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!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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.
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