The petals of tenderness in them,
their tentative ways of feeling, not quite reaching out
but ever so gently half reaching out and withdrawing,
withdrawing to where their feminine star is withdrawing,
the planet that turns with them,
faithfully and softly...
- Tennesee Williams -
And if there is something which is not soft in the city,
such as a cry too hard for the soft mouth to hold,
God puts a soft stop to it.
Bending invisibly down, He breathes a narcosis
over the panicky face upturned to entreat Him:
a word as soft as morphine is the word that God uses,
placing His soft hand over the mouth of the cryer
before it has time to gather the force of a cry.
It is almost as if no cry had ever been thought of...
Eastward the city with scarcely even a murmur
turns in the soft dusk,
the lights of it blur,
the delicate spires are unequal
as though the emollient dusk had begun to dissolve them...
- Tennesee Williams -
Complex yet smooth intertwined like fishnet stocking, hands
rough to tough.
Strong like the jagged rockiest intermixed personality reaching
beyond our comprehension.
- Paul P Sanchez -
It all started with a phone line message
- Paul P Sanchez -
the mysteries of the tall heaven,
the tall and very soft heaven,
are softest of all!
- Tennesee Williams -
What is the beginning? A beginning is happiness.
What is the end? No one lives there now.
What is a beginning? The beginning is light.
What makes happiness? Nothing.
What makes an ending? What does not.
What is her skin? Her skin is composed of strange clothing and clouds of butterflies,
of events and odors, of the rose fingers of dawn, transparent suns of full
daylight, blue loves of dusk and night fish with huge eyes.
Max Walter Svanberg
...
Who is happy? Nothing is necessary, everything that is is.
When does it end? A green delight the wounded mind endears
After the hustling world is broken off.
John Clare
...
When does it matter? Blue loaves of dusk.
Who perishes?
Who listens? There will be prizes.
...
When is it over?...into childhood...into fantasy...through the streets of New
York...through tropical skies....into the receiving trays the balls come to rest
releasing prizes.
Joseph Cornell
...
When does it end? Listens with the hands.
Does it end? The hands which are small and wide.
...
Who suffers? No one returns from there.
Who suffers? There was once a small forest with a path of white pebbles
and a tame group of frights and follies; whoever entered knew
the path would carry them to the other side, but that it would be
scary and fun at the same time. No one who entered was ever seen again.
Is there a sound? There is a forest.
Who listens? The large lady with the small dog, she leans into the
neighbor’s yard to sniff the hydrangea once more hoping
this time it will have an odor, a sweetness which she feels
such a desperate need for she is near despair, she is thinking
of killing herself except who would care for the dog, who could know
what he feels what he needs what his smelly bed in the corner actually
means to him.
What matters? There is a forest.
Who listens? Another theory of the origin of the universe holds that
“matter” is a way of thinking, a little like love, actually, if you think
of it that way.
What matters? There is a forest.
What is the word? There is color, and no one know what to do with it.
We would be happier without it is one theory; we are irresponsible
and full of angers like colors.
...
What is pain? A small island, or perhaps it is a large island, the adjective is
merely relative and a convenience. There are a few inhabitants—one,
actually, ever at a time—and the sky’s red would perhaps be beautiful if
there were another even a single other inhabitant, alas.
What is pain? A man turns and locks his door with exactly the same small
dance of hands every morning at the same hour and pockets the key
followed by a pat of the pocket with the hand which just locked the
door. Unknown to him it is his life, it is the center and source of what
he calls his life. It makes him what he is happy to call happy.
Who suffers? Oh, it is true, there are causes of cruelty, it is that kind of world.
What is geometry? It is how we know, and what.
What is the purpose of memory? Blue lines of dust.
...
Does the child suffer? The child is suffering.
...
What is to perish?
What is to choose?
What is to crush?
.................................................................................................................................................
art from top to bottom:
1. Lionel Bulmer 2. Lionel Bulmer, 'Blue Lamp'
3. Frederick Carl Frieseke, 'The Rose Peignoir' 4. Bernard Dunstan, 'The Zip Fastener'
5. Joshua Flint, ' A Year of Soft Conversation' (detail & work in progress)
6. Walter Gramatté, ''Tired Flower Girl Sonia''
7. Rudolf Cronau, '9 West 57th Street, New York, NY.'
8. René Magritte, 'Pandora’s Box'
9. Leonardo Cremonini, ' Les sens et les choses' (detail) 10. Maria Lani
11. Moïse Kisling, 'Jean Cocteau' 12. Franz Lerch, 'Sitzendes Mädchen' [Seated Girl]
13. Anna Katrina Zinkeisen 14. Lenz Geerk
15. Andrew Cranston, 'Couple from Dumbarton'
16. William Merritt Chase, 'La Toeletta'
17. Hhenri de Toulousee-Lautrec, 'Woman Setaed on a Couch'
18. Édouard Manet, 'At the Milliner's' (La modiste) 19. David Bomberg
20 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 'Eine Künstlergemeinschaft' (Un groupe d'artistes)
21. George Grosz - Metropolis 22. Félix Vallotton, "Chaste Suzanne"
23. Julio Larraz, 'Reflections' 24. Otto Herschel, 'Mamsell'
25. Félix Vallotton, 'Femme drapée de rouge tenant une cigarette'
26. Gustav Klimt 27. Konstantin Korovin, 'A Parisian Balcony' 28. Mary Blair
