Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Tuesday 13 April 2010

Misticism


.




Krazy plays Misty for me ("...and put in a Mist")


___________________________________



Solipsism (Keats in a Mist, at 22)


I don't care

what anybody thinks

and I hope

nobody thinks

I do


___________________________________



City in a Mist: Raworth



912 by raworth.

912 (20.3.10): Brighton: photo by Tom Raworth, 2010



___________________________________



Mistical: a sort of delphic Abstraction: Keats


...To slumber here, as in the very vales of Heaven!

There is a cool pleasure in the very sound of vale--The english word is of the happiest chance...

It is a sort of delphic Abstraction, a beautiful thing made more beautiful by being reflected and put in a Mist


-- from John Keats, marginal notes on Paradise Lost [i. 314-21]



___________________________________



Gulls in a Mist: Raworth



884 by raworth.

884 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010



___________________________________



Lavender Mist: Pollock





Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist): Jackson Pollock, 1950 (National Gallery of Art)





Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) (detail): Jackson Pollock, 1950 (National Gallery of Art)





Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) (detail): Jackson Pollock, 1950 (National Gallery of Art)


___________________________________________________


Misticism: a repetition in a finer tone: Keats


...another favorite speculation of mine, -- that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having what we called happiness on earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated...


-- from John Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November, 1817



___________________________________________________



Sea Mist: Brighton & Hove, a.m.: Raworth


896 by raworth.

896 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010


926 by raworth.

926 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010



___________________________________________________



A fair luminous Mist: Coleridge


900 by raworth.

900 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010


O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me

What this strong music in the soul may be!

What, and wherein it doth exist,

This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,

This beautiful and beauty-making power.


-- from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode, 1802 [ll. 59-63]



___________________________________________________


Into the Mistic: Layers and Breakers: Raworth


908 by raworth.

908 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010



904 by raworth.

904 (20.3.10): photo by Tom Raworth, 2010



___________________________________________________


Mistery: TC (Out of the Fog)




Sleep addressed me familiarly, calling

She takes a third of our lives and when
we come back this way a second time
doesn’t recognize us

traipses to the curtains to let
in the broken glass light of clouds

CLOSED

read the sign on the dream shop door
the battered mouse a gray dust ball
about two days dead

roared about lost innocence
to a loose sock on the closet floor

ripped anew

out of the upside
down canoe

(sleep’s protection)




___________________________________________________



Total Mistification Total: Visibility Zero



File:Dense Tule fog in Bakersfield,  California.jpg

Dense Tule fog, Bakersfield, California: photo by Zink Dawg, 2010

("...and put in a Mist")

___________________________________________________

11 comments:

Curtis Roberts said...

Riding through the mist on Amtrak from Philadelphia to New York, these are like misty fireworks.

Melissa said...

And all of this, Tom, is gorgeous

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

How beautiful all this, words and pictures -- "repeated in a finer tone and so repeated"


4.13

pink cloud in pale blue sky above shadowed
shoulder of ridge, crow calling on branch
in foreground, waves sounding in channel

which surrounds perceptions,
temporal situation in

external light, see present,
order of “either” and

sunlit whiteness of cloud above point,
line of cormorants flapping toward it

TC said...

Thank you all, friends.

For Melissa there will be a touch of flashback in the top image. We once looked at these together.

(For a closer look at that sheet, you can click to enlarge. Zoom in on the lower right area and you will see Krazy's lyric, which, of course, is actually Keats's note on Milton. This "Deep Keats Scroll" was originally posted on March 15, 2009, as "Want of an Object". You can find seven more of my Keats teaching scrolls surrounding that one on the blog; they were all posted on the same day.)

Skip Fox said...

In the midst of these . . . happily.

TC said...

Lovely to have the fine company, in the mist, Skip.

Melissa said...

I visit the Keats Scrolls often. Always they bring a reminder of a deeper self.

human being said...

ahhh... this is what i needed these day.. especially that first poem by Keats...



fabulous post, Tom... and that poem by you... out of mist... mystical...

:)

Lally said...

Brilliant, as always.

TC said...

Thank you Melissa, HB, Michael.


Yes, Melissa, a reminder of a deeper self, one we do perhaps share in common with JK (and with each other).


(HB, for the record, I should perhaps note that that first poem, "Solipsism", is also by me -- and in fact was written some 45 years ago -- though I am happy to think you took it to be a poem by Keats, as its resemblance to certain Keatsian moods was what caused me to set it afloat amid these mists...)

TC said...

(...and what moods might those be? enquires the inner voice. Moods of uttering complete nonsense?)