Quarry

This is the time of year the missing ones

come back to us--no longer weighted down

by debris, curled into fetal positions,

rising naked through the murky water--

as if they can hear our yelling shouts

as we dive from the ledges above,

pretending they are not there.

Life piles onto life. "Come," says

the onyx water, "come into my deep,"

and I run across the grass into the fizzy air--

insane, undignified--but even there,

falling through the lavender haze, I extend

my arms to you, my secret comrade,

who made me love you.

--Henri Cole

anthem

Jeanne d'Arc, Eugene Thirion, 1876

Now, the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark. No moon to keep her armor bright, no man to get her through this very smoky night. She said, "I'm tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite." "Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way, you know I've watched you riding every day, and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine." "And who are you?" she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke."Why, I'm fire," he replied, "And I love your solitude, I love your pride." "Then fire, make your body cold, I'm going to give you mine to hold." Saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride. And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress. It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood if he was fire, oh, then she must be wood. I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

--L. Cohen

The state of things

Anna Karina is so beautiful. Watch in moving pictures:

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Ex libris

beauty beauty beauty I want to wrap my legs around you

On Hedonism

Beauty makes me hopeless. I don't care anymore I just want

to get away. When I look at the city of Paris I long to wrap

my legs around it. When I watch you dancing there is a

heartless immensity like a sailor in a dead-calm sea. Desires

as round as peaches bloom in me all night, I no longer gather

what falls.

--Anne Carson, from Plainwater

good morning

two lovely things I would like archived

François Auguste Biard

View of the Icy Ocean, Greenlanders fishing Walrus 1841

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Well, okay, maybe two more. Because Joanna Newsom finally released a song from her new album, and I think it's quite pretty, and also applicable to my current state of mind:

And, of course, because someone has compiled photos to accompany the song, the third beautiful thing here is Joanna Newsom. She is so unbelievably gorgeous!