‘A Mind of Winter’ - poem

 

One must have a mind of winter...

... and not to think 

Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 

In the sound of a few leaves, 

Which is the sound of the land 

Full of the same wind 

That is blowing in the same bare place 

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 

And, nothing himself, beholds 

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

excerpt from “The Snowman”, Wallace Stevens, (1879-1955)

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

... when to be and delight to be seemed to be one ...

When to be and delight to be seemed to be one:

A quote from Leonardo da Vinci and excerpts from poems by Wallace Stevens:

Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

 Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519)

... The partaker partakes of that which changes him. 

The child that touches takes character from the thing, 

The body, it touches. 

The captain and his men 

Are one and the sailor and the sea are one. ...

 out of “It Must Change" by Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955)

... But he remembered the time when he stood alone, 

When to be and delight to be seemed to be one, 

Before the colors deepened and grew small. ...

out of “ANGLAIS MORT À FLORENCE" by Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955)

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

It is never the thing but the version of the thing

 

 

Dry Birds Are Fluttering in Blue Leaves

It is never the thing but the version of the thing: 

The fragrance of the woman not her self, 

Her self in her manner not the solid block, 

The day in its color not perpending time, 

Time in its weather, our most sovereign lord, 

The weather in words and words in sounds of sound. 

These devastations are the divertissements 

Of a destroying spiritual that digs-a-dog, 

Whines in its hole for puppies to come see, 

Springs outward, being large, and, in the dust, 

Being small, inscribes ferocious alphabets, 

Flies like a bat expanding as it flies, 

Until its wings bear off night’s middle witch; 

And yet remains the same, the beast of light, 

Groaning in half-exploited gutturals 

The need of its element, the final need 

Of final access to its element— 

Of access like the page of a wiggy book, 

Touched suddenly by the universal flare 

For a moment, a moment in which we read and repeat 

The eloquences of light’s faculties.          

                                                                                    

 Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955

Only as a child we live through moments of true revelation, true originality, true first times. This is the time when we discover the world and for a while everything we experience is new, astounding, surprising, exciting and truly baffling.

Then, as time moves on and we get older and more used to this strange world we have been thrown into, things start to repeat themselves. We discover patterns, we create categories and pigeon-holes, we sample, classify and structure and weave out of this complexity a cloth of understanding in order to make this world comprehendible and endurable. Out of new, possibly frightening things we create less frightening, easily recognizable and manageable patterns.

This is the time when the world for most begins to loose its magic. Only a few preserve a childish sense of wonder. But if you do this, then the world never stops to surprise and everything, a flower, a landscape, an object, is not just something which falls under the category flower, landscape or object but is an individual manifestation out of the great variety of flowers, landscapes and objects.

The world is a conglomeration, a cumulation of varieties. There might not be such a difference between two flowers on a meadow but if you look closer there is all the difference. And most of times the difference lies within yourself. It is you who makes one flower differ from the other because you allow it to differ, you allow it to become an individual and not a category.

“It is never the thing but the version of the thing.“

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

‘Transition’ - poem

Transition

I am in transition.

I am aside. 

I am not at the heart of things anymore.

I am not in life.

In summer I shall feel again.

In summer I shall feel what is good.

In summer I shall feel what is beautiful.

In summer I shall feel.

Over time everything is slowing down, 

even oblivion.

Robert Faeth

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

I Wonder If My Ghosts Would Have Known

I Wonder If My Ghosts Would Have Known:

In everyone’s life there are moments when one holds still, as if suddenly being aware and listening to whispers of the past which seem to ask: Is this what you wanted when you set out, when you decided to go along a path which then let you, inexorably, to exactly what and where you are now. Is this what you then dreamed of, what you desired to become?

And I dare say that probably for most of us the answer is no. It certainly is so in my case. I certainly had different plans, different ideas, different concepts even of what life in general and my life should be.

Am I in any way disappointed, in life, in myself, in fate? The answer is a clear and strong: No!

Yes, not everything worked out the way I would have wanted it to. There have been failures, there have been misunderstandings, there have been losses and gains, there have been dramas, there have been grievances, joys, frriendships, encounters, memories. And in the end it all sums up to: There had been a lot to learn on this way. 

And this is the real gain: The gift of learning and understanding.

My life, my art, all it ever was is an endless lesson. It never stopped, not then, not now.

Sometimes I no longer feel like an artist, I even have the feeling that this is a thing of the past. I was never the artist anyway, someone who makes art to make a difference, someone who points out socio-political grievances, for example, an active, socially active member of society. A lot of what I do is nice to look at, it has, in terms of formal aesthetics, a good composition structure, but it has no social relevance, not even an innovative character. I still use the form and colour vocabulary of the last two centuries and only have a rudimentary philosophy about life and what art should and could say about it.

But I enjoy the formal aesthetic, I like the beautiful. It brings structure and a frame into the surrounding chaos, small islands of happiness, often short-lived, often diffuse, flickering.

What brings me comfort is that I have been lucky enough to experience and recognize beautiful things in life, I know what beauty is, I know the Good exists.

I have been given the gift to share a small portion in the wonder of the fundamental fact of artistic creation: The putting in place of something where otherwise there would be nothing. I have not been an artist for many, the transformative effect of my art has not worked for many, sometimes only just for myself. I have been my own artist, my own transformative power. Sometimes that is enough.

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

Ghosting

Ghosting:

One of my most treasured fabrics of life are friendships. They are the most cherished and the most difficult to care for and to maintain.

I’ve found that one can only be in a friendship - a functioning, healthy, satisfying, rewarding friendship - when one is firmly rooted in the autarkic strength of one’s own being. Yet friendships have a tendency to loosen, weaken or even uprooting this autarchy and all of a sudden the friendship, up until now satisfying, cozy, joyful, exciting, becomes toxic. 

For a while now I grew accustomed to a person, a friendship developed. Things were nice, comfortable, satisfactory, exciting, rewarding - and all I wanted was to continue in this way. 

And all of a sudden nothing is the same again. Literally from one day to the other I find I have been ghosted, the person whom I thought of as my friend is not here anymore, everything has changed and I am left to ask myself: how could it have come to this? 

And I don’t find an answer. Which is really the hard part. Not to be able to solve the riddle, not having an answer. As much as I look, as much as I ponder every move, every snippet of communication, I am unable to detect any logical, rational element which might explain this sudden dramatic change.  

What I feel is pain. It is intense. It is a pain, very much the same as I felt in the past when a partner relationship had been terminated. The difference is that then I knew what led to the breaking up and the pain I felt then was not welcome but understood, it had a causal explanation. The ghosting causes the same pain but lacks the explanation and is therefore so much harder to endure. 

The first impulse with me usually is: Is it something I did, is it my fault? It must have been me! Yet, I have learned that this is not always true. 

I hope that one day there will be an explanation given to me and meanwhile I hover between acceptance /respect of my friend’s decision, as incomprehensible it might be to me, being grateful for the time I have been given (because it really has been an enjoyable time) and putting into question the value of that time, now seemingly meaningless and belittled by incomprehensibility and disappointment.

I try to move on. 

*** if you had similar experiences, feel free to share them with me***

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

‘13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’ - poem

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I 

Among twenty snowy mountains, 

The only moving thing 

Was the eye of the blackbird.

II 

I was of three minds, 

Like a tree 

In which there are three blackbirds.

III 

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 

It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV 

A man and a woman 

Are one. 

A man and a woman and a blackbird 

Are one.

V 

I do not know which to prefer, 

The beauty of inflections 

Or the beauty of innuendoes, 

The blackbird whistling 

Or just after.

VI 

Icicles filled the long window 

With barbaric glass. 

The shadow of the blackbird 

Crossed it, to and fro. 

The mood 

Traced in the shadow 

An indecipherable cause.

VII 

O thin men of Haddam, 

Why do you imagine golden birds? 

Do you not see how the blackbird 

Walks around the feet 

Of the women about you?

VIII 

I know noble accents 

And lucid, inescapable rhythms; 

But I know, too, 

That the blackbird is involved 

In what I know.

IX 

When the blackbird flew out of sight, 

It marked the edge 

Of one of many circles.

X 

At the sight of blackbirds 

Flying in a green light, 

Even the bawds of euphony 

Would cry out sharply.

XI 

He rode over Connecticut 

In a glass coach. 

Once, a fear pierced him, 

In that he mistook 

The shadow of his equipage 

For blackbirds.

XII 

The river is moving. 

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII 

It was evening all afternoon. 

It was snowing 

And it was going to snow. 

The blackbird sat 

In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)*

 

*Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pensylvania and educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and then spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

Thoughts (and images) on ‘13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’ by Wallace Stevens

Thoughts (and images) on ‘13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’ by Wallace Stevens:

This is a first person poem about a poet's observation and contemplations viewing a blackbird. 

Each stanza is an explanation of a new way in which this blackbird has been perceived. 

First, he writes about his physical perception of the blackbird as an observer. Then, he writes about his mental processes during this time.

The poem seems to be inspired by the Haiku, a very short Japanese poetic form.

Each stanza is like a polaroid snapshot.

Sight is the dominant perceptual modality. The poems are almost cinematic.

You're not supposed to understand the poem, you're invited to feel it (sensations).

The poem moves from nature to human society and back to nature in a circle.

I

The first stanza could be read as an introduction to the entire poem and a preparatory exercise for the intellect. It is also a transition from the observer's perception to the blackbird's perception. An image of one lone blackbird among twenty snow capped mountains is conjured, the only moving thing in this majestic landscape still life is the eye of the bird. In the first stanza all is about perception and perspective. In a tranquil unmoving landscape the eye of a blackbird is the only moving thing and brings momentum into the image. First the landscape is in the mind of the beholder, then perspective shifts to the view of the blackbird. The blackbird seems to stand for the Idea or thought. The snow on the mountains is motionless, not falling.

II

The second stanza is a simile of the working, conflicted mind, of different views, the self as of three minds, the tree is the mind in which 3 ideas or perspectives sit. This is the first time the connection is made between seeing the blackbird and being metaphorically the blackbird, being oneself plus the idea of a blackbird equals the new I: oneself/blackbird. Philosophically, it could be said that by seeing or thinking about another being through its eyes one could know it, know its perception of reality. This leads into the second matter that the poem addresses: The poet says that he knows himself as being a poet and that it is a part of himself as a person. However, since he also knows the blackbird, that perception makes the blackbird a part of him as well. This connection is what goes into the conclusion  “a  man and a woman and a blackbird are one."

III

The third stanza whirls the blackbird (the idea) about, brings chaos, movement, changes and phantasy. The season changes from winter to autumn. A pantomime is a performance told through bodily and facial movements, so each movement and gesture is communication. If the bird is a part of the pantomime, it suggests that the blackbird, the idea, is also a part of life's performance.

IV

The fourth stanza makes the Zen Buddhist point that “all things are one thing“. At this time, the connection is made that in seeing and knowing the blackbird it becomes a part of oneself.

V

The fifth stanza discusses the differences between statement (inflections) and implication (innuendoes), before whistling or after.

VI

The sixth stanza is a still portrait in vivid emotional movement and the poet observer as he watches the blackbird fly by his icy window which again brings movement into the picture.

VII

The seventh stanza might be a suggestion to the male part of our species who are thin (maybe of shallow mind), do not trust and build too much upon flittery ideas of farflung, unrealistic golden birds and rather do as the women, who have realism and realistic ordinary blackbirds at their feet to ground them in reality. Haddam is a suburban town in Connecticut close to Hartford where Stevens lived.

VIII

The eighth stanza might be a reference to the poet himself (I know noble accents and lucid, inescapable rhythms = I know how to produce nice poems) and that he knows that himself and the idea are inseparable (are one). At this time, he makes the connection that in seeing and knowing the blackbird it becomes a part of himself.

IX

In the ninth stanza, the universe is depicted as a series of concentric circles extending outward to infinity. The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second and so on. The circle is that through which we see and the limit of what we see. So if the blackbird marks the edge of many circles it flies to the limit of one’s knowledge.

X

The tenth stanza calls poets bawds of euphony, manufacturers of well-sounding, who would cry out at the sight of blackbirds in green light. Why do they cry out? Out of horror or joy?

XI

The eleventh stanza shows the poet, who is protected but not hidden from the outside by a glass coach, and his fear (of reality?) caused by the shadow of his carriage (maybe an airplane) which he sees as shadows of blackbirds.

XII

The twelfth stanza is a reference to the stream of life which is moving and therefore, as not to get lost, to adapt, the blackbird must be flying / changing. A cause/effect relationship emerges from the words "must be." The blackbird is reality; if it is flying it is changing, expanding in the perception of the beholder.

XIII

The thirteenth stanza is bringing the blackbird at last to a stillpoint, the atmosphere is one of tranquility, rest, of an outlook towards death, an old person in his everlasting afternoon/ evening of life. The snow is falling and shall keep falling - back to stanza one, to the snow covered mountains.

There is no one way of looking at the world, but many ways, none of them superior, all of them choices or decisions. 

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

‘Study of Two Pears’ - poem

Study of Two Pears

I 

Opusculum paedagogum. 

The pears are not viols, 

Nudes or bottles. 

They resemble nothing else. 

II 

They are yellow forms 

Composed of curves 

Bulging toward the base. 

They are touched red. 

III 

They are not flat surfaces 

Having curved outlines. 

They are round 

Tapering toward the top. 

IV 

In the way they are modelled 

There are bits of blue. 

A hard dry leaf hangs 

From the stem. 

V 

The yellow glistens. 

It glistens with various yellows, 

Citrons, oranges and greens 

Flowering over the skin. 

VI 

The shadows of the pears 

Are blobs on the green cloth. 

The pears are not seen 

As the observer wills.

 

Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)*

*Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pensylvania and educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and then spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

Artists on Seafloor

In 1995, divers discovered incredibly intricate sand circles across the sea floor of the Amami Oshima region of Japan. Some likened these formations to "underwater crop circles." For years the artist of these circles was unknown until it was revealed as the white-spotted pufferfish. 

The 12 cm long male spends about ten days laboriously flapping its fins as it swims along the seafloor, carefully constructing and decorating, resulting in an amazing circular pattern that eventually reaches 2 meters in diameter.

Once complete the circle is used to attract females, who come to inspect them, for mating. If they like what they see, they reproduce with the males and the circle then serves as a nest for the developing eggs. 

#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry