, and in every touch there was passion.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, chapter IX