Sunday, May 31, 2009

Poets to come


Poets to come! Orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
but you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! For you must justify me.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping
turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,

Expecting the main things from you.
[1860]

Walt Whitman, 31 May 1819 - 26. March 1892

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Hm ...

... like a volcano, tonight
I am a sitting here and ... write ...

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Kiss


Give me, my love, that billing kiss
I taught you one delicious night

When, turning epicures in bliss,

We tried inventions of delight.'

Thomas Moore

And thus ends my little homage to Thomas Moore on the occasion of his 230th birthday. I wonder though, why he did not choose as title 'The Meeting of the Tongues'.

The Meeting of the Waters

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.


'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
in thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

Thomas Moore *28th May 1779

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

For each beginning bears a special magic*

I did not know what exactly Chris was thinking of when he told me of his idea to let some of my photos accompany (great) poets reading their own poems. However: I got curious - like I always am when visiting my philosopher's blog.

Well, and so it comes that God-free Morals and Omnium together are starting what - who knows? - might become a project.
Will it be interesting for our readers, friends and those who might stumble upon our blogs?
Hopefully. And if not? Well, in this case we may comfort ourselves with what Arnold Schoenberg once stated:
If it is art it is not for all
and if it is for all
it is no art.

So take your choice. And let us know. :)
Here's for a beginning ...




* :) with thanks to Hermann Hesse for writing one of my favourite poems.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Abraham Kuyper Neglected Titan ...

... is the latest article at Westminster Wisdom.

Why would I mention this?

Well, I think it could be particularly interesting for my Dutch readers to read this and his previous articles (and comment upon), and - it's an opportunity to commend Gracchi's blog especially to cineasts and those who are interested in history / politics.

Ah, and did I mention Livi? :)

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Luo Pin - an Eccentric's Visions

Walking a Crane in a Bamboo Grove
Undated
From 'Figures and Landscapes, after Poems by Jin Nong'
Album of twelve leaves, ink and colour on paper, 24.3 x 30.7 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing
The Museum Rietberg Zürich, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, [til 12 July 2009; sj] presents an exhibition dedicated to the Chinese painter Luo Pin (1733–1799). In China, Luo Pin is renowned as one of the most original artists of his time. He was seen as an expert in the supernatural, a man who saw and painted ghosts. [...].

Drunken Zhong Kui
Dated 1762
Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 57.0 x 39.0 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing

Some of his contemporaries described Luo Pin as a virtuous scholar, a pious Buddhist, caring husband and devoted father; others saw him as a wayward eccentric and a charming partygoer. His multifaceted personality is also reflected in his versatility as an artist. This is the very first time that such a large selection of Luo Pin’s greatest works has been shown in the West. Among the highlights of the exhibition are a number of masterpieces loaned by the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum.

Luo Ping was born in 1733 in the city of Yangzhou, a flourishing cultural and commercial centre. His literary and artistic talents brought him attention at an early age and attracted the interest of Jin Nong* (1687–1763), one of the leading figures in Yangzhou bohemia, who accepted the 23-year-old Luo as his student. Until Jin’s death, the two men maintained an unusually close friendship, unique in the history of Chinese art. Both Jin and Luo were among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, a loose group of individualistic painters who revolutionised Chinese art.

Full article here.
The Sword Terrace (detail)
Dated 1794
Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 100.3 x 27.4 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing

More photos here.


* Gallery of Jin Nong

Friday, May 22, 2009

Good reason to write a novel

I condemn slavery, I banish poverty,
I teach the ignorant, I treat
disease, I lighten the night,
I hate hatred.*

Victor Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885)

*That is what I am, and that is why I have written Les Misérables.




Related:
More Strong than Time

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Gap is widening

Well, actually it's no news that the gap between rich and poor is widening. Those who have eyes to read, ears to hear and a tiny bit capacity for remembering will know that this 'metapher' in 25 years has become a set phrase, being repeated every now and then.
In so far it's one of those 'news' of which I think with Thoreau a ready wit might have written it a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Anyway, for those few on this planet who still consider Germany a land where milk and honey flows.

A new study by a German welfare organization shows that the gap between rich and poor is widening in the country, with the east and northwest lagging clearly behind the south.

Full article here.


Monday, May 18, 2009

Don't eat'em - teach'em

Just back from Chris God-free Morals, who offers a lesson about the Irony of our hypocritical attitude to animals, I am still overwhelmed.

Yes, rather than to eat or ride on them we should help them evolve. It's all about education, isn't it?


Voyage into the Brain

The following is an excerpt from one of the most fascinating documentaries I've been watching in many years. Expedition ins Gehirn / A Voyage into the Brain.

Wondrous paths ...

Sometimes the paths of thinking are ... wondrous; and not easily are they to describe.

To cut it short: When following the glorious links Stan offered in the comment section to A statue for Gülsüm! suddenly I thought of this woman. Why?

Well, look above. :)

Anyway, here's something to listen and ... think about.

Monday, Monday

Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Young May Moon


The young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow - worm's lamp is gleaming, love;
How sweet to rove
Through Morna's grove,
When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake! - the heavens look bright, my dear,
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear;
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the Sage, his star - watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star
More glorious far
Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake! - till rise of sun, my dear,
The Sage's glass we'll shun, my dear,
Or in watching the flight
Of bodies of light
He might happen to take thee for one, my dear!

Thomas Moore

Friday, May 15, 2009

Echo


How sweet the answer Echo makes
To Music at night
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away o'er lawns and lakes
Yet Love hath echoes truer far
And far more sweet
Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,
Of horn or lute or soft guitar
The songs repeat.

'Tis when the sigh, - in youth sincere
And only then,
The sigh that's breathed for one to hear -
Is by that one, that only dear
Breathed back again.

Thomas Moore

Thursday, May 14, 2009

A statue for Gülsüm!

A cow in the village of Kadiruşağı in the eastern province of Malatya has been sent to a neighboring village because its owner feared she would be punished for the animal knocking down a statue (of Atatürk; Omnium) in the local schoolyard.

The accident caused the local education department to launch a formal inquiry into the matter, frightening the cow’s owner, Gül Kılınç, who said she had sold the animal, named Gülsüm, to a friend in the neighboring village of İnekpınarı to wait out the inquiry.
[...] "Officials came and took our testimony. Almost every member of the village was questioned"* [...].

* emphasise mine

More about this absolutely shocking incident at Hürriyet.

As Turkishness is unrivalled,
I do fear this cow is a poor sow.

It might be interesting, though, to interview her and the author o
r journalist, Gülsüm might soon share a prison cell with.


Meanwhile, in a poll amongst cows worldwide, 99,98 percent mooed:
"A statue for Gülsüm!



Related articles (warmly commended):
Spreading Mr. Kemal's news (Part I of an exclusive interview with the late Atatürk)

Take it easy, Venus

It's somehow amazing, yes.
Interesting anyway; both the find and - the enthusiastic way in which it's celebrated. Well, and the name it's given: Venus of Hohle Fels.

Well, when I am thinking of Venus, I do have another picture in my mind. :)

In so far, it's nice in today's NYT to read following lead:
No one would mistake the Stone Age ivory carving for a Venus de Milo. The voluptuous woman depicted is, to say the least, earthier, with huge, projecting breasts and sexually explicit genitals.

Full article here.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

... there our Paradise

Dyddgu, brilliant creature, with your soft dark hair your secret lover I invite you to the Manafon dingle. Here is no coarse food spread for you, nor gluttonous eating in a hut; nor porridge nor stirabout, the reapers' small profit: nor a bite of a ploughman's dinner, nor lean Lent meat. Nor have I invited any Englishman with his loud drunken friends, nor a labourers' feed celebrating their coming to manhood; I promise you nothing but mead and the song of a nightingale, the brown-backed nightingale with her light dancing song, and the thrush with his strong pleasant tongue. What better place than this, deep over-hung by the green birch-trees. While we lie out there under the leaves, the splendid trees hang over our celebration, and high above us the birds play in the branches. Ringed about us are nine trees, the finest in the wood; below them we lie in a round hollow, a green belfry above us, and all around the fresh white clover, heaven's flour. There two people, or three can lie by the hour untroubled, where the gentle roebuck seeks wild oats, where birds sing, where I am glad. Where the blackbird builds his thick nest, where the majestic trees stand, where hawks feed their young, there is our new dwelling of leaves, there is our ready passion, there our Paradise. There is the pale light in the shade of the hanging branches, by the still water in the smokeless air, in the tangled bushes where no meal-beggar nor scraggy cheese-beggar shows himself, there let us two go, I and my girl with her eyes bright as a glow-worm, skin white as a wave, there will we two lie tonight.
Daffyd ap Gwilym

All poems posted here so far you will find by clicking the labels for this post. Enjoy.

Full empty

In general people stick to not speaking with full mouth;
is their head empty - now, that's a different story.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Except when it's cold

Yo-no-na-ka, ho-ka-ho-ka na-no-yo
no-
na-
ka,
ho-
ka-
ho-
ka
na-
no-
yo


From wherever you look at it: The world is a warm place.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Just to increase my stats

Gardening, flowers, (romantic) poems, 'sweet' songs (of love) ... oh, what a boring apolitic blog Omnium has become - some readers might think...

... perhaps -? :) - not thinking of that everything is politics;

... perhaps - ? :) - not being aware that it is politics saying: I don't care about politics'.

End of the beforegoing.

As everybody knows I am just crazy about my stats. Absolutely crazy. 90 percent of my time I am thinking of my stats. Gosh, Jesus, Allah, Montezuma, Buddha, Venus, all gods I don't mention ... and not to forget the devine head of a dead sardine - care for my stats.

It's why I am linking to billions of blogs, visit each hour millions of them and leave myriads of comments ... such as: Wonderful! Brilliant! Nicely put! Love it! Aww, gorgeous! Amazing! etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum ...

and not to forget: would be sssoooo lovely if you found time to visit my wonderful ... eh humble blog.
Lots of love, Yours ...

End of the beforegoing.

Back to the stats I am such crazy about.
For weeks - ah what am I saying? - for months ! they have been decreasing. And that's only why the watchdogs of Monsanto are obviously thinking 'another idiot's resignating'.

Ah, gentle(wo)men: How could I risk your jobs. Forgive me, please?

You see, I thought it's only fair to give a certain President some days more than one hundred to prove that eloquency which by a credulous majority is easily taken for charisma, can be as dangerous and evil as what an imbecile son of a former evil babbit that managed / was chosen to become President of the most wonderful of all wonderful countries, could ever babble.

End of the beforegoing.


To slowly ... very slowly ... enure readers what might - if I feel like :) - (again) become a topic on at of Omnium - ah those prepositions! -, here's for a very tiny warm-up.

Maybe I am going to feel fancy to ask the most honourable Mr. Obama what he has been doing about those bucking fastards in his country during the past 100 + X days.
May be there will some other questions been asked.

Yes, I can!

Such questions won't change anything, you say?

:)

Quite. But isn't is a pleasure to call liars liars, and greedy bastards greedy bastards?

And now imagine: Those greedy bastards - most of them at least any Sunday showing sanctimoneously presence in the church of their choice ... convert to Islam / Judaism / Buddhism/ Hinduism / start worshipping the head of a dead sardine ...

Now, that would help to save the planet!

The peace of the night.

The Instinct of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?

John Clare


And for those who want more,
here's a door to John Clare's poetry ...

Blue Diamond

Sometimes ... sometimes ...

Ah, why telling my thoughts in 50 sentences, when after clicking on this tiny picture of an unimposing periwinkle within a second you will know them, anyway.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Not Novalis, but ...

... another hymn ... )

Enjoy!

Hymn to the Night IV

Now I know when will come the last morning - when the Light no more scares away Night and Love - when sleep shall be without waking, and but one continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the dark bosom of the mound against whose foot breaks the flood of the world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the Night - truly he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.

On those heights he builds for himself tabernacles - tabernacles of peace, there longs and loves and gazes across, until the welcomest of all hours draws him down into the waters of the spring - afloat above remains what is earthly, and is swept back in storms, but what became holy by the touch of love, runs free through hidden ways to the region beyond, where, like fragrances, it mingles with love asleep.

Still wakest thou, cheerful Light, that weary man to his labour - and into me pourest joyous life - but thou wilest me not away from Memory's moss-grown monument. Gladly will I stir busy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of me - praise the lustre of thy splendour - pursue unwearied the lovely harmonies of thy skilled handicraft - gladly contemplate the clever pace of thy mighty, luminous clock - explore the balance of the forces and the laws of the wondrous play of countless worlds and their seasons. But true to the Night remains my secret heart, and to creative Love, her daughter. Canst thou show me a heart eternally true? has thy sun friendly eyes that know me? do thy stars lay hold of my longing hand? and return me the tender pressure and the caressing word? was it thou did adorn them with colors and a flickering outline - or was it she who gave to thy jewels a higher, a dearer weight? What delight, what pleasure offers thy life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not everything that inspires us the color of the Night? She sustains thee mother-like, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into thyself - in boundless space thou wouldst dissolve, if she did not hold thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest warm, and flaming, begot the universe. Truly I was, before thou wast - the mother sent me with my brothers and sisters to inhabit thy world, to hallow it with love that it might be an ever-present memorial - to plant it with flowers unfading. As yet they have not ripened, these thoughts divine - as yet is there small trace of our coming revelation - One day thy clock will point to the end of time, and then thou shalt be as one of us, and shalt, full of ardent longing, be extinguished and die. I feel in me the close of thy activity - heavenly freedom, and blessed return. With wild pangs I recognize thy distance from our home, thy resistance against the ancient, glorious heaven. Thy rage and thy raving are in vain. Unscorchable stands the cross - victory-banner of our breed.

Over I journey
And for each pain
A pleasant sting only
Shall one day remain.
Yet in a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love's lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me,
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Your lustre must vanish
Yon mound underneath -
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I'm gone,
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on.
I feel the flow of
Death's youth-giving flood
To balsam and ether
Transform my blood -
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in holy fire
I die every night.

Novalis (1772 - 1801)

Hymn to the Night III

Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren mound which in its narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my life - lonely as never yet was lonely man, driven by anxiety unspeakable - powerless, and no longer anything but a conscious misery. - As there I looked about me for help, unable to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life with an endless longing: - then, out of the blue distances - from the hills of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight - and at once snapt the bond of birth - the chains of the Light. Away fled the glory of the world, and with it my mourning - the sadness flowed together into a new, unfathomable world - Thou, Night-inspiration, heavenly Slumber, didst come upon me - the region gently upheaved itself; over it hovered my unbound, newborn spirit. The mound became a cloud of dust - and through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed - I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling bond that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest, thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic tears. It was the first, the only dream - and just since then I have held fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its Light, the Beloved.

Novalis (1772 - 1801)

Hymn to the Night II

Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the time never come when Love's hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of the Night. - Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep - gladden not too seldom in this earthly day-labour, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the twilight of the real Night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee not in the golden flood of the grapes - in the magic oil of the almond tree - and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap - never suspect it is thou, opening the doors to Heaven, that steppest to meet them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.

Novalis (1772 - 1801)

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Hymn to the Night I

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light - with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its blue flood - the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it - but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. - Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world - sunk in a deep grave - waste and lonely is
its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes. - The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?


What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved - joy-startled, I see a grave face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a thing seems to me now the Light - how joyous and welcome the departure of the day - because the Night turns away from thee thy servants, you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim thy omnipotence - thy return - in seasons of thy absence. More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts - needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul - that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love - she sends thee to me - thou tenderly beloved - the gracious sun of the Night, - now am I awake - for now am I thine and mine - thou hast made me know the Night - made of me a man - consume with spirit-fire my body, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure forever.

Novalis (1772 - 1801)

Impression du printemps II

Voilà - and some flowers from Seanhenge.

Lilies

Rose

Bleeding Hearts

Don't-know-flower :)

Pansy

Stonecrops, primrose

Cornflower

Tulip

Aquilegia

Bet you know ... :)

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Impression du printemps I

It lasted only 17 days in April; but for you - and me - I saved a bit of the white brightness into May.

Cherry

Apple

Dansom

Strawberries (still blooming)

Saw a window

Harmoniously I loved, my embrace a wanton song under the tangled banks of the wood where my girl slept. How good it was seeing her beauty through the leaves, framed in the shape of love by the oaks as in a mighty aerial window!
I asked a kiss from her through the narrow oak window, and she refused me, did me wrong, my gentle jewel; did not want me. The window, which old and worn faces the bright rays of the sun, obstructed me . . . may I never age like that same window ! A strange vitality mounted huge within me, like that enormous love which once drove Melwas to seize your daughter Cogyfran Gawr, coming from Caerlleon, fearing nothing in his passion. But I, it was scarcely likely I should take my love through a window, seeing I had never seized her in Melwas' manner, and favours are not got by the colour of the pining check . . . O let me be with my lovely jewel face to face at midnight!
Without hope of her, without the light of a star, with no hope of taking her between the joists of the window, my anger rises, rages at the white walls Standing on every side like a boundary stone between me and her. Our noses cannot touch, nor can our lips come together through the lattice, but kiss the Wood . . . O false perplexing torment, trying embraces through a narrow window!


No one has been tormented, set sleep-less between the night and a lattice window as I am sleeplessly tormented: may the devil break this windowed dungeon, and take a crowbar to its pillars! Sharp anger spins through me, shut weeping salt tears outside, weeping at these strong, obstructing, hindering window-frames, which kill my song and keep me from her.

But my hand took up a saw, and soon cut away what kept me sleepless and kept me from the place where my love was.