I am a man of riverbanks—excavation and inflammation—since it isn’t always possible to be a man of torrents.
—René Char, Leaves of Hypnos
All posts in category writing
a man of riverbanks
Posted by sean on July 28, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/07/28/a-man-of-riverbanks/
the wing of sleep by roger gilbert-lecomte*
The Wing of Sleep
He waded all the way back up life’s stream
And came out the other side
Lost where others wander not yet born
He dreamt he was dreaming
Changing planets
Sleeping only to awake over and over
To the block of blood ticking in his head
Plunging in an ever deeper sleep
Awaking in depths of light unmeasured
Yet closer to that blaze
Plunged in the mortal deep of shadow
His bed a sumptuous cradle whose plumed head
Rocked him
Then froze into the lintel
Of a tomb
His dead eyes the wing of the enchanter sleep
Brushed to glittering life
Then rubbed out
Into so total a revulsion
Their lids
Squinched up like spleen-envenomed lips
He felt himself expand becoming the sky
Making fair weather and foul while dispensing rainbows
As the mills of space crushed
And flattened him like a shadow…
(to be continued)
*tr. David Rattray
Posted by sean on June 17, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/06/17/the-wing-of-sleep-by-roger-gilbert-lecomte/
a haiku for spring
Buzzing tree of bees
carries sound of other world—
somewhere else to go.
Posted by sean on April 15, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/04/15/a-haiku-for-spring/
coleman dowell, from island people
You drive, walk, eat, look at television, read, and all the while, beyond you and the cozy circle created by your lady around herself and you, like the natural emanations of stars, other lives circle yours, seeds still winged and wind-borne, looking for sympathetic soil. You feel the juices and solids of your body in attempted rearrangement, or, more disturbing, making an effort to create a stillness that approximates death, beyond which the body does become soil, receptive to all wind-borne seeds. In a not especially prolonged stillness, as though no chances could be taken that you might decide to become perpetual motion, words fall out of the air, a random fall from which you might be tempted to make selection, and as you do not move, cannot, a string of words falls onto you, and from you, onto the paper: winter rye greening up, smoothing the old brown earth with a fine new plane: Carpenter Rye, neighbor.
–Coleman Dowell, Island People
Posted by sean on March 17, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/03/17/coleman-dowell-from-island-people/
now recording observations on tumblr
I made a Tumblr for my field reports. I hope to post there on a more regular basis, while reserving this blog primarily for new fiction, book reviews, and whatever else is not a field report. Like anything, this is subject to change (read: fail) without notice. Those of you on Tumblr please visit—I’m still orienting myself and some company would be nice.
UPDATE (March 2018): The corporate overlords at Tumblr have inexplicably flagged my site as possibly containing sensitive material, whatever that means. My Tumblr doesn’t even have images and I can’t imagine more innocuous text than the field reports I was entering there. Regardless, my appeals to them to lift this censorial block have so far been ignored. As a result, only logged-in Tumblr uses who are not operating in ‘safe mode’ may view the field reports for the time being. I’d be even more annoyed if I’d been posting there more regularly, but well, I’m still pretty annoyed…
UPDATE (May 2019): Tumblr essentially destroyed my site, which is maybe just as well, since my enthusiasm for the project had waned. I never could get any answers from Tumblr so I’m done with it. I’m happy to report, though, that I just did a limited print run of a compendium of field reports. So there is that.
Posted by sean on February 25, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/02/25/now-recording-observations-on-tumblr/
publication note
My story “Orbiting” appears in the new issue of Dark Matter, available on ISSUU or in PDF.
Posted by sean on February 18, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/02/18/publication-note/
triviality of trivialities
Erased from As a Matter of Course (1894) by Annie Payson Call
[click image to enlarge]
Posted by sean on January 6, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/01/06/triviality-of-trivialities/
quest of the simple life pt. 1
Erased from The Quest of the Simple Life (1907) by W. J. Dawson [click to enlarge]
Posted by sean on December 23, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/12/23/quest-of-the-simple-life-pt-1/
city of health
Erased from Hygeia: A City of Health (1876) by Benjamin Ward Richardson [click image to enlarge]
We meet to study and exchange thought on every-day life.
Our existence in pain—
what means for removal of conditions?
What methods of making known conditions control?
Mental serenity exist with animal poverty—
shadow of disease, shadow of health.
These objects, our suffering,
our happiness to trust another object.
Not to be, we may become known,
but we never know, who are ourselves,
unseen to ourselves—our mission.
We, more than any, yet foresee
the results of labour may extend unborn.
A few writing the day
sang self to immortal rest.
A few might see living
work was triumphant.
The momentum, the masses,
crude and selfish,
have no such intent.
Let us die!
That has been the password with them.
We of modern thought have knowledge that we never die,
that no one has ever died,
that our change into motion is our own.
Transitoriness, that we are the waves-
motion made on the shore.
Thus we feel this object, our exertions fit those
who extend advantage to those live,
that thousands wafted by
life represent ultimate life.
Posted by sean on December 16, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/12/16/city-of-health/
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