The Given Is Ground (From Renga)

The given is ground.  You are bound by it

as the eyes are bound – by a frame of nearnesses

surrounding things half-seen  :  thick, bare

calligraphy and confusion of boughs on air :

 

It is given, the confusion of the trees

of infinitesimal particles of dust

flies on the grain of paper, grasses

mouths     blank in the ground of sight :

Confused, you come back, confusion diffused,

uncertain insect,

scabies for each of my eyelids, sword for the iris, bare

scene : your navel is the eye of my tree, wide

landscape of chains, of whips, hypodermic for my vein :

ground, trees, thickets, navel, fixed ray

(Ares and Eros) : the writing breathes – nuptial sea.

 

From Renga, A Chain of Poems by Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubaud, Eduardo Sanguinetti, Charles Tomlinson (translations by Charles Tomlinson).  New York, George Braziller, 1971.

Blue Turns To Grey (Constable/Jagger/Richards)

Well, now that she is gone,

You won't feel bad for long,

For maybe just an Hour or 

Just a moment of the day --

Then blue turns to grey

And try as you may.

You just don't feel good --

And you don't feel alright.

And you know that

You must find her

Find her, find her . . .

She's not home when you call,

So you then go to All

The places where she likes to be,

But she has gone away --

Then blue turns to grey

And try as you may

You just don't feel good --

And you don't feel alright.

And you know that

You must find her

Find her, find her . . .

Key:

Song:  Blue Turns To Grey (Jagger-Richards)

Performance Link 1:  Cliff Richard and the Shadows (1966)

Performance Link 2:  The Rolling Stones (1965)

Paintings:

Top:  John Constable, Study of Cirrus Clouds, 1822, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Middle:  John Constable, Sky Study With Shaft of Sunlight, 1822, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Bottom, John Constable, Cloud Study (Hampstead Heath), 1822, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

This post is dedicated to Beyond The Pale (www.tomclark.blogspot.com), which never fails to turn grey days into colorful ones.

(International Klein) Blue Turns To (Bering Sea) Grey

Well, now that she is gone,

You won't feel bad for long,

For maybe just an Hour or 

Just a Moment of the day --

Then blue turns to grey!

And try as you may.

You just don't feel good --

And you don't feel alright.

And you know that

You must find her

Find her, find her!

She's not home when you call,

So you then go to All

The places where she likes to be,

But she has gone away --

Then blue turns to grey!

And try as you may

You just don't feel good --

And you don't feel alright.

And you know that

You must find her

Find her, find her!

Key:

Song:  Blue Turns To Grey (Jagger/Richards)

Performance 1 link:  The Rolling Stones (1964)

Performance 2 link:  The Apaches (1992)

Images:

1.  Yves Klein, IKB 91, 1962

2.  Bering Sea. Named for Vitus Bering (1681-1741), a Danish navigator in Russian service, who in 1728 was the first European to systematically explore it.  Sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean, after Semyon Dezhnyov and Fedot Popov in 1648, Vitus Bering was the first known explorer to pass between Asia and North America and thus prove that they are separate continents, though he did not realize it at the time.