A Dream Lies Dead

Ilse Bing

A Dream Lies Dead

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

Dorothy Parker

Deed

Anna Shishkina

XLI. DEED

A deed knocks first at thought,
And then it knocks at will.
That is the manufacturing spot,
And will at home and well.

It then goes out an act,
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its doom is audible.

Emily Dickinson

Hannigan and Rice

The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.
Theseus from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act V, Scene 1) by William Shakespeare

Volcano


Rootless Tree


9 Crimes

Fireflies in the Garden

 JoesSistah... texture

Beard Self Portrait in a Bacon Mirror

Photograph by Peter Beard

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

"Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay
Posing in this place. It must move
As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.
But there is in that gaze a combination
Of tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerful
In its restraint that one cannot look for long.
The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,
Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
That is the tune but there are no words."

- John Ashbery