13 October 2009:
“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon.”
- Pablo Picasso
2 October 2010:
“ .. ~ .. ‘Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes’ .. ~ .. ”
- Pablo Neruda
2 November 2010:
“how one longs to show … in :|: to :|: from one Being …
one beautiful being, all whom one is, or might be”
- Michael D. Main
10 February 2011:
“map is not territory : route is not journey : rainshower is not the soul”
- Michael D. Main
15 July 2009:
“The world is deep / And deeper than the grasp of day / Deep is its pain / Joy - deeper still than misery / Pain says: Refrain! / Yet all joy wants eternity / - Wants deep, wants deep eternity.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche: “Thus Spake Zarathustra”
26 October 2010:
“Homo sapiens is the one species for whom we can be certain of an improbable ‘bridging’ miracle- we can be certain of ourselves as host of an animal whose heart is the first and the last home : courage makes a difference.”
- Michael D Main
13 September 2009:
“I love in literature. If I love something in it, it would be in the place of the secret. In the place of an absolute secret. There would be the passion.”
- Hélène Cixous: “Insister Of Jacques Derrida” (2007)
17 July 2009:
“if / in / you / white / light / lamps / bare / inscriptive / reflexive / luminance / do / not / blink / look / through / now”
- Michael D. Main
8 September 2010:
:: Aufgeschlossenheit ://: das Entborgene ://: das Erfreuliche ::
:: Disclosedness ://: the Deconcealed ://: the Delightful ::- Martin Heidegger: [ Terms Of Discourse From His Philosophical Investigations]
10 January 2011:
“not a string of pearls, but strings of meaning communicated by tongue- this is what stimulates the poet, who is slow to react to the visible body of his lover, but thrills to her encoded body if decoded in the rarest, most secretive moment just for his ear”
- Michael D. Main
5 September 2010:
“the t(h)ou sand-petal lot(us) is the word : the wordsm(y)ith her(m)self is the archite(x)ct : the langue living sp(l)ace is the chakra dialog(h)os(t), enunciate of the invincible real”
- Michael D. Main
23 October 2009:
“I would write a book to re-picture this painting with its quivering signs that look like they’ve been hurled from a brush, with its letters changed into the beatings of wings, of lashes, of see’s minutely sown with living punctuations, of highly eloquent silences.”
- Hélène Cixous: ”Insister Of Jacques Derrida”
6 September 2009:
“Here is the house of the goddess. In the blue sanctuary you can still smell the perfume of sea foam and jasmine and carnations salty with her flesh.”
- Rafael Alberti: ”Homecoming Of Love Amongst Illustrious Ruins” / Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
7 November 2009:
“evo):(kery thi):(ngs put to):(get):(her last a why):( isle placid):(leg a):(kimbo later when re):(cast”
- Michael D. Main
1 October 2009:
This is an anti-spell mused in an eye of the gale.
“The mysterious creature of whom he writes … but glimpsed one day … the central figure … representative in his heart and mind of a ‘signal’ of invisible complicity … supporting a faith in the beneficent intervention of chance in human destiny.”
- Michael D. Main
Reader Comment:
“I wonder, if he glimpsed the creature why “it” still remains a mystery - even more so, if it is the central figure and representative of his heart - why the enigma? mysticism circling an elusive creature who intervenes and signals — but can’t properly do so… a creature who’s sole purpose is to edify? puzzling indeed.”
Michael D. Main:
“A creature whose field of prescience/presence exists beyond the need to “properly do so”.
:: not an identity :: not a transitional self :: not a postulated tense to or from transitional states of being :: but something else :: something paradoxically that nevertheless wills :: nerves that alight to the continuation of my species as if a cigarette tip :: not an identity :: but a pin prick :: a pin hole whose incoming light strikes through to salient shadow ::
24 October 2009:
“No matter how fast you run, your shadow keeps up. But that shadow has been serving you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle. Your boundaries are your quest. I could explain this, but it will break the glass cover on your heart. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.”
- From: “Soul Of Rumi“
9 July 2009:
“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”
- Albert Camus: / French Existentialist Philosopher
5 October 2010:
““But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight.”
- Plato: “Phaedrus“
5 October 2010:
“Because beauty, Phaedo, is the only thing that is divine and visible at the same time, and so it is the way of the artist to the soul. But do you believe, my dear Phaedo, that the one who reaches the intellectual through the senses can ever achieve wisdom and human dignity? Or do you believe (and I am leaving this to you) that it is a lovely but dangerous road that leads nowhere? Because you have to realize that we artists cannot take the path of beauty without Eros joining us and becoming our leader; we may be heroes in our own way, but we are still like women, because passion is what elevates us, and our desire is love—that is our lust and our disgrace. Do you see that poets can be neither sage nor dignified? That we always stray, adventurer in our emotions? The appearance of mastery in our style is a lie and foolishness, our fame a falsehood, the trust the public places in us is highly ridiculous, education of the young through art something that should be forbidden. Because how can someone be a good teacher when he has an inborn drive towards the abyss? We may deny it and gain dignity, but it still attracts us. We do not like final knowledge, because knowledge, Phaedo, has no dignity or severity: it knows, understands, forgives, without attitude; it is sympathetic to the abyss, it is the abyss. Therefore we deny it and instead seek beauty, simplicity, greatness and severity, of objectivity and form. But form and objectivity, Phaedo, lead the noble one to intoxication and desire, to horrible emotional transgressions rejected by his beautiful severity, lead to the abyss. Us poets, I say, it leads there, for we are unable to elevate ourselves, instead we can only transgress. And now I am leaving you, Phaedo; stay here until you no longer see me, then leave also.”
- Thomas Mann: “Death In Venice” (1912) / Translated from the German by Martin C. Doege
9 December 2009:
“Poetry is the distillation of articulate animals calling to each other across a great gulf :: It is made by evaporating the liquid laughter of youth :: It is made by dissolving halos in oceans of sound :: It is made with the syllables of dreams in unwritten dictionaries :: It is a rope to tie around you.”
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “AMERICUS: Book I: Section III” (New Directions: 2004).
5 December 2009:
“surrounded by sham and disarray, we hunger for integrity and authenticity :: a book may be an ark, ferrying an ethical vision through stormy times :: we need an alternate story :: to rise, to give birth, to set in motion :: to re(new) origins”
- Scott Russell Sanders: “A Conservationist Manifesto” (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press : 2009)
3 December 2009:
“ascent and attainment are anything but nebulous :: enlightenment is never “self-styled” :: one seizes or is seized :: then expression ‘tells the story’”
”To be loved is the solution for the descent. To be loved -by another of one’s own kind, by animals, spirits, sky, sea, and sun. There is the landing in “sentient heart”. But to land alone, land hard, after having over-gained too much ground too quickly ‘up above’ - such is the worst anguish.”
- Michael D. Main
13 November 2009:
“violet premonitions of soul burial to some unknown end :: northern lights in a dark country of intellect :: places which beg redemption of some as yet unknown form of attention :: or love remastered by a kinder fate”
- Michael D. Main
15 August 2009:
“your eyes have loved :: your eyes halved :: loved your :: loved eyes :: your being :: your seeing :: eyes have :: loved”
- Michael D. Main
5 January 2010:
“to absolve ego sorrows in love :: to emerge as host to a new form of creaturely eye :: to snip the serifs free from each moment’s reflected “I” :: to unbuckle the luggage of the laggard human’s self-representation :: to enjoin Soul in calm joys”
- Michael D. Main
3 January 2010:
“to arch, bodily, over the anchored stones, to nudge this insignificant forehead of beckoning amidst lichen and moss :: to be loved by, upon, and within the earth :: to be beholden, at thin arm’s length, by the (owner)(ship) of living cells :: to lie enjoined in a sole planet’s ‘Being There’ :: to rest and remain, rustling in its inevitable coastal rain”
- Michael D. Main
24 December 2010:
“in the death of December: his memory of sprigs of wheat, conveyed forth from the womb story, reified in the open light, on this track of life assayed to the sun”
- Michael D. Main
1 February 2011:
“If you could be that quiet, you could be with me, said the lost lord. We would keep forever our notes in this. And I waited until I was no more.”
- Michael D. Main
1 February 2011:
“The loss. Of hearing. In silence. Is everything.”
- Michael D Main
2 January 2011:
“Yet I did see “the Pearl” : the hovering silver star, ultimate repose of both wood and human flesh : gnosis is reality, and manifests in humanity’s well”
- Michael D. Main
15 August 2009:
:: impossible :: belated :: entreaty :: encoded :: lampshade :: womb red :: seduction :: clarinet :: streetstall ::
- Michael D. Main
5 August 2009:
:: fiery :: francesca :: celestial :: sunlifting :: goddess :: orbital :: candescence :: lunar :: heron :: terre :: verte :: night ::
- Michael D. Main
28 November 2010:
:: love the light shining about the muse, or stray until you lose everything, even the begging stool, even the memory of tears ::
- Michael D. Main
27 October 2009:
:: Caballine Fountain (1430) :: Helicon (1529) :: Castalia (1591) :: Swan (1612) :: Muse (1615) :: Thalia (1656) :: Terpsichore (1711) :: Phoebus (1776) :: Shaper (1816) ::
- A partial chronology of the evolution of the concept of “Muse” in the history of the English language with regards to poets and the agency which inspires poets.
- Michael D. Main (Researcher)
6 July 2009:
“And for one who discerns yet must perish, not to leave lattice works of ardor nearest the garden where he loved most deeply?”
- Michael D. Main
4 July 2009:
“In the highest, my table was set for you - who lives so close.” O sweet Soul, O sweet Light, I adore in You.”
The quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good And Evil”. The “O sweet …” mantra is my own, intoned to invoke the light of the ‘Daughter of Summer’.
- Michael D. Main
18 August 2010:
“And the goddess received me with thoughtful affection, as hand with hand, she took my right and so gave voice and sang to me.”
- Parmenides: “Fragment I, 22-23”
11 August 2010:
:: esoterica : from Ancient Greek (esō terikos), “‘belonging to an inner circle’”), from (esō terō ), “‘further inside’”), comparative of (esō ), “‘within’”), from (es), (eis), “‘into’”) : *esoteric originally referred to the secret teachings of Greek philosophers ::
- Michael D. Main: (Researcher)
13 April 2011:
“The release from action and suffering, release from the inner / And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded / By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, / Erhebung without motion, concentration / Without elimination, both a new world / And the old made explicit, understood / In the completion of its partial ecstasy, / The resolution of its partial horror.”
- T. S. Eliot: “Four Quartets” [ “Burnt Norton: II ]” / New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1943
* “Erhebung” = The condition of being in an uplifted state, risen.
13 April 2011:
“Eliot sets himself the question: how do we live in time so as to conquer time? Each of the ‘Four Quartets’ explores a point of intersection of time and timelessness which Eliot draws initially from his own life. In ‘Burnt Norton’ there is the moment of love, but love turns to ‘dust on a bowl of rose leaves’. Eliot’s commitment to the solitary burden of the soul is not out of line with an American plot where the Jamesian New Englander, awakening to life, renounces love out of a finer moral passion ‘to be right’, or where Melville spurns the ease of the shore to confront the nature of creation. The frontier for Eliot is that of time and eternity.”
“To consort with his own kind was only a respite from this lone journey. For most of his life Eliot was a solitary who yet saw it as his duty to partake in the world. Love did not come easily for … he reserved emotional energy for a higher object than woman, as Aeneas abandoned Dido for a higher destiny to found Rome. Eliot identified with the moment when the gods call Aneas, urging a further voyage … and Eliot cultivates the pietas of the classical hero.
“In the first Quartet he is a hero orchestrating a private future, not as yet an exemplar who speaks to us. We may overhear, but cannot share, his exclusive moment. Nor is it explained why love must turn so entirely to ‘dust’.
“Not love but art is one certain point of intersection with the timeless: a Chinese jar, created at some point in time, which ‘still / Moves perpetually in its stillness’. Eliot seeks to fulfill his own tradition of New England divines who tried to convey the Word. Ordinary words ‘slip, slide, perish, / Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place’, but against the perpetual decay of language in the course of time Eliot has as his model ‘The Word in the desert’.
“The initiating impulse for this enterprise comes from a silent, faceless companion at Burnt Norton: not the woman as a person, but love’s transforming power. It starts as ‘we’, a shared experience, but [the woman’s] power to generate this came largely through memory and imagination.
“Eliot expected of [the woman] an extraordinary feat: that her feeling should match his own need to transmute love into “Love’, a distilled concentrate that would never evaporate. Language cannot convey this feat: ‘I can only say, there we have been; but I cannot say where.’ The moment in the rose-garden, in the arbour when the rain beat, or in the draughty church in the November mist - such scenes point to place, and affirm that infinity was shared. If he etherealised her presence in verse, letters record the substance of the ordinary: she wore shoes for country walks. Yet, through poetry, Eliot was asking for ‘freedom from desire, from the obligations of the usual ‘action’, from all ‘outer compulsion’ in order to live ‘by a grace of sense’.
“So Eliot wove unrelated strands of his existence together ‘in an emotional whole’, he told Anne Ridler. The fear … the love … the aims of art, and the endless reach of the religious life were brought together and cohere within the formal structure of the quartet. Outside poetry, the strands remained disparate, which is why we get such varied and sometimes conflicting reports of Eliot’s behaviour: humorous, pious, domestic, distant. This leads to the common assumption that Eliot was a theatrical trickster, a deployer of masks … but such a view does no justice to the emotional unity of the poetry. For it is only through the poetry we see the whole man, for whom the important ties were those that served to generate some feeling -it might be horror, it might be ardour - strong enough, extreme enough, to open him to ‘vibrations beyond the range of ordinary men’.
“‘Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought’, [repeats] the fourteenth-century dictum that ‘interior work proceeds through lack of knowing, patience, and love’.
“The discipline does include love. Eliot has not forgotten Burnt Norton, but is now determined to rid himself of ‘Undisciplined squads of emotion’. He must retrain love to serve his solitary search for perfection. ‘The Lover’, he jotted in his notes, is ‘ill of love’, so ill that an operation is necessary. Eliot told Anne Ridler that the operation was ‘the heart of the matter’.
“While Eliot explored these ordeals of the inner life, he continued to conduct a life of outward conformity as he shuttled to the office on the Underground in his bowler hat. Perhaps this was his own form of uninteresting neutrality.
“The source of all this goes back to ‘Hidden under the heron’s wing’, the poem Eliot wrote. A beloved brings a whisper of hidden revelation, hidden under the heron’s wing or enclosed in lotus-buds before daybreak In “Burnt Norton’ the lotus that once sang to the young lover in Boston, now unfolds its hidden vision: “And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly …’.
“In the end this is all that Eliot wanted. Once he has the heart of light, human love is left to turn to dust. There is a startling ruthlessness about this reach for ultra-human bliss, reminiscent of St. Augustine or Abelard, men who were capable of passionate devotion yet were avid for purity. For such men, purity was counter to human fidelity, which they came to perceive as temptation. This state of mind, alien to our time and, possibly, to women in all ages is what makes Eliot the most elusive of poets.
“It is easy to justify a solitary religious position in the case of monks and nuns who have incurred no other obligation; less easy where the solitary path cuts through trust. It has then to be self-serving, and the denial of obligation implies a belief in the exclusiveness of the soul’s superior instants. This state of mind is heroic, that is, not wholly moral, though often clothed in rectitude.
“There is something of this ferocity in Eliot’s aspiration - heroic, exclusive - beneath his masks of conformity.”
- Lyndall Gordon: “T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life” (New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1998) / [ “The Perfect Life” pp. 341-345; 351-352; 403-404. ]
Statement Of Copyright
Copyright © 2009 -2012 Michael D. Main. All rights are reserved. Michael D. Main holds the copyrights to all works authored by Michael D. Main, including and not limited to all his poems, notes and photography posted on Tumblr. No part of these publications may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, republishing, recording or otherwise, without express written permission from the copyright holder. Although these works may be freely accessible on the World Wide Web and may not include any statement about copyright, the U.S. Copyright Act nevertheless provides that such works are protected by copyright laws.
