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Wednesday 18 May 2016

Wallace Stevens: Seventy Years Later, from The Rock ("It is an illusion that we were ever alive")

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A man stands in a building earmarked for demolition in the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, May 17, 2016. Kenya's authorities tore down a badly built residential block in the poor Nairobi district on Tuesday, one of more than 250 shoddy buildings that could now face demolition after a six-story structure collapsed this month killing 51 people. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic SEARCH "MATHARE DEMOLITION" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "THE WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES   TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A man stands in a building earmarked for demolition in the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya’s authorities tore down a badly built residential block in the poor Nairobi district on Tuesday, one of more than 250 shoddy buildings that could now face demolition after a six-story structure collapsed this month killing 51 people.: photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters, 17 May 2016

A man stands in a building earmarked for demolition in the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, May 17, 2016. Kenya's authorities tore down a badly built residential block in the poor Nairobi district on Tuesday, one of more than 250 shoddy buildings that could now face demolition after a six-story structure collapsed this month killing 51 people. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic SEARCH "MATHARE DEMOLITION" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "THE WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES   TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A man stands in a building earmarked for demolition in the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya’s authorities tore down a badly built residential block in the poor Nairobi district on Tuesday, one of more than 250 shoddy buildings that could now face demolition after a six-story structure collapsed this month killing 51 people.: photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters, 17 May 2016

Rock | by LowerDarnley

Rock [Moab, Utah]: photo by Jim Rohan, 2 May 2016

It is an illusion that we were ever alive,
Lived in the houses of mothers, arranged ourselves
By our own motions in a freedom of air.

Regard the freedom of seventy years ago.
It is no longer air. The houses still stand,
Though they are rigid in rigid emptiness.

Even our shadows, their shadows, no longer remain.
The lives these lived in the mind are at an end.
They never were ... The sounds of the guitar

Were not and are not. Absurd. The words spoken
Were not and are not. It is not to be believed.
The meeting at noon at the edge of the field seems like

An invention, an embrace between one desperate clod
And another in a fantastic consciousness,
In a queer assertion of humanity:

A theorem proposed between the two --
Two figures in a nature of the sun,
In the sun’s design of its own happiness,

As if nothingness contained a métier,
A vital assumption, an impermanence
In its permanent cold, an illusion so desired

That the green leaves came and covered the high rock,
That the lilacs came and bloomed, like a blindness cleaned,
Exclaiming bright sight, as it was satisfied,

In a birth of sight. The blooming and the musk
Were being alive, an incessant being alive,
A particular being, that gross universe.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955): Seventy Years Later, from The Rock, 1950, in The Rock (1954)


A fisherman sits to smoke on his boat at a Bak Angrout dried up pond at the drought-hit Kandal province in Cambodia

A fisherman smokes on his boat at a dried up pond at the drought-hit Kandal province in Cambodia: photo by Reuters, 16 May 2016

A fisherman sits to smoke on his boat at a Bak Angrout dried up pond at the drought-hit Kandal province in Cambodia

A fisherman smokes on his boat at a dried up pond at the drought-hit Kandal province in Cambodia: photo by Reuters, 16 May 2016

A man injured following clashes with Kenyan riot police officers, runs away from teargas, during a demonstration of Kenya's opposition supporters in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016.  Opposition protestors led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga gathered outside the Indepedent Electoral and Boundaries Comission building to demand the dismissal of IEBC commissioners, after alleged bias towards the ruling Jubillee Alliance Party. / AFP PHOTO / CARL DE SOUZACARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images
  A man injured following clashes with Kenyan riot police officers, runs away from teargas, during a demonstration of Kenya's opposition supporters in Nairobi: photo by Carl De Souza/AFP, 16 May 2016

A man injured following clashes with Kenyan riot police officers, runs away from teargas, during a demonstration of Kenya's opposition supporters in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016.  Opposition protestors led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga gathered outside the Indepedent Electoral and Boundaries Comission building to demand the dismissal of IEBC commissioners, after alleged bias towards the ruling Jubillee Alliance Party. / AFP PHOTO / CARL DE SOUZACARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images

A man injured following clashes with Kenyan riot police officers, runs away from teargas, during a demonstration of Kenya's opposition supporters in Nairobi: photo by Carl De Souza/AFP, 16 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

Migrants rest in Tripoli after they were rescued off the coast of Libya
: photo by EPA, 17 May 2016


CHANGZHOU, CHINA - MAY 12:  A worker takes samples for quality of molten iron outside a furnace at the Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation on May 12, 2016 in Changzhou, Jiangsu. Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation is a privately-owned manufacturer that employs over 13,000 workers at its facility in China's eastern Jiangsu province. Since 2001, the company says it has adopted new technology to streamline the production of premium quality steel and to reduce environmental impact. The majority of its steel output is for the Chinese market with 20% earmarked for export, mostly to Asia. The company says it is profitable, but admits business has dropped marginally from past years. China is the world's largest steel producer, accounting for over 50% of global supply. China's government has vowed to cut production capacity at state-owned enterprises by up to 150 million tonnes over five years to ease concerns of an oversupply on global markets. However, its efforts appear to be overshadowed by a recent increase in steel prices that has revived production at some Chinese facilities that had been closed down.  (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A worker takes samples for quality of molten iron outside a furnace at the Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, China: photo by Kevin Frayer, 17 May 2016

CHANGZHOU, CHINA - MAY 12:  A worker takes samples for quality of molten iron outside a furnace at the Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation on May 12, 2016 in Changzhou, Jiangsu. Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation is a privately-owned manufacturer that employs over 13,000 workers at its facility in China's eastern Jiangsu province. Since 2001, the company says it has adopted new technology to streamline the production of premium quality steel and to reduce environmental impact. The majority of its steel output is for the Chinese market with 20% earmarked for export, mostly to Asia. The company says it is profitable, but admits business has dropped marginally from past years. China is the world's largest steel producer, accounting for over 50% of global supply. China's government has vowed to cut production capacity at state-owned enterprises by up to 150 million tonnes over five years to ease concerns of an oversupply on global markets. However, its efforts appear to be overshadowed by a recent increase in steel prices that has revived production at some Chinese facilities that had been closed down.  (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A worker takes samples for quality of molten iron outside a furnace at the Zhong Tian (Zenith) Steel Group Corporation in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, China: photo by Kevin Frayer, 17 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

A Sri Lankan resident wades through floodwaters in Pugoda
: photo by Ishara S Kodikara / AFP, 17 May 2016


World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

Men exercise on the banks of the River Ganges ahead of the Bengal mud wrestling championships in Kolkata
: photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters, 17 May 2016


A Sadhu or Hindu holy man combs his beard after taking a dip in the waters of Shipra river during Simhastha Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, India May 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
 
A Sadhu or Hindu holy man combs his beard after taking a dip in the waters of Shipra river during Simhastha Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, India: photo by Jitendra Prakash/Reuters, 16 May 2016

A Sadhu or Hindu holy man combs his beard after taking a dip in the waters of Shipra river during Simhastha Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, India May 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A Sadhu or Hindu holy man combs his beard after taking a dip in the waters of Shipra river during Simhastha Kumbh Mela in Ujjain, India: photo by Jitendra Prakash/Reuters, 16 May 2016
 
World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

Construction workers in Yangon, Myanmar:
photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP, 17 May 2016


A wrestler applies mud to prevent slipping due to sweat, at a traditional training centre on the banks of the river Ganges ahead of the Bengal mud wrestling championships, in Kolkata, India today

A wrestler applies mud to prevent slipping due to sweat, at a traditional training centre on the banks of the river Ganges ahead of the Bengal mud wrestling championships, in Kolkata, India today: photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters, 17 May 2016

A wrestler applies mud to prevent slipping due to sweat, at a traditional training centre on the banks of the river Ganges ahead of the Bengal mud wrestling championships, in Kolkata, India today

A wrestler applies mud to prevent slipping due to sweat, at a traditional training centre on the banks of the river Ganges ahead of the Bengal mud wrestling championships, in Kolkata, India today: photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters, 17 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

The starboard side of the world’s largest cruise ship, the 361m-long Harmony of the Seas, as it arrives in Southampton
: photo by Peter Nicholls / Reuters, 17 May 2016


World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

Pedernales, Ecuador, a month after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the city
: photo by Rodrigo Beundia / AFP, 17 May 2016

 
World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

A man runs past a riot police officer trying to kick him as supporters of Kenya’s opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy are dispersed during a demonstration in Nairobi
: photo by Dai Kurokawa / EPA, 17 May 2016


World in focus — best photos for May 16, 2016

Toronto Blue Jays Jose Bautista (19) gets hit by Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor (12) after Bautista slid into second in the eighth inning of a baseball game at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas
: photo by Richard W. Rodriguez / Star-Telegram via AP, 16 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 15, 2016

A reveller takes a break during celebration of Virgen de los Desamparados, or Our Lady of the Abandoned, at Diria, Nicaragua
: photo by Oswaldo Rivas / Reuters, 15 May 2016


World in focus — best photos for May 17, 2016

A Palestinian boy plays with a ball in front of a mural at the Deir Al Balah refugee camp in central Gaza Strip
: photo by Suhaib Salem / Reuters, 17 May 2016

France Labor Protests

A youth throws a stick at riot police officers during a protest in Paris. Truckers blocked French highways and workers marched through city streets Tuesday to protest longer working hours, but President Francois Hollande is insisting he won’t abandon the labour reforms that sparked their anger.: photo by Francois Mori/AP,  17 May 2016

France Labor Protests

A youth throws a stick at riot police officers during a protest in Paris. Truckers blocked French highways and workers marched through city streets Tuesday to protest longer working hours, but President Francois Hollande is insisting he won’t abandon the labour reforms that sparked their anger.: photo by Francois Mori/AP,  17 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 15, 2016

Syrian boys seen on a bicycle in Deraa: photo by Mohamad Abazeed / AFP, 15 May 2016


A vendor eats her meal near busts of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong for sale at a curio market in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. Exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. The milestone was largely ignored Monday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a "catastrophe."
A vendor eats her meal near busts of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong for sale at a curio market in Beijing, China today: photo by Ng Han Guan/AP, 16 May 2016

A vendor eats her meal near busts of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong for sale at a curio market in Beijing, China, Monday, May 16, 2016. Exactly 50 years ago, China embarked on what was formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a decade of tumult launched by Mao Zedong to revive communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. The milestone was largely ignored Monday in the Chinese media, reflecting continuing sensitivities about a period that was later declared a "catastrophe."

A vendor eats her meal near busts of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong for sale at a curio market in Beijing, China today: photo by Ng Han Guan/AP, 16 May 2016

World in focus — best photos for May 16, 2016

A woman hangs laundry near her tent in front of the wired fence that separates Greece and Macedonia at a makeshift refugee camp on the northern Greek border point of Idomeni. Thousands of stranded refugees and migrants have camped in Idomeni for months after the border was closed.
: photo by Petros Giannakouris / AP, 16 May 2016


Artists, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst pose during a photocall to launch the Newport Street Gallery in London with Koon's piece "Play-Doh".

Artists Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst pose during a photocall for the exhibition ‘Now’ with Koons' piece Play-Doh at Newport Street Gallery in London: photo by Charlie Bibby/FT, 17 May 2016

Artists, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst pose during a photocall to launch the Newport Street Gallery in London with Koon's piece "Play-Doh".

Artists Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst pose during a photocall for the exhibition ‘Now’ with Koons' piece Play-Doh at Newport Street Gallery in London: photo by Charlie Bibby/FT, 17 May 2016

epa05311531 An activist of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement named 'Sister Dominique' in front of a rainbow flag during an event held in front of the state parliament in Potsdam, Germany, 17 May 2016. The rainbow flag is flying in front of the Brandenburg state parliament on the same day. The flag has been popularised worldwide as a symbol of the LGBT movement.  EPA/RALF HIRSCHBERGER

An activist of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement named ‘Sister Dominique’ in front of a rainbow flag during an event held in front of the state parliament in Potsdam, Germany: photo by Ralf Hirschberger/EPA, 17 May 2016

3 comments:

tpw said...

An amazing poem. But the truth hurts.

Lally said...

another knockout combo of poetry and pictures Tom...I thank you particularly for the poem which I don't remember, either old age or post-op brain forgetfulness but it is now a new favorite...

TC said...

Thanks guys. Yes, truth hurts -- the opening lines here feel it. Rare revelation for Stevens.

He was perhaps in a time of troubled passage -- troubled sleep, troubled dreams.

Can it be that, inescapably, a world slips in somehow, whatever the construction of self-protection?

This poem is the first of a series of three.

Have just now done up the third:

Wallace Stevens: Forms of the Rock in a Night-Hymn