Bilbao, Spain, May 2008

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city

- william carlos williams

london, october 2007, thames, big ben and parliament

Cranach

But once upon a time
the oakleaves and the wild boars
Antonio Antonio
the old wound is bleeding.

We are in Silvertown
we have come here with a modest ambition
to know a little bit about the river
eating cheese and pickled onions on a terrace by the
Thames.

Sweet Thames! the ferry glides across your bosom
like Leda's swan.
The factories ah slender graces
sly naked damsels nodding their downy plumes.

~HERBERT READ, b. 1893

barcelona, late october 2007

To an Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before the echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

~ A. E. H O U S E M A N, 1896

vienna, late november 2007, zentralfriedhof (cememtery)

Salutations

O generation of the thoroughly smug
       and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
       and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
       and do not even own clothing.

~ E Z R A P O U N D

vienna, late november 2007, erik under seven lights

This is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

~ W I L L I A M C A R L O S W I L L I A M S

london, february, in front of the mirror

dorothy gale's shirt
in red, not sky blue, thinking:
there's no place like home

london, february, in front of the mirror

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

~ W I L L I A M C A R L O S W I L L I A M S

barcelona, march 2007, mies van der rohe's german pavilion for international exposition 1929

barcelona's flag,
what billowing temptation
for van der rohe's lines

london, kew gardens, august 2007, henry moore installation

reposed white woman -
colossal, but on tip-toes,
face turned to the sun

munich, end of november 2006, pinakothek der moderne

To a Sinister Potato

O vast earth apple, waiting to be fried,
Of all life's starers the most many-eyed,
What furtive purpose hatched you long ago
In Indiana or in Idaho?

In Indiana and in Idaho
Snug underground, the great potatoes grow,
Puffed up with secret paranoias unguessed
By all the duped and starch-fed Middle West.

Like coiled-up springs or like a will-to-power,
The fat and earthy lurkers bide their hour,
The silent watchers of our raucous show
In Indiana or in Idaho.

'They think us dull, a food and not a flower.
Wait! We'll outshine all roses in our hour.
Not wholesomeness but mania swells us so
In Indiana and in Idaho.

'In each Kiwanis club on every plate,
So bland and health-exuding do we wait
That Indiana never, never knows
How much we envy stars and hate the rose.'

Some doom will strike (as all potatoes know)
When - once too often mashed in Idaho -
From its cocoon the drabbest of earth's powers
Rises and is a star.
And shines.
And lours.

~P E T E R V I E R E C K, 1950

munich, end of november 2007, glyptothek

Helen

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

~H.D.

louisville, july 2007, henry's ark

'A bird came down the walk'

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around --
They looked like frightened beads, I thought.
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.

~ E M I L Y D I C K I N S O N

munich, end of november 2007, folk dancers

Limited

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the
nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into a blue haze and dark air go fifteen
all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and
women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to
ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers
'Omaha.'

~C A R L S A N D B U R G

barcelona, october 2007

Ultima Ratio Regum

The guns spell money's ultimate reason
In letters of lead on the spring hillside.
But the boy lying dead under the olive trees
Was too young and too silly
To have been notable to their important eye.
He was a better target for a kiss.

When he lived, tall factory hooters never summoned
him.
Nor did restaurant plate-glass doors revolve to wave
him in.
His name never appeared in the papers.
The world maintained its traditional wall
Round the dead with their gold sunk deep as a well,
Whilst his life, intangible as a Stock Exchange rumour,
drifted outside.

O too lightly he threw down his cap
One day when the breeze threw petals from the trees.
The unflowering wall sprouted with guns,
Machine-gun anger quickly scythed the grasses;
Flags and leaves fell from hands and branches;
The tweed cap rotted in the nettles.

Consider his life which was valueless
In terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files.
Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man.
Ask. Was so much expenditure justified
On the death of one so young and so silly
Lying under the olive trees, O world, O death?

~ S T E P H E N S P E N D E R, 1933

whitstable, kent, late july 2007

Look, Stranger

Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall
ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck -
ing surf, and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.

~ W. H. A U D E N

munich, end of november 2007, Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau

Gray Stones and Gray Pigeons

The archbishop is away. The church is gray.
He has left his robes folded in camphor
And, dressed in black, he walks
Among fireflies.

The bony buttresses, the bony spires
Arranged under the stony clouds
Stand in a fixed light
The bishop rests.

He is away. The church is gray.
This is his holiday.
The sexton moves with a sexton's stare
In the air.

A dithery gold falls everywhere.
It wets the pigeons,
It goes and the birds go,
Turn dry,

Birds that never fly
Except when the bishop passes by,
Globed in today and tomorrow,
Dressed in his colored robes.

~ W A L L A C E S T E V E N S

hampstead, saturday 9 february 2008

W H A T S U R V I V E S

Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.

It isn't the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor - from breast to knees -
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.

~ R A I N E R M A R I A R I L K E