Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Azmi Bishara - Separation Or Unity
Azmi Bishara
Negotiations on the "two-state solution" have been voided of all substance. The Palestinian national liberation movement has lost all its sources of strength as a liberation movement, including its ability to rely on the Arab community instead of the "international community". It lost and forfeited its sources of strength before ever becoming a state and securing national sovereignty. It became the Palestinian Authority, an entity totally dependent upon negotiations, America's and Israel's good intentions, Israeli public opinion and other such factors. Negotiations over the Palestinian state have been reduced to a process of blackmail in which concessions are demanded and offered and fundamental rights are bartered away... ~ Azmi Bishara: Separation or unity
Limelight - Make Mine Gold
Lubna Abdel-Aziz
It is round our necks, on our chest, our fingers, our wrists, anklets, ear-lobes, teeth, and now on our minds and lips on a daily basis. It is the most precious of all metals, bright yellow, flaming red, gleaming, glistening, gold. It is the gold rush of the new millennium, with its rising prices going through the roof, leaving us all in a conundrum. Some want to sell, some want to buy, while some others wear a Cheshire cat smile as they watch their wise investments grow in value by the minute. As economies swing from inflation to recession, "as good as gold" acquires a new significance, with the fluctuations of world markets and paper currencies...
~ Lubna Abdel-Aziz: Make mine gold
Alone - Edgar Allan Poe
Alone
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Paris Hilton Veiled
Paris Hilton tries on a veil as she poses for photographers during a photocall in Istanbul, Turkey, 27 March 2008. Paris Hilton is in Turkey as the guest of a Turkish private TV channel and will attend the Miss Turkey 2008 beauty contest as a jury member. (AP)
Click here or on image to enlarge
Click here or on image to enlarge
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Saudi Woman - Prayer Beads
A Saudi woman holds prayer beads as she visits the Saudi Travel and Tourism Investment Market fair in the capital Riyadh, 24 March 2008. (AFP)
Parting At Morning
Parting At Morning
by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Basho On Poetry
In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orfices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly. ~ Matsuo Basho (1644-1694): The Records Of A Travel-Worn Satchel
Shakespeare And His Friends At The Mermaid Tavern
Shakespeare And His Friends At The Mermaid Tavern (1850)
by John Faed (1819-1902)
Click here or on image to enlarge
by John Faed (1819-1902)
Click here or on image to enlarge
Monday, March 24, 2008
The Chandos Portrait Of William Shakespeare
The Chandos Portrait
Of William Shakespeare
An oil painting believed to have been painted by John Taylor (?) around 1610. The portrait is called the Chandos Shakespeare because it once belonged to the Duke of Chandos (1673-1744). The portrait was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London on its foundation in 1856 and is listed number 1 in its collection.
How Do I Love Thee?
How Do I Love Thee?
(Sonnet 43)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Shakira - The Veil Dance
Shakira - The Veil Dance
Tour Choreography Video:
Shakira dancing during her
Oral Fixation Tour.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Anna Beer On John Milton
poetictouch.com
Anna Beer talks to Sarah Crown about her new biography of poet
John Milton, published 400 years after his birth. (Guardian)
John Milton, published 400 years after his birth. (Guardian)
Clenched Soul - Pablo Neruda
Clenched Soul
by Pablo Neruda (1893-1967)
Poema 10
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.
Poema 10
Hemos perdido aún este crepúsculo.
Nadie nos vio esta tarde con las manos unidas
mientras la noche azul caía sobre el mundo.
He visto desde mi ventana
la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.
A veces como una moneda
se encendaía un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.
Yo te recordaba con el alma apretada
de esa tristeza que tú me conoces.
Entonces, dónde estabas?
Entre qué genes?
Diciendo qué palabras?
Por qué se me vendrá todo el amor de golpe
cuando me siento triste, y te siento lejana?
Cayó el libro que siempre se toma en el crepúsculo,
y como un perro herido rodó a mis pies mi capa.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
At The Movies - Michael Wood
Michael Wood
• The Conformist directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)
There is a fine, far-reaching moment in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, handsomely set up by the director and beautifully spun out by the actor. Peter Sellers, as the creepy and protean Clare Quilty, has struck up a conversation with James Mason, as Humbert Humbert. The latter is in no mood for any kind of conversation, since he is just marking time before he returns to his hotel room to have sex, as he hopes, with his under-age stepdaughter. Quilty, having mysteriously divined most of this, pretends to be a plainclothes policeman and starts up a series of speculations about what 'a really normal guy' like Humbert must be feeling. Mason, who most of the time looks a touch too normal for the movie's good - sinister, but normal - gets very uncomfortable and by the time Quilty, thoroughly enjoying himself, has used the word 'normal' for the fifth or sixth time, both characters seem distinctly weird and the very idea of normality appears freakish. How could anyone be 'normal'? What could be stranger?... ~ Michael Wood: At The Movies
Saudi Women Writers - Bahrain Book Fair
• Saudi poet Hanan Abu Hamid (Right) signs a copy of her book Ana Heya Kul
Al-Nisaa (I Am All The Women) during a book signing event at the 13th Bahrain International Book Fair in Manama, 20 March 2008. (AFP)
• Saudi writer Samar
Al-Muqrin (Bottom) signs
a copy of her book Nisaa
Al-Munkar during a book signing event at the 13th Bahrain International Book Fair in Manama, 20 March 2008. (AFP)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Dance Me To The End Of Love - Song
Background Painting: Dance Me To the End of Love by Jack Vettriano
Dance Me To The End Of Love
by Leonard Cohen (1934-)
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Metamorphosis - Charles Bukowski
Metamorphosis
by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)
a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
now I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rhythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
Sappho and Alcaeus
Sappho and Alcaeus (1881) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)
Click here or on image to enlarge
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
The False Friends
The False Friends
by Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
They laid their hands upon my head,
They stroked my cheek and brow;
And time could heal a hurt, they said,
And time could dim a vow.
And they were pitiful and mild
Who whispered to me then,
"The heart that breaks in April, child,
Will mend in May again."
Oh, many a mended heart they knew.
So old they were, and wise.
And little did they have to do
To come to me with lies!
Who flings me silly talk of May
Shall meet a bitter soul;
For June was nearly spent away
Before my heart was whole.
Kalimat (Music) - Majidah El-Roumi
Background Painting: Dance Me To the End of Love by Jack Vettriano
• Related Link: Kalimat - Majidah El-Roumi
Kalimat - Majidah El-Roumi
Background Painting: Dance Me To the End of Love by Jack Vettriano
• Related Link: Kalimat (Music) - Majidah El-Roumi
Friday, March 14, 2008
Aishwariya Rai - Mumbai
Bollywood actress Aishwariya Rai is seen after the awards ceremony of an annual international film festival organised by Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image in Mumbai, 13 March 2008. (Reuters)
Rueful Fervor
Rueful Fervor
by Maha Noor Elahi
A bitter sigh invades me
When I recall my objectivity
And my honesty with you.
"Love is selfish"..."love is blind"
So they say...
And so I've proved it a lie
For my love emanates from my mind;
"I don't deserve you, my love",
Said I with an astonishing might.
Well... I was dimly fair
Acting like an insolvent heir
Who withdraws in dignity and pride.
And now...after losing your allure,
I wonder in a rueful fervor,
Why was I so naively honorable?
Why didn't I give control to my lust
Instead of being unquestionably just?
Oh, love...would you listen to me now
If I turn into a biased loving female?
Would you listen to me if I egoistically say:
Only my naughty eyes are worth your charm...
Only my hungry flames are worth your arms...
And no other prejudiced woman
Can give you what I can?
July 3rd, 2007
Copyright © Maha Noor Elahi
Thursday, March 13, 2008
In My Craft Or Sullen Art
In My Craft Or Sullen Art
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
• The Poems of Dylan Thomas (1952)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
R Young Art
Proud Flamenco Dancer 2007 by Richard Young
Click here or on image to enlarge
The Passion of Dance 2006
by Richard Young
Flamenco Woman 2007
by Richard Young
Last Tango In Paris 2007 by Richard Young
Click here or on image to enlarge
Related Link: R Young Art
La Figlia Che Piange
La Figlia Che Piange
by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
O quam te memorem Virgo ... *
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair--
Lean on a garden urn--
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair--
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise--
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.
So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.
She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.
• Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
* Epigraph: How shall I name thee, Maiden? • Virgil: Aeneid (I, 327)
Digging - Seamus Heaney
Digging
by Seamus Heaney (1939-)
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
• from Death of a Naturalist (1966)
Tradition And The Individual Talent
In English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence. We cannot refer to "the tradition" or to "a tradition"; at most, we employ the adjective in saying that the poetry of So-and-so is "traditional" or even "too traditional". Seldom, perhaps, does the word appear except in a phrase of censure. If otherwise, it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of some pleasing archæological reconstruction. You can hardly make the word agreeable to English ears without this comfortable reference to the reassuring science of archæology... • T. S. Eliot: Tradition And The Individual Talent
