inefekt, Milky Way over Guilderton Lighthouse, Western Australia, 2016
Saturday | 7 May 2016 | 09:43 PM 
"Love means that you accept a person with all their failures, stupidities, ugly points, and nonetheless, you see perfection in imperfection itself." ~ Žižek
Friday | 22 April 2016 | 09:49 PM
A Ballard of Death by Algernon Charles Swinburne Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a grievous thing, And many sorrows after each his wise For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve. O Love's lute heard about the lands of death, Left hanged upon the trees that were therein; O Love and Time and Sin, Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath, Three lovers, each one evil spoken of; O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine Came softer with her praise; Abide a little for our lady's love. The kisses of her mouth were more than wine, And more than peace the passage of her days. O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see. O Time, thou shalt not find in any land Till, cast out of thine hand, The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee, Another woman fashioned like as this. O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her Was made a goodly thing; Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss, With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier Than lips of amorous roses in late spring. By night there stood over against my bed Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black, Both sides drawn fully back From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red, And temples drained of purple and full of death. Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water And the sea's gold in it. Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth. Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her, And pearl and purple and amber on her feet. Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline Were painted all the secret ways of love And covered things thereof, That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine; Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves, And brides that kept within the bride-chamber Their garment of soft shame, And weeping faces of the wearied loves That swoon in sleep and awake wearier, With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame. The tears that through her eyelids fell on me Made mine own bitter where they ran between As blood had fallen therein, She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see If any glad thing be or any good Now the best thing is taken forth of us; Even she to whom all praise Was as one flower in a great multitude, One glorious flower of many and glorious, One day found gracious among many days: Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whom At kissing times across her stateliest bed Kings bowed themselves and shed Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb, And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering; Even she between whose lips the kiss became As fire and frankincense; Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king, Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame, Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence. Then I beheld, and lo on the other side My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead. Sweet still, but now not red, Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died. And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade, The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes. And sweet, but like spoilt gold, The weight of colour in her tresses weighed. And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes, The body that was clothed with love of old. Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair And all the hollow bosom of her gown— Ah! that my tears ran down Even to the place where many kisses were, Even where her parted breast-flowers have place, Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this? Ah! the flowers cleave apart And their sweet fills the tender interspace; Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart. Ah! in the days when God did good to me, Each part about her was a righteous thing; Her mouth an almsgiving, The glory of her garments charity, The beauty of her bosom a good deed, In the good days when God kept sight of us; Love lay upon her eyes, And on that hair whereof the world takes heed; And all her body was more virtuous Than souls of women fashioned otherwise. Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves Rain-rotten in rank lands, Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves And grass that fades ere any of it be mown; And when thy bosom is filled full thereof Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth, And say "My master that was thrall to Love Is become thrall to Death." Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan. But make no sojourn in thy outgoing; For haply it may be That when thy feet return at evening Death shall come in with thee.
Thursday | 21 April 2016 | 08:45 PM
"Spotted a volcano smoking away on Russia’s far east coast this morning – heat has melted snow around top"~ Tim Peake on the ISS
Monday | 18 April 2016 | 09:31 PM
Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight Years Old Wearing a Coat with Fur Collar, 1500
Thursday | 14 April 2016 | 06:30 PM
Born this day
On the Heart's Beginning to Cloud the Mind by Robert Frost Something I saw or thought I saw In the desert at midnight in Utah, Looking out of my lower berth At moonlit sky and moonlit earth. The sky had here and there a star; The earth had a single light afar, A flickering, human pathetic light, That was maintained against the night, It seemed to me, by the people there, With a Godforsaken brute despair. It would flutter and fall in half an hour Like the last petal off a flower. But my heart was beginning to cloud my mind. I knew a tale of a better kind. That far light flickers because of trees. The people can burn it as long as they please; And when their interests in it end, They can leave it to someone else to tend. Come back that way a summer hence, I should find it no more no less intense. I pass, but scarcely pass no doubt, When one will say, "Let's put it out." The other without demur agrees. They can keep it burning as long as they please; They can put it out whenever they please. One looks out last from the darkened room At the shiny desert with spots of gloom That might be people and are but cedar, Have no purpose, have no leader, Have never made the first move to assemble, And so are nothing to make her tremble. She can think of places that are not thus Without indulging a "Not for us!" Life is not so sinister-grave. Matter of fact has made them brave. He is husband, she is wife. She fears him not, they fear not life. They know where another light has been, And more than one, to theirs akin, But earlier out for bed tonight, So lost on me in my surface flight. This I saw when waking late, Going by at a railroad rate, Looking through wreaths of engine smoke Far into the lives of other folk.
Saturday | 26 March 2016 | 11:44 PM
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