Holy City, City of Night

Lesser Ury

                                *

     Everywhere the windows give up nothing 

     but frost’s intricate veined foliage. 

Charles E. Burchfield
                              * 

     But there’s only January’s 

     rough ministry peeling my face away. 

     Light like the cruel light of another century 

     & I’m thinking of Dickinson’s letter, 

     “Many who were in their bloom have gone 

     to their last account and the mourners go about 

     the streets. "

Frederick Childe Hassam,
'Promenade at Sunset'



Walter Frederick Osborne,'Street Scene'


Marie Henri Mackenzie,' Amsterdam'


Alisa Yufa


Santiago Rusiñol


An idle moment by John White Alexander


Jean Leon Henri Gouweloos,'La toilette'


Santiago Rusiñol


Patrik Andiné (detail)


Polly Thayer (Starr), Self Portrait


 Frederick Carl Frieseke


John Porter Lasater IV,'South and Carroll'


Sir Edward John Poynter,'Asterié'


John White Alexander,'A Woman in Rose'


William MacGregor Paxton,'The Note painting'


William MacGregor Paxton,'The Blue Book painting'

                                     *
     the powdery glow floating 

            the street with evening—saffron, rose, sienna 

      bricks, matte gold

Santiago Rusiñol


Santiago Rusiñol


Theo van Rysselberghe,'Denise Marechal'


Theo van Rysselberghe,'Little Denise'


 Balthus 


 James Guthrie,'The Velvet Cloak'

                             *
       the buzz-snap of 

     talk blurring hallucinatory fraught  

     avenues. Illusive inner city, drugged 

        majestic residence spiraled with staircases, 

     balustrades rococoed, lapidary. Invisible empires 

        dreamt beneath the witchery of birds 

     circling the Common with twilight

Voider Sun


Otto Elsner, 
A view over the roofs of the church Maria am Gestade

Jamie Heiden,'Just Another...'(photo)

                                 *
     cities amnesiac where evening’s 

     genesis falls through vast deserted silences

Artem Demura

                                *

      That is 

     love, isn’t it? Everything you meant to be falls 

        away so you dwell within a perfect 

            singularity, a kind of saint. 

***
Title and all lines from a poem 'Suite for Emily' by Lynda Hull