Narcissus-X muses. Is winter woe or weal? Solitude. Silence. Sun retreats, night prevails. Heron-legged thoughts stalk nocturnal reveries.
Silibant softness
Damply stinging upturned face
Winter wind and snow
Sapphire beacon
Within swirling cloud of snow
Deadly steel within
Frozen swamp so still
Stony nectar glittering
Butterflies are gone
Leafless tree and snow
Clouds scudding past overhead
Do they fear the tree?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Narcissus-X Implores Green Turkeys
Night comes. It comes again. Narcissus-X Fears not the night, nor naught that nebulous reveries may inspire. For Narcissus-X fathoms the darkness, embraces visions of of sightless color.
Green turkeys at night
Luminous fowl in darkness
Fly, emeralds, fly!
Green turkeys at night
Luminous fowl in darkness
Fly, emeralds, fly!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Narcissus-X Observes the Unseen, the Unheard
Grim gibberings gnash in the gloom.
Night flows out of the east like an inky stain, blotting blue from above and shrouding snow in stygian shades of unseen eyes.
Tenebrous eyes. Eyes in the night. Eyes unseen, which yet see. And what the seers? What visions do they see? What words fall silently on unlighted snow? What phantasm of darkling dread lurks, beyond light, beyond sound?
Narcissus-X sailed through the grotto of velvet coal, roams at will throughout shining obsidian vastnesses, yet knows not what stands but a few yards beyond the wall.
Stands, abides, endures: or crouches.
Night flows out of the east like an inky stain, blotting blue from above and shrouding snow in stygian shades of unseen eyes.
Tenebrous eyes. Eyes in the night. Eyes unseen, which yet see. And what the seers? What visions do they see? What words fall silently on unlighted snow? What phantasm of darkling dread lurks, beyond light, beyond sound?
Narcissus-X sailed through the grotto of velvet coal, roams at will throughout shining obsidian vastnesses, yet knows not what stands but a few yards beyond the wall.
Stands, abides, endures: or crouches.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Narcissus-X: Ode to a Vorpal Urn
It little profits that an idle king
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
O Attic shape! Fair attidude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
For Narcissus-X has written, and having written moves along.
It matters little, meter, but the sense is in the song.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
O Attic shape! Fair attidude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
For Narcissus-X has written, and having written moves along.
It matters little, meter, but the sense is in the song.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Narcissus-X and the Doom Spittoon
Attacks by the critic, slurs by the philistine fool, mutterings of maundering men: meaningless mumbles. Of such is Narcissus-X much accustomed. It is the lot of the artist, the fate of one who soars below the reach of ordinary sense.
Yet ever did Narcissus-X believe that the tools of Art, the tools of Narcissus-X were in accord with Narcissus-X. Ever, until today.
Narcissus-X sat, rapt in caliginous musings of abstruse surmise, sailing through labyrinthine latices of ebon scepters, little heeded the spittoon upon the case. Yet in that spittoon, small though it was, decorative though it might be, lay not one, but a dozen pens and pencils: poised for use; each ready to record, to write, perhaps to draw.
Little did Narcissus-X heed the infinitesimal motions by which the spittoon drew closer to freedom, closer to flight, closer and closer to a crashing destiny.
And then, even while unraveling the shadowed web of forgotten dreams, Narcissus-X heard sound. And such sound! Such crashing, clattering, ticking and banging sound! The spittoon, slave to gravity's call and its own destiny, flew Earthward, sincerely seeking this planet's core.
Such purpose! Such plunging! So short a flight, scattering so sharp an array of styli! Flying styli! Flying pens, like Pegasus unchained, sought freedom, and found Narcussus-X.
Musing is gone, contemplation collapsed. Naught by the night remains, and Narcissus-X, dreaming of shadows lost.
Yet ever did Narcissus-X believe that the tools of Art, the tools of Narcissus-X were in accord with Narcissus-X. Ever, until today.
Narcissus-X sat, rapt in caliginous musings of abstruse surmise, sailing through labyrinthine latices of ebon scepters, little heeded the spittoon upon the case. Yet in that spittoon, small though it was, decorative though it might be, lay not one, but a dozen pens and pencils: poised for use; each ready to record, to write, perhaps to draw.
Little did Narcissus-X heed the infinitesimal motions by which the spittoon drew closer to freedom, closer to flight, closer and closer to a crashing destiny.
And then, even while unraveling the shadowed web of forgotten dreams, Narcissus-X heard sound. And such sound! Such crashing, clattering, ticking and banging sound! The spittoon, slave to gravity's call and its own destiny, flew Earthward, sincerely seeking this planet's core.
Such purpose! Such plunging! So short a flight, scattering so sharp an array of styli! Flying styli! Flying pens, like Pegasus unchained, sought freedom, and found Narcussus-X.
Musing is gone, contemplation collapsed. Naught by the night remains, and Narcissus-X, dreaming of shadows lost.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Narcissus-X and the Aqueous Throne
Narissus-X cares not for seasons, for frost and thunder: all are one or none for art. For Narcissus-X is not a camera. Art is not mere repetition of what is around Narcissus-X. Art is what Narcissus-X brings out.
Seasons care not for Narcissus-X. Thaw and freeze and thaw again, only to harden once more to that lustrous sheen. That beautiful lustrous sheen. Oh, treacherous beauty!
A step, two, three.
Narcissus-X cherishes freedom, independence from the stultifying conventions of an oppressive society. But Narcissus-X likes it not when the right foot sails north, the left west.
Narcissus-X sits upon an aqueous throne.
Ice is water and water is ice.
In winter, both are cold.
Seasons care not for Narcissus-X. Thaw and freeze and thaw again, only to harden once more to that lustrous sheen. That beautiful lustrous sheen. Oh, treacherous beauty!
A step, two, three.
Narcissus-X cherishes freedom, independence from the stultifying conventions of an oppressive society. But Narcissus-X likes it not when the right foot sails north, the left west.
Narcissus-X sits upon an aqueous throne.
Ice is water and water is ice.
In winter, both are cold.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Narcissus-X Contemplates
Beans, Boston beans, Boston Brahmins: Boston baked beans made with beer and yellow onions.
Beans of song, beans of note, beanbag chairs are mellow boats. Narcissus-X goes sailing there: below the sky, above the stair. And stares through cold and glassy panes, past icy stars to ebon infinities.
Jack, shrewd Jack, wise beyond bourgeois dreams. Sold the cow for a handful of beans.
Beans in the moonlight, Beans in the night, Beans ascending to starry heights.
If Narcissus-X dreams, will the giant sleep?
Beans of song, beans of note, beanbag chairs are mellow boats. Narcissus-X goes sailing there: below the sky, above the stair. And stares through cold and glassy panes, past icy stars to ebon infinities.
Jack, shrewd Jack, wise beyond bourgeois dreams. Sold the cow for a handful of beans.
Beans in the moonlight, Beans in the night, Beans ascending to starry heights.
If Narcissus-X dreams, will the giant sleep?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Narcissus-X Muses on Cinematic Art
Sanguine essence of philistine mediocrity! Paltry proliferation of puerile plot!
That the single-sandaled stranger's namesake be a simple slaughterer: a sham! a shame! That cinematic Art should stoop so low! Where is Phrixus' trophy? Like Medea, Narcissus-X is betrayed, yet not surprised.
For from the start, the franchise played false with its promise of horror. Body upon body, shades of the dark Dane! Yet all is but gore, and warming promise of chilling thought fades swiftly.
Where the horror, where the sinking awareness of emptiness and doom? Where the contemplations of shadow-shrouded night and endless abyss? As if to slash were horror! horror piled on horror were all too little, and of one to Narcissus-X.
Little remains of Art in cinema, as though Cinerama were to Edison what Gracie said to George! Cigars and vaudeville have their place, but Gracie scores the winning goal.
But what is winning? What is losing? What meaning? What matter? What matter, though the patter be pert? Dark matter, dark energy, darkness all around.
The projectionist sleeps while filaments fail, bulbs break, film frays. As one may smile, and smile, and be a villain, a film may bleed, and bleed, and be a bore.
That the single-sandaled stranger's namesake be a simple slaughterer: a sham! a shame! That cinematic Art should stoop so low! Where is Phrixus' trophy? Like Medea, Narcissus-X is betrayed, yet not surprised.
For from the start, the franchise played false with its promise of horror. Body upon body, shades of the dark Dane! Yet all is but gore, and warming promise of chilling thought fades swiftly.
Where the horror, where the sinking awareness of emptiness and doom? Where the contemplations of shadow-shrouded night and endless abyss? As if to slash were horror! horror piled on horror were all too little, and of one to Narcissus-X.
Little remains of Art in cinema, as though Cinerama were to Edison what Gracie said to George! Cigars and vaudeville have their place, but Gracie scores the winning goal.
But what is winning? What is losing? What meaning? What matter? What matter, though the patter be pert? Dark matter, dark energy, darkness all around.
The projectionist sleeps while filaments fail, bulbs break, film frays. As one may smile, and smile, and be a villain, a film may bleed, and bleed, and be a bore.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Narcissus-X Rebukes a Ridiculous Review
Dance, necrous nimbus of nightshade! Dim dimensions of derivative drivel drip derision, yet Narcissus-X shall not yield!
Though rubicund rumbas of rancid ridicule may rail, Narcissus-X triumphs! For Art is all, all is art, and artist is master over art, yet is mastered by art's arrows of despond.
Rant, reviewer, rant! Rant can't, shan't, can't stop the music: and uneasy lies the crown which catches the conscience of the king. A muse of fire doth burn as bright as any candle in the night, but rattling rambles gnaw like rats: let meaning tumble through the slats.
How sharper than a child's tooth to have a thankless serpent's review before my eyes, bringing with it awakened revulsion and phantasms which might haunt an artist's sleep.
Sleep, revulsion, sleep, perchance to knit the ravell'd sleave of care, for Narcissus-X cares not for the paltry patter of philistine pedants. Judge not for whom the bell tolls, the toll bridge closed last week.
Inconceivable, that any should question the penultimate profundity of this work of Narcissus-X:
Alban bone on snow
Calcimine creature so bare
Sun casts sharp shadow
Though rubicund rumbas of rancid ridicule may rail, Narcissus-X triumphs! For Art is all, all is art, and artist is master over art, yet is mastered by art's arrows of despond.
Rant, reviewer, rant! Rant can't, shan't, can't stop the music: and uneasy lies the crown which catches the conscience of the king. A muse of fire doth burn as bright as any candle in the night, but rattling rambles gnaw like rats: let meaning tumble through the slats.
How sharper than a child's tooth to have a thankless serpent's review before my eyes, bringing with it awakened revulsion and phantasms which might haunt an artist's sleep.
Sleep, revulsion, sleep, perchance to knit the ravell'd sleave of care, for Narcissus-X cares not for the paltry patter of philistine pedants. Judge not for whom the bell tolls, the toll bridge closed last week.
Inconceivable, that any should question the penultimate profundity of this work of Narcissus-X:
Alban bone on snow
Calcimine creature so bare
Sun casts sharp shadow
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
An Aside - Narcissus-X Ponders: As Summer Fled, did Time Flow?
Summer found not Narcissus-X, as Narcissus-X found fortnights flying fleetly.
For fantasms formed firm foundations of thought.
And did Narcissus-X ignore the blog of Narcissus-X, if Narcissus-X was not thinking of the blog?
And did time truly pass, if Narcissus-X did not perceive the temporal passage?
For fantasms formed firm foundations of thought.
And did Narcissus-X ignore the blog of Narcissus-X, if Narcissus-X was not thinking of the blog?
And did time truly pass, if Narcissus-X did not perceive the temporal passage?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Narcissus-X Meditates on a Pleading Fly
Flowers. Cold flowers. Snow flowers. Floral patterns of ice.
Crystalline curves of colorless beauty.
Beauty dripping down the window, sill stained with damp tears.
Deceased fly with pleading feet, awash.
Delicate film of varnish and dust, disturbed.
The Mandrake's Mandarin mutters in dark futility while ravens of prophecy cry aloft. Do ferrets cry in vain? Must muskrats wallow in delusion? Do swirling gnats bewail autumnal advents?
How different, gelid window and grotto of velvet coal. Yet, how alike.
Narcissus-X perpends on walls and windows, darkness and light.
Crystalline curves of colorless beauty.
Beauty dripping down the window, sill stained with damp tears.
Deceased fly with pleading feet, awash.
Delicate film of varnish and dust, disturbed.
Fly, dead on cold sill
Shining wings still, legs aloft
Mute witness of fall
Shining wings still, legs aloft
Mute witness of fall
The Mandrake's Mandarin mutters in dark futility while ravens of prophecy cry aloft. Do ferrets cry in vain? Must muskrats wallow in delusion? Do swirling gnats bewail autumnal advents?
How different, gelid window and grotto of velvet coal. Yet, how alike.
Narcissus-X perpends on walls and windows, darkness and light.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Narcissus-X Seethes for Art
Red cat, green cat, Andy made a blue cat.
Andy made a blue cat, purring: it's so happy.
Andy's beauty within mass culture? Sleep! Eat! Spend a day with Empire.
A working day. Eight hours sacrificed to Philistine wordmongers of Croesian intent. Not a smattering of sensitivity among them. Narcissus-X rejects. Rejects. Rejects.
How ironic Empire: art, art, art, slowly showing the old order’s wonder. The building. The Empire. Empire. Film as art, art on film. Image after image impinge on the eye. Eye for Empire, Empire fills the eye. Time, captured and trapped in cells: cells of celluloid, released by light, sweet release. Yet Empire is art, ironic that art should show Empire: iconic building of crass commercial coarsity.
The End of Dawn leads to Salvador Dali. Hello, Dali. Hello, Nico. Nico in The Closet?
Philistine vulgarians, barbarian boors. None understand Art but Artists. Ars longa, vita brevis. But ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile?! As if the artist must toil. Latin phrase from Cos. Hippocrates was no Latin, but Narcissus-X prefers salsa. Hold the Mayo.
Salvador Dali. Memory persists, but do bumblebees fly? An elephant by any other name would smell as sweet. Swans may reflect elephants, but why is the sky so clear?
Narcissus-X need not toil to learn art, for art has Narcissus-X, and Narcissus-X has art. Art from the heart. Heart art. Narcissus-X art. Art. What is Art? Who is Narcissus-X? Narcissus-X is the Artist. But is art learned? Can art be learned?
Questions! Questions! Narcissus-X needs not questions. Narcissus-X seeks, Narcissus-X sees, Narcissus-X seethes in the cauldron of creativity!
Tea?
Andy made a blue cat, purring: it's so happy.
Andy's beauty within mass culture? Sleep! Eat! Spend a day with Empire.
A working day. Eight hours sacrificed to Philistine wordmongers of Croesian intent. Not a smattering of sensitivity among them. Narcissus-X rejects. Rejects. Rejects.
How ironic Empire: art, art, art, slowly showing the old order’s wonder. The building. The Empire. Empire. Film as art, art on film. Image after image impinge on the eye. Eye for Empire, Empire fills the eye. Time, captured and trapped in cells: cells of celluloid, released by light, sweet release. Yet Empire is art, ironic that art should show Empire: iconic building of crass commercial coarsity.
The End of Dawn leads to Salvador Dali. Hello, Dali. Hello, Nico. Nico in The Closet?
Philistine vulgarians, barbarian boors. None understand Art but Artists. Ars longa, vita brevis. But ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile?! As if the artist must toil. Latin phrase from Cos. Hippocrates was no Latin, but Narcissus-X prefers salsa. Hold the Mayo.
Salvador Dali. Memory persists, but do bumblebees fly? An elephant by any other name would smell as sweet. Swans may reflect elephants, but why is the sky so clear?
Narcissus-X need not toil to learn art, for art has Narcissus-X, and Narcissus-X has art. Art from the heart. Heart art. Narcissus-X art. Art. What is Art? Who is Narcissus-X? Narcissus-X is the Artist. But is art learned? Can art be learned?
Questions! Questions! Narcissus-X needs not questions. Narcissus-X seeks, Narcissus-X sees, Narcissus-X seethes in the cauldron of creativity!
Tea?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Narcissus-X Muses on Inescapable Cable Channels
Narcissus-X finds art in the artless, artlessness in the arts, for art is all and all is art, for the artful artist. Even inartistic drivel and cant may cast shadows, illuminating darkly the way to true expression: too true to woo.
Talentless twirlings of thumb-twiddling fans, exonerated only by ignorance of Art: Who mourns for Adonis, or the Quatloo Quartet? None but the lonely Harcourt. Game, set, match, but remember: only you can prevent forest fires. Fires leap, shadows dance, thought fades and feelings prance. Foolish foibles of rhymeless rants echo silently, for what purpose serves delicious, home-style barbecued buffalo wings?
The old died young, but Jung had some good ideas.
Ignoble aardvarks of illustrious descent strew costly pearls of wisdom before expiring. Expiring what? Alas! Poor aardvarks: I knew them well. But the New York Mets are oh for six and two for tea: me yew you and yew for age. Age, time, entropy, vast bleak asphalt path of existence.
Why does Narcissus-X trifle with such tawdry twitterings? Because they are there, and there, and there. They're everywhere!
And the remote hides of vanished species haunt the dreams of Narcissus-X, as Narcissus-X delves into the dusty depths beneath the couch, seeking release.
Talentless twirlings of thumb-twiddling fans, exonerated only by ignorance of Art: Who mourns for Adonis, or the Quatloo Quartet? None but the lonely Harcourt. Game, set, match, but remember: only you can prevent forest fires. Fires leap, shadows dance, thought fades and feelings prance. Foolish foibles of rhymeless rants echo silently, for what purpose serves delicious, home-style barbecued buffalo wings?
The old died young, but Jung had some good ideas.
Ignoble aardvarks of illustrious descent strew costly pearls of wisdom before expiring. Expiring what? Alas! Poor aardvarks: I knew them well. But the New York Mets are oh for six and two for tea: me yew you and yew for age. Age, time, entropy, vast bleak asphalt path of existence.
Why does Narcissus-X trifle with such tawdry twitterings? Because they are there, and there, and there. They're everywhere!
And the remote hides of vanished species haunt the dreams of Narcissus-X, as Narcissus-X delves into the dusty depths beneath the couch, seeking release.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Narcissus-X Excogitates on a Parroting Window
Narcissus-X excogitates on a window's parroting of Narcissus-X, while beyond the pain sings a nocturne of brilliant blackness. But who sings? Or what?
Endorphic shades of desultory dreams draped across Dunkirk's drum.
Orestes, pursued by the Amenities: Cruel kindness; kind cruelty. None but the running hart knows the ascetic clarity of spring water, fresh from nature's bounty.
Beware squirrels in lederhosen! They slice! They dice! They make julienne fries!
Endorphic shades of desultory dreams draped across Dunkirk's drum.
Orestes, pursued by the Amenities: Cruel kindness; kind cruelty. None but the running hart knows the ascetic clarity of spring water, fresh from nature's bounty.
Beware squirrels in lederhosen! They slice! They dice! They make julienne fries!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Noctivagant Musings of Narcissus-X
Marzipan gardens of wonder.
Aureate symbols of promise against the night, as black cows hide within.
Remembered oblivion, forgotten smudge: distant sweetness of televised pitch.
Mithai and comfit, jujube and lolly.
Trolleys have conductors, but who will guard the jar?
Dulcet reminiscence fades as saccharine aftertaste grows.
Cyclamate warnings of doom, but who will mourn the rat?
Syrup torrents of amber light, licorice castles built in the night.
Cravings scream, reason withers: will Narcissus-X eat the fudge?
Yes.
Aureate symbols of promise against the night, as black cows hide within.
Remembered oblivion, forgotten smudge: distant sweetness of televised pitch.
Mithai and comfit, jujube and lolly.
Trolleys have conductors, but who will guard the jar?
Dulcet reminiscence fades as saccharine aftertaste grows.
Cyclamate warnings of doom, but who will mourn the rat?
Syrup torrents of amber light, licorice castles built in the night.
Cravings scream, reason withers: will Narcissus-X eat the fudge?
Yes.
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