Death within the past

''É um erro imaginar que a morte está à nossa frente: grande parte dela já pertence ao passado, toda a nossa vida pretérita é já do domínio da morte!''
Cartas a Lucílio, 1, Séneca.


"o passado para Séneca é a única morte que podemos conceber para além da morte dos outros. E porquê? porque ambas são reveladas pela ausência de algo. O passado não volta. (...) recuperamos a memória do que foi ou do que julgamos ter sido?"
(Henrik)

*Collage of photos from unknown authors

'Tis not that Dying hurts us so—
'Tis Living—hurts us more—
But Dying—is a different way—
A Kind behind the Door—

The Southern Custom—of the Bird—
That ere the Frosts are due—
Accepts a better Latitude—
We—are the Birds—that stay.

The Shrivers round Farmers' doors—
For whose reluctant Crumb—
We stipulate—till pitying Snows
Persuade our Feathers Home.

Emily Dickinson

Insomnia

*Photo by Augusto Tomé



Insomniac

There are some nights when

sleep plays coy,aloof and disdainful.

And all the wiles

that I employ to win

its service to my side

are useless as wounded pride,

and much more painful.

Maya Angelou

Envy

"Envy is an emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it." At the core of envy seems to be an upward social comparison that threatens a person's self-esteem: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have. If the other person is perceived to be similar to the envier, the aroused envy will be particularly intense, because it signals to the envier that it just as well could have been him or her who had the desired object."

in Wikipedia

“You can't be envious and happy at the same time”

(Frank Tyger)

*Photo by Picasso

I envy Seas, whereon He rides—

I envy Spokes of Wheels

Of Chariots, that Him convey—

I envy Crooked Hills

That gaze upon His journey—

How easy All can see

What is forbidden utterly

As Heaven—unto me!

I envy Nests of Sparrows—

That dot His distant Eaves—

The wealthy Fly, upon His Pane—

The happy—happy Leaves—

That just abroad His Window

Have Summer's leave to play—

The Ear Rings of Pizarro

Could not obtain for me—

I envy Light—that wakes Him—

And Bells—that boldly ring

To tell Him it is Noon, abroad—

Myself—be Noon to Him—

Yet interdict—my Blossom—

And abrogate—my Bee—

Lest Noon in Everlasting Night—

Drop Gabriel—and Me—

poem by Emily Dickinson

Love & Hate

"To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her."
(FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov)

*Photo by Paulo Cesar, "Sweet Dreams are made of this..."

Love


What's wrong with you, with us,
what's happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave our wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.
What's wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.
And how empty you went through the world
like a wheat-colored jar
without air, without sound, without substance!
I vainly sought in you
depth for my arms
that dig, without cease, beneath the earth:
beneath your skin, beneath your eyes,
nothing,
beneath your double breast scarcely
raised
a current of crystalline order
that does not know why it flows singing.
Why, why, why,
my love, why?


Pablo Neruda

Sex

"It's just human. We all have the jungle inside of us. We all have wants and needs and desires, strange as they may seem."

(Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider)

*Photo by Vasco Pinheiro





i like my body when it is with your...


i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new






e.e. cummings

Ephemeral

ephemeral
Adjective
lasting only for a short time [Greek hēmera day]

in Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

“The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.”

(George Santayana)

*Photo by Susana Ferreira

Ephemera



'Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning.'
And then She:
'Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'
Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.
'Ah, do not mourn,' he said,
'That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell.'




William Butler Yeats

SOLD - MAGNIFICENT BABY GRAND - $2400

Steck pianos have sustained a high place in the musical world for a great many years. This fine instrument has a bright tone and easy action. It was recently appraised for a much higher value. Win. Win.

SOLD - KOHLER BABY GRAND - $450
This piano has a tone that is fair and the action is satisfactory. It can be fine with a little work. We can recommend an excellent and inexpensive piano tuner, technician and deliverer.

Dreams

"We live, as we dream - alone."

(Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)

Mad Girl's Love Song


"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"


Sylvia Plath

Departure

"Pudesse esta noite durar não uma mas duas noites inteiras"

(Eugénio de Andrade)

*Photo by Fátima Serrão Lopes


Juliet
You wish to go? It still is not near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fretful hollow of your ear.
That pomegranate tree’s her nightly perch.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, malicious streaks,
They lace the clouds dispersing in the east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jovial day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet
That light is not daylight, I know it’s so.
It is some meteor the sun exhaled
To be for you tonight a torch-bearer
And lead you on your way to Mantua.
Stay longer then, you do not need to go.

Romeo
Let me be seized, let me be put to death.
I am content, if you wish it to be.
I’ll say that gray is not the morning’s eye,
It’s just the pale reflection of the moon.
And that’s no lark whose notes reverb against
The arching sky so high above our heads.
The wish to stay exceeds the will to go.
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wants it so.
How is my sweet? Let’s talk? It is not day.

Juliet
It is, it is! Be quick, now go away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Discordant strains and jarring notes too sharp.
Some say the lark can intermingle tunes.
This one does not, for she’s not mingling us.
Some say the lark and loathsome toad swap eyes.
I wish that they’d exchange their voices too,
For arm from arm we’re scattered by the day.
“The Hunt is On”, it calls, and you’re away.
O, now be gone. More light and light it grows.

Romeo
More light and light—then darker are our woes!


Romeo and Juliet,
by William Shakespeare

SOLD - BRIGHT BALDWIN SPINET PIANO - $1100
Spicy Look + Great Quality!

Acrosonic is made by Baldwin -- the best manufacturer of spinets. This sweety has a bright tone and easy key action. And look at that adorable, mid-century modern cabinet! The only drawback is that "junior" drew on the key tops with an ink pen. Well... at least it has been a beloved instrument in its short life. Yours for only $1100.

SOLD - WURLITZER SPINET - $300
Easy action and nice tone. Lots of life left in this handsome spinet.

SOLD - ALDRICH CONSOLE PIANO - $250
A nice piano that plays well. Cabinet and keys are in good condition. Comes with bench. Just tune it and take off.

Friendship

“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.”

(Clifton Fadiman)

Friends Within The Darkness


I can remember starving in a
small room in a strange city
shades pulled down, listening to
classical music
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife
inside
because there was no alternative except to hide as long
as possible--
not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance:
trying to connect.
the old composers -- Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
Brahms were the only ones who spoke to me and
they were dead.
finally, starved and beaten, I had to go into
the streets to be interviewed for low-paying and
monotonous
jobs
by strange men behind desks
men without eyes men without faces
who would take away my hours
break them
piss on them.
now I work for the editors the readers the
critics
but still hang around and drink with
Mozart, Bach, Brahms and the
Bee
some buddies
some men
sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.

Charles Bukowski

Loss

loss (lôs, ls)
n.
1. The act or an instance of losing: nine losses during the football season.
2.
a. One that is lost: wrote their flooded house off as a loss.
b. The condition of being deprived or bereaved of something or someone: mourning their loss.
c. The amount of something lost: selling at a 50 percent loss.
3. The harm or suffering caused by losing or being lost.

in Free Dictionary.com

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

(Norman Cousins)

*Photo by A.D.L. e D.G.B. (edited)

Saddest Poem

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Pablo Neruda

Respect

re·spect
play_w2("R0180400")
(r-spkt)
tr.v. re·spect·ed, re·spect·ing, re·spects
1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.
n.
1. A feeling of appreciative, often deferential regard; esteem. (...)
2. The state of being regarded with honor or esteem.
3. Willingness to show consideration or appreciation.
4. respects Polite expressions of consideration or deference: pay one's respects.
5. A particular aspect, feature, or detail: In many respects this is an important decision. (...)

in Free Dictionary.com

*Photo by Paulo Vieira, "Sobre o Altar"

“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

(Jackie Robinson)

Emptiness

Emptiness as a human condition can be thought of in multiple ways.
Emptiness is often a painful experience or feeling.
In the painful sense, it is described as a feeling of numbness, inability to feel anything emotionally, or not having purpose. It can be better described as a situation where a certain lack or lacks in one's life overtake the emotional and mental focus in an obsessive, sometimes subconscious manner. Feelings of emptiness often accompany chronic discontent, dysthymia, depression, loneliness, despair. It may seek expression through different types of self-harming behaviors, and in more extreme cases, suicide.
Emptiness often involves alienation, be it temporary or acquired, and sometimes self-hatred. A sense of emptiness is not always associated as such, and may be part of a natural process of grief, as resulting of separation, death of a loved one, or other significant changes to one's life.

(in Wikipedia)

*Photo by Rui Bento Alves, "Uma Pessoa no Escuro"

Empty my Heart, of Thee—

Its single Artery—

Begin, and leave Thee out—

Simply Extinction's Date—

Much Billow hath the Sea—

One Baltic—They—Subtract Thyself, in play,

And not enough of me

Is left—to put away—

"Myself" meanth Thee—

Erase the Root—no Tree—Thee—

then—no me—The Heavens stripped—

Eternity's vast pocket, picked—

poem by Emily Dickinson