R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 21

Ruddy Turnstones @ Bolsa Chica

Turn Turn Turn. Ruddy Turnstones @ Bolsa Chica (in "fancywear"). Cute as can be.;)

#rlswihart13 #rlswihart #bolsachicawetlands #morning #socal #august #summerfun #turnstones #ruddyturnstone #fancywear #nature #beauty #health #praise #poetry #readmorepoetry2024🎈♥️🪶

Dostoevsky: Demons

"Gracious Lady! "I pity myself above all men that I did not lose my arm at Sevastopol, not having been there at all, but served all the campaign delivering paltry provisions, which I look on as a degradation. You are a goddess of antiquity, and I am nothing, but have had a glimpse of infinity. Look on it as a poem and no more, for, after all, poetry is nonsense and justifies what would be considered impudence in prose. Can the sun be angry with the infusoria if the latter composes verses to her from the drop of water, where there is a multitude of them if you look through the microscope? Even the club for promoting humanity to the larger animals in tip-top society in Petersburg, winch rightly feels compassion for dogs and horses, despises the brief infusoria making no reference to it whatever, because it is not big enough. I'm not big enough either. The idea of marriage might seem droll, but soon I shall have property worth two hundred souls through a misanthropist whom you ought to despise. I can tell a lot and I can undertake to produce documents that would mean Siberia. Don't despise my proposal. A letter from an infusoria is of course in verse. "Captain Lebyadkin your most humble friend And he has time no end." "That was written by a man in a drunken condition, a worthless fellow," I cried indignantly. "I know him."

R L Swihart in The Poetry Foundation

The next best thing to being in Poetry Magazine: Having your bio and poem(s) published in The Poetry Foundation. My bio has been in TPF for some while, and now, if you follow one of the links below, you can read my poem "Totem" (first published in Quadrant Magazine and included in my book Woodhenge). I believe a second poem ("Completely Possible") will soon follow.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/peop...

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

#rlswihart #thepoetryfoundation #tpf #totem #poetry #art  #readmorepoetry2024🎈♥️🪶

Dostoevsky: Demons

"Why is she cross now if you are carrying out her 'orders'?" I answered. He looked at me subtly. "Cher ami; if I had not agreed she would have been dreadfully angry, dread-ful-ly! But yet less than now that I have consented." He was pleased with this saying of his, and we emptied a bottle between us that evening. But that was only for a moment, next day he was worse and more ill-humoured than ever.

Dostoevsky's Demons

I love Brothers Karamazov (and can put up with D's "glut of words" because I love the story), but let's see if Demons will keep my attention.;)

&

There are strange friendships. The two friends are always ready to fly at one another, and go on like that all their lives, and yet they cannot separate. Parting, in fact, is utterly impossible. The one who has begun the quarrel and separated will be the first to fall ill and even die, perhaps, if the separation comes off. I know for a positive fact that several times Stepan Trofimovitch has jumped up from the sofa and beaten the wall with his fists after the most 'intimate and emotional tete-a-tete with Varvara Petrovna.

Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind Owl

I had become like a screech owl, but my cries caught in my throat and I spat them out in the form of clots of blood. Perhaps screech owls are subject to a disease which makes them think as I think. My shadow on the wall had become exactly like an owl and, leaning forward, read intently every word I wrote. Without doubt he understood perfectly. Only he was capable of understanding. When I looked out of the corner of my eye at my shadow on the wall I felt afraid.

Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind Owl

The only thing that makes me write is the need, the overmastering need, at this moment more urgent than ever it was in the past, to create a channel between my thoughts and my unsubstantial self, my shadow, that sinister shadow which at this moment is stretched across the wall in the light of the oil lamp in the attitude of one studying attentively and devouring each word I write. This shadow surely understands better than I do. It is only to him that I can talk properly. It is he who compels me to talk. Only he is capable of knowing me. He surely understands. . . . It is my wish, when I have poured the juice—rather, the bitter wine—of my life down the parched throat of my shadow, to say to him, ‘This is my life’.

Poem by William Alfred: To a Friend in Fall

I'd never heard of him (seems he was more of an academic and playwright), but learned a bit about him in his connection with Faye Dunaway and "Hogan's Goat" (his play).

Anywho: found this little poem which I kinda like.

*

To a Friend in Fall

Me

You’d never recognize

I look so old.

That Chinese joint upstairs

On Fifty-ninth and Third’s

Still going.

All the rest closed down.

Connolly’s downtown

And Klube’s went without my knowing.

Word’s

Out there’ll be another rise in fares.

The light’s the same as then, stopped cold,

Taken by surprise.

We thought we were something, didn’t we.

Paul Bowles: The Spider's House

A little sentence he had once read came into his head: Happy is the man who believes he is happy. Yes, he thought, and more accursed than the murderer is the man who works to destroy that belief. It was the unhappy little busybodies who were the scourge of mankind, the pestilence on the face of the earth. “You dare sit there and tell me they’re happy,” Lee had said to him, the self-righteous glow in her eyes. Surely the intellectuals who had made the French Revolution had had the same expression, like the hideous young men of the Istiqlal, like the inhuman functionaries of the Communist Party the world over.

Western Gull Chicks (Video)