vamp 'til ready

i'm working on a project that is taking a looooooooong time,
so i thought i'd give you something to play with.

HODLER

ROBBE

HOYTEMA

CZESCHKA

POUND

YEATS

STEICHEN

PHILLIPS

YOSHITOSHI

CASSATT

i tried finding photos of artists who have been featured here, when they were fairly young. for these artists, this is the best i could do. i could find no photographs of a young mary cassatt, only this painting. but i read something interesting while i was looking:

Although Mary Cassatt was a member of and surrounded by an astounding Impressionist circle, she was drawn to one genius and artist in particular. Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt shared a very unique and intimate relationship. Both rejecting the conservative artistic directions, Cassatt and Degas' restless intelligence drew them together. Both Degas and Cassatt inspired and facilitated each other's artistic careers. Cassatt even proclaims “the first sight of Degas' pictures was the turning point in my artistic life.” In fact, it was the sight of Degas' pastel work that turned Cassatt onto pastel for the first time. Cassatt and Degas soon became quick supporters of each other's work. For instance, Cassatt bought one of Degas' pastels and brought it back to America, making it the first Impressionist artwork to come to America. 1

the wave, part IV

AT POPHAM BEACH

Haze of wave spume
towards Small Point,
Seguin Island Light like
a whale's spout--
maybe life washes itself here,
cools off.
It never comes clean.
See all the sails up
and full in the windy parade of skin
and sand and brine.
Soon the rocks will pluck
each wave's feathers.
Soon the beach
like the moon, waning,
will be 1/8th its size.
somewhere else --
maybe Ireland -- the tide
will bottom out then.

For now the sun
blesses the bodies at home in theirs,
and those less so,
to ruin and ruin's aftermath --
whatever that is --
and the waves rolling in,
little snowplows,
nimbus in miniature; how
the beach fishhooks east,
one child -- is that mine,
or some spirit I was one more
usher of? -- face up, arms and legs
scraping a temporary angel in the sand.

© 2008 Thorpe Moeckel

PRELUDE

I know only the bare
rocks of today.
In these lies my brown sea-weed,—
green quartz veins bent through the wet shale;
in these lie my pools left by the tide—
quiet, forgetting waves;
on these stiffen white star fish
on these I slip barefooted!

Whispers of the fishy air touch my body;
Sisters, I say to them.

© 2008 William Carlos Williams

PROJECTOR

Light takes new attribute

and yet his old
glory
enchants;

he shows his splendour
in a little room;
he says to us,
be glad

and laugh, be gay;

waves sparkle and delight
the weary eyes
that never saw the sun fall in the sea
nor the bright

Pleiads rise.

© 2008 H.D.

BLANDULA, TENULLA, VAGULA

What hast thou, O my soul, with paradise?
Will we not rather, when our freedom's won,

Get us to some clear place wherein the sun
Lets drift in on us through the olive leaves
A liquid glory? If at Sirmio,
My soul, I meet thee,
when this life's outrun,
Will we not find some
headland consecrated
By aery apostles of
terrene delight,

Will not our cult be founded
on the waves,

Clear sapphire, cobalt, cyanine,

On triune azures,
the impalpable
Mirrors unstill of the eternal change?

Soul, if She meet us there,
will any rumour
Of havens more high
and courts desirable
Lure us beyond
the cloudy peak of Riva?

© 2008 Ezra Pound

(not the first time the wave has shown up here -- check it out -- this time inspired by quiche's fascination with it.)

a letter

THE RIVER-MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER
Ezra Pound

While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead
I played about the front gate,
pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat,
playing with blue plums.
And we went on living
in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times,
I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen,
by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make
sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown,
the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already
yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

Rihaku

("The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" is based on the first of Li Po's "Two Letters from Chang-Kan." Copyright © 1956, 1957 by Ezra Pound. this clearly international phenomenon ranged from the light-hearted to the profound. ezra pound, another imagist, translated japanese and chinese poems into english, which helped popularize the forms in the west. the image at the upper right, i found here.)

I, who fly with the swallows

DE AEGYPTO

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

Green and gray is her rainment,
Trailing along the wind.

I, even I, aim he who knowth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand

To write the acceptable word...
My mouth to chant the pure singing!

Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.

The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Ezra Pound

poetry & haiku

the influx of japanese art, craft, and idea is most commonly known for what it
did to art and craft in the west. idea has perhaps not been recognized as clearly. but in a culture where poetry had always rhymed, the japanese influence was profound.