ghost cats of Delverne
from their hilly perches stare
white sentries above
All posts in category poetry
ghost cats of Delverne
Posted by sean on August 8, 2016
https://sd-stewart.com/2016/08/08/ghost-cats-of-delverne/
excerpt from alejandra pizarnik’s diary
Empty happiness. I spent the day reading poems. Trying to learn the technique, in a miserly and premeditated manner. Sometimes it makes me nostalgic to think of children, for whom every action is play. For me, to read poems is work, a great effort. To manage to focus my attention on other people’s words and feelings is a battle against myself. I made two poems. And yesterday another two. I think I won’t ever be able to make a novel, because I’ve nothing to tell in many pages, and even if I had something to tell, but no, I’ve nothing to tell.
Read more at Music & Literature (found via The Blog of Disquiet)
See also: Extracting the Stone of Madness, Pizarnik’s first full-length collection of poetry in English, which was just published this week by New Directions.
Posted by sean on May 20, 2016
https://sd-stewart.com/2016/05/20/excerpt-from-alejandra-pizarniks-diary/
a man of riverbanks
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
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/
triviality of trivialities
Posted by sean on January 6, 2015
https://sd-stewart.com/2015/01/06/triviality-of-trivialities/
quest of the simple life pt. 1
Posted by sean on December 23, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/12/23/quest-of-the-simple-life-pt-1/
city of health
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/
another excerpt from ‘book of thoughts’
Posted by sean on December 16, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/12/16/another-excerpt-from-book-of-thoughts/
george trakl’s snowy descent
Fascinating critical essay on Austrian poet Georg Trakl and the influence of cocaine and other intoxicants on his work.
(via Public Domain Review)
Posted by sean on October 29, 2014
https://sd-stewart.com/2014/10/29/george-trakls-snowy-descent/






