Green Vincentine

For America is a lady rocking on a porch in an unpainted house on an unused road but Anne does not see it.  For America is a librarian in Wichita coughing dust and sharing sourballs with the postman.  For America is Dr. Abraham passing out penicillin and sugar pills to the town of Woolrich, Pennsylvania. For America is a reformed burglar turned locksmith who pulls up the shades of his shop at nine a.m. daily (except Sunday when he leaves his phone number on the shop door). For America is the headlight man at the Ford plant in Detroit, Michigan, he of the wires, he of the white globe, all day, all day, all year, all his year's headlights, seventy a day, improved by automation, but Anne does not. For America is a miner in Ohio, slipping into the dark hole and bringing forth cat's eyes each night.  For America is only this room . . . there is no useful activity.  For America only your dolls are cheerful.

From "O Ye Tongues" Anne Sexton

Not less because in purple I descended The western day through what you called The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw Or heard or felt came not but from myself; And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

excerpts from "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon," Wallace Stevens

When, dark and dropping straight, the long lines of the rain Like prison-bars outside the window cage us in; And silently, about the caught and helpless brain, We feel the spider walk, and test the web, and spin;

Then all the bells at once ring out in furious clang, Bombarding heaven with howling, horrible to hear, Like lost and wandering souls, that whine in shrill harangue Their obstinate complaints to an unlistening ear.

from "When the low, heavy sky" Charles Baudelaire

image: John Steuart Curry

Had that recurring dream again last night. Driving all over Los Angeles, anxious about reaching an undetermined destination. No people. Just light and shadows and an ever-so-slight sense of dread. Suits me if it happens again tonight.

Now, you don't see me I'm the big boss I do the payin' off After they take care of you In they own way

They may shoot you They may cut you They may drown you

I just don't know I don't care Long as they take care of you In they own way

"I'm Bad Like Jesse James" John Lee Hooker

During the final moments of this masterwork a sacred phrase is sung, yet the words remains rarely understood to this day. 

Those who know these words and recognize their import are numbered among the elect in a secret society. Few of us have ever met or spoken, but we dwell in a house together, and we understand our duty to share the signs and wonders.

To whom much is given much is expected.

"Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like 'Have a nice day”'and 'Weather’s awful today, eh?,' you yearn inside to say forbidden things like 'Tell me something that makes you cry' or 'What do you think deja vu is for?'

But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others."

Timothy  Leary

image: promotional item for West Side Story

Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largess of the spring.

Not for victory but for the day’s work done as well as I was able; not for a seat upon the dais but at the common table.

"Te Deum"     Charles Reznikoff

Artist Véronique Vanblaere’s home-crafted costume for the Dia de los Muertos festival, in a faraway land called the past. I suspect that folks around the globe might be astonished that Birmingham, Alabama was — not that many years ago — home to one of the nation’s most elaborate, arts-community-oriented events for this day of remembrance. 

This cover photo (for the publication at which I was an editor) doesn’t capture the full scale and intricate detail of the entire costume, which was sexy as all get out, but Vero seems undaunted by the time required to build from scratch such an outfit (sewing, painting, etc.).

“I worked on it in the morning before opening the gallery, and then I would go home and do some more all night. So I don’t really add up the exact hours involved. With that schedule, I think it took me about one month.”

Photo: Brian Francis

"Nothing is sweeter to funereal hearts On whom the frost of ages has been laid… than the eternal sight of your pale shade.”

Charles Baudelaire, “Mists and Rains” (translation)

image: Mark of the Vampire (1935, Tod Browning)

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

The Book of Revelation,  8: 10-11

image: El gran amor del conde Drácula (1973, Javier Aguirre)

My eyes are weary of you before me I see for their sake, the light of daybreak It shines upon me, this day we'd all see No reason ever was given No reason ever was given

“Senses”  New Order

image: Nosferatu (1979, Werner Herzog)

I know a little cupboard, With a teeny tiny key, And there's a jar of Lollipops For me, me, me.

It has a little shelf, my dear, As dark as dark can be, And there's a dish of Banbury Cakes For me, me, me.

I have a small fat grandmamma, With a very slippery knee, And she's Keeper of the Cupboard, With the key, key, key.

And when I'm very good, my dear, As good as good can be, There's Banbury Cakes, and Lollipops For me, me, me.

“The Cupboard”  Walter de la Mare 

image: Terence Spencer for LIFE magazine feature “Real Witches At Work: English Pagans Keep an Old Cult Alive,” November 13, 1964

... and in this same incantation we find the the Ring of Lucifer, referenced in the  Latin phrase in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, which, being a brilliant palindrome, reads both backwards and forwards. Translation: "We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire."

“It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful attention.”

Insect Architecture   James Rennie

“Liberty begins where the marvelous is born.”

A Wave of Dreams  Louis Aragon,

“In the grip of a tremendous momentum, we spent more and more time on the practices which led us into our strange inner lands. We delighted in observing the curve of our own exhaustion, and the derangement which followed. For then the marvelous would appear.”

A Wave of Dreams   Louis Aragon

image: Tish Murtha

“Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes...”

The Tempest,  WS

The Equinox Our world and all things in it sigh. Leaves and fruits and vines must die. Birds must fly. We make our plans to say goodbye. Will you make plans? Will you say goodbye?

The World We Know  Karin Jurgens and Damien Fell  (Learning Cycle, publishers)  

image: Paul Trevor

Susanna Martin, pleading Not Guilty to the Indictment of Witchcraft; there were produced the Evidences of many Persons very sensibly and grievously Bewitched. There were these among other Passages between the Magistrates and the Examinate:

Magistrate: Pray, what ails these people? Martin: I don’t know. Magistrate: But what do you think ails them? Martin: I don’t desire to spend my Judgment upon it. Magistrate: Don’t you think they are bewitch’d? Martin: No, I do not think they are. Magistrate: Tell us your Thoughts about them then. Martin: No, my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they are another’s. Their Master— Magistrate: Their Master? Who do you think is their Master? Martin: If they be dealing in the Black Art, you may know as well as I.

From Cotton Mather On Witchcraft, Being: The Wonders of the Invisible World, published at Boston in October 1692.

image: from LIFE photographer Bill Ray’s unpublished shots of the San Bernardino chapter of the Hell’s Angels, 1965