R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 55

From Flaubert's Parrot

The one thing that is very good in life today is death. There’s still room for improvement, it’s true. But I think of all those nineteenth-century deaths. The deaths of writers aren’t special deaths; they just happen to be described deaths. I think of Flaubert lying on his sofa, struck down – who can tell at this distance? – by epilepsy, apoplexy or syphilis, or perhaps some malign axis of the three. Yet Zola called it une belle mort – to be crushed like an insect beneath a giant finger. I think of Bouilhet in his final delirium, feverishly composing a new play in his head and declaring that it must be read to Gustave. I think of the slow decline of Jules de Goncourt: first stumbling over his consonants, the c’s turning to t’s in his mouth; then being unable to remember the titles of his own books; then the haggard mask of imbecility (his brother’s phrase) slipping over his face; then the deathbed visions and panics, and all night long the rasping breaths that sounded (his brother’s words again) like a saw cutting through wet wood. I think of Maupassant slowly disintegrating from the same disease, transported in a strait-jacket to the Passy sanatorium of Dr Blanche, who kept the Paris salons entertained with news of his celebrated client; Baudelaire dying just as inexorably, deprived of speech, arguing with Nadar about the existence of God by pointing mutely at the sunset; Rimbaud, his right leg amputated, slowly losing all feeling in the limbs that remained, and repudiating, amputating his own genius – ‘Merde pour la poésie’; Daudet ‘vaulting from forty-five to sixty-five’, his joints collapsing, able to become bright and witty for an evening by giving himself five morphine injections in a row, tempted by suicide – ‘But one doesn’t have the right.’

Sandhill Cranes in Michigan

 

Julian Barnes: Flaubert's Parrot

We no longer believe that language and reality ‘match up’ so congruently – indeed, we probably think that words give birth to things as much as things give birth to words.

Michigan: Sandhill Cranes

In Michigan for a bit. Mostly birds @ Mom's feeder, wood ducks down the road (very skittish and far away), and a few cranes in a nearby field.

More New Poetry @ TheBookendsReview

Another poem (making three total now) -- Sevilla -- has been posted at Bookends Review. Very short. Thanks to Jordan Blum (editor) for his generosity in accepting my poems.

http://thebookendsreview.com/2022/08/...

#rlswihart13 #poetry #thebookendsreview #sevilla

Surfbird @ White Point Beach

Surfbird @ White Point Beach in San Pedro. Lifer. Saw him the first time (out of three) and never again. Right in the middle of the Black Turnstones standing on one leg (hope the other one is tucked in). 

#rlswihart13 #sanpedroca #whitepointbeach #birdsofinstagram #surfbirdsofamerica #surfbird #birdphotos #lifers #nature #poetry #beauty #readmorepoetry2022 #ukraine 🇺🇦

New Poetry @ Bookends Review: Shelter Valley

A new poem is up @ Bookends Review: Shelter Valley. The link is below but also in my bio. Please check it out.:)

http://thebookendsreview.com/2022/08/...

#rlswihart13

#bookendsreview

#sheltervalley #newpoetry #poetry #rlswihart #nature #poetry

Very Spotty Spotted Sandpiper

Saw several Spotted Sandpipers this morning @ White Point, but none as trim & spotted as this beauty (the backdrop isn't bad either). 

#rlswihart13 #sanpedroca #whitepointbeach #sandpipersofinstagram #spottedsandpiper #nature #naturephotography #birdphotography #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2022 #ukraine 🇺🇦

Old Dusty & the Pink Ribbon

At this point Mr. Golyadkin very appropriately remembered a novel he had read long ago in which the heroine, in precisely similar circumstances, signaled to Alfred by tying a pink ribbon to her window. But now, at night, in the climate of Petersburg, famous for its dampness and unreliability, a pink ribbon was hardly appropriate and, in fact, was utterly out of the question.

Old Dusty's The Double: I cat/I act

 "I can't talk much, and have never learnt to embellish my speech with literary graces. On the other hand, I cat, Krestyan Ivanovitch; on the other hand, I act, Krestyan Ivanovitch."