A police car explodes after being set on fire during an unauthorized counter-demonstration against police violence today in Paris, as Police across France demonstrate today against the “anti-cop hatred” they say they have endured during a wave of anti-government protests since early March: photo by Rielle Sicard/AFP, 18 May 2016
A police car explodes after being set on fire during an unauthorized counter-demonstration against police violence today in Paris, as Police across France demonstrate today against the “anti-cop hatred” they say they have endured during a wave of anti-government protests since early March: photo by Rielle Sicard/AFP, 18 May 2016
A police car burns during a demonstration against police violence and against French labour law reform in Paris: photo by Charles Platiau / Reuters, 18 May 2016
The rock is the gray particular of man's life, The stone from which he rises, up -- and -- ho, The step to the bleaker depths of his descents ... The rock is the stern particular of the air, The mirror of the planets, one by one, But through man's eye, their silent rhapsodist, Turquoise the rock, at odious evening bright With redness that sticks fast to evil dreams; The difficult rightness of half-risen day. The rock is the habitation of the whole, Its strength and measure, that which is near, point A In a perspective that begins again
At B: the origin of the mango's rind.
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955): Forms of the Rock in a Night-Hymn, from The Rock, 1950, in The Rock (1954)
An overloaded car travels through the Assaga refugee camp in Diffa close to the Niger-Nigeria border: photo by Boureima Hama/AFP, 18 May 2016
An overloaded car travels through the Assaga refugee camp in Diffa, close to the Niger-Nigeria border: photo by Boureima Hama / AFP, 18 May 2016
Sri Lankan commuters drive through floodwaters along an expressway in the suburb of Athurugeriya in the capital Colombo: photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi / AFP, 18 May 2016
Sri Lankan commuters drive through floodwaters along an expressway in the Colombo suburb of Athurugeriya: photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi / AFP, 18 May 2016
The area where a landslide struck in the village of Aranayake in central Sri Lanka: photo by President’s Office / AFP, 18 May 2016
Sri Lanka’s disaster management centre said that 114 homes have been destroyed and more than 137,000 people have been evacuated to safety: photo by Eranga Jayawardena / AP, 18 May 2016
A picture taken with a slow shutter speed shows a performer singing and dancing on stage during a media call for Singin’ in the Rain at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne: photo by Tracey Nearmy / EPA, 12 May 2016
Workers sit as they take a break near a banner of a new apartment in Jakarta, Indonesia: photo by Beawiharta/Reuters, 18 May 2016
Substitutes react after their team-mates scored a goal during the first school football tournament, in the rebel-held city of Douma, Syria: photo by Mohammed Badra/EPA, 18 May 2016
Substitutes react after their team-mates scored a goal during the first school football tournament, in the rebel-held city of Douma, Syria: photo by Mohammed Badra/EPA, 18 May 2016
Boys listen to their coach during a school football championship in the rebel-held town of Douma, eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta: photo by Bassam Khabieh / Reuters, 15 May 2016
Kurdish mourners gather around coffins in Sarikamis, on the outskirts of Diyarbakir: photo by. Ilyas Akengin / AFP, 18 May 2016
that which is near: point A
Members of the Chinese honour guard stand at attention during a welcoming ceremony for Mozambique’s President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing: photo by Mark Schiefelbein / AP, 18 May 2016
Models pose by an old sandstone chapel during a fashion show for label Romance Was Born on the waterfront of Sydney Harbour during Australian Fashion Week: photo by Jason Reed / Reuters, 18 May 2016
Graduating students from Barnard College during the Columbia University 2016 Commencement ceremony in New York. Barnard College is a private women’s liberal arts college founded in 1889: photo by Timothy A. Clary, 18 May 2016
Graduating students from Barnard College during the Columbia University 2016 Commencement ceremony in New York. Barnard College is a private women’s liberal arts college founded in 1889: photo by Timothy A. Clary, 18 May 2016
Fareed Khan/AP
Pakistani boys cool themselves off during a heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan: photo by Fareed Khan/AP, 18 May 2016
Queen Elizabeth II leaves Buckingham Palace, London, ahead of the State Opening of Parliament: photo by Dominic Lipinski/PA, 18 May 2016
Queen Elizabeth II leaves Buckingham Palace, London, ahead of the State Opening of Parliament: photo by Dominic Lipinski/PA, 18 May 2016
Mangoes #9a: After the Fruit Bats: photo by Like Jazz, 4 January 2010
Mango trees during a storm, Srimongal, Syrhet, Bangladesh: photo by s_karr, 13 May 2009
Mangoes #9a: After the Fruit Bats: photo by Like Jazz, 4 January 2010
Mango trees during a storm, Srimongal, Syrhet, Bangladesh: photo by s_karr, 13 May 2009
4 comments:
oh the rock !!
‘The difficult rightness of half-risen day.’ The truth of this fits well in the mind and on the ear. The contrasts in these posts, Tom, remind me of Arcimboldo’s portraits of the human head, made up of fruits and vegetables. Yours provide a sobering portrait of the asylum in all its, ahem, variety. Today’s tour of the planet winds up with the Queen Mum wistfully staring out, as though at those storm-tossed mangoes in the former colonies.
Tom
Wonderful to see old Uncle Walnut back in your good graces. I remember your "13 Ways of Looking at a Shitbird", kind of made Stevens a guilty pleasure for me, as though something in the work wasn't to be touched. Still, I went on reading him, kind of like Beckett, the less I understood him the closer I figured I was getting to the heart of him. But maybe he never was in your bad graces and I was misreading your poem. And I had always hoped that it was Ted Hughes' "Crow" that you'd go after.
Again, such an amazing combination of word and image, and thanks for including the Queen Mum, though you could have whited out the old Nazi, her husband, in the background.
Thank you Sandra, Hazen and Hanf. Definitely if it's not the colonies we're forever in then it must indeed be the asylum.
The old nazi can at least hold his head upright we must give him that much, we of the increasingly incapacitating neck wattles who would have been kings.
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