I hear sighs from her grave.

Vitezslava Kaprálová -- 1915 - 1940

We move on through structure and chaos. Through conception and feeling. We slide and tumble through implacable time.

And then there is ennui.

Sometimes, I am drawn up short. The whirlwind moves off just enough. Sometimes, I am gathered up into melancholy.

We are time creatures, but every now and then, time seems to move mysteriously without us. Every now and then, space is opened for ennui, and for thoughts emerging from silence and equivocal being. A space in which I contemplate the absence of a Czech woman who died at age 25.

Vitezslava Kaprálová


I have listened to some of her music. It affects me deeply. I think it is wonderfully and expressively composed. It's the kind of music the secret world is made of. That world of infinite light and shadow dappling human consciousness. It comes to us here through forms intelligently wrought. Soulfully presented. This composer, had she lived longer, would have become famous and would have given the world many remarkable works, would have conducted great orchestras.

I am displeased that Kaprálová has been mostly forgotten. I am sad to think of works that would not be composed, of performances not conducted. I am not reconciled to her death.


Her String Quartet, opus 9 -- Lento movement (incorrectly listed as Con Brio)-- Lento


More information -- kapralova.org

Regina Walker -- healer, artist, friend

Regina is a psychotherapist by profession, and from her soul-delving posts, I get the sense she is a healer by innate constitution. Such compassion toward and understanding of the human condition is not something one really learns. Rather it is a quality of spirit.

I must admit that it took a long time for me to work up the nerve to make friendly overtures. From early on, I was a bit unsteady in the cyber-presence of her quiet sophistication. I mean...I live in the middle of a cotton field in Arkansas. She visits the Museum of Modern Art, for Pete's sake! But over time, her natural warmth became apparent to me. She is not stuck-up at all. She is down-to-earth and has become a dear friend. She likes Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen and other stuff.

Regina is also a writer. Regina is also a photographer. Her spontaneous pictures of New York locales are mysterious to me. Sort of like riddles. It's how these scenes of ordinariness are charged with allusive power. That's where the artist comes in: framing shots that reveal more than what is normally perceived. Evocations bloom in the mind while looking at her photographs. It's like a form of abstract art. Especially her focus on surfaces the textures of which convey ennui, entropy, melancholy. She also plays with shadows and reflections to create moody moments.

Apart from those aspects, there is another: the mostly unperceived, down-in-the-grooves life of a great city is brought to our attention. Those areas of the city she captures reveal personalities and histories. The collective after-glow of human passion and struggle is implicit in many of these pictures.

Recently, her images were featured in a group exhibition in Florida. And here is a link to her portfolio: Regina's Portfolio

She also has a cool blog going on at Tumblr: Regina's Blog


Another reason Regina is an artist is because she loves paintings. One doesn't have to wield a brush, in my opinion, to have the soul of a painter. A depth of appreciation helps bring the works of an artist to life, and farther into the world. I have learned much -- been exposed to painters I knew little about -- through Regina's enthusiasm and tasteful selection of posted images.

Regina is solid. At least she seems so to me. Who knows what whirlwinds and shadows pass through the soul of another? But she always appears to me as an image and source of solid strength. Of poise. Of quiet humor. Of generosity and soulful empathy.

Lu Salome -- a profound silence

Lu lives in Serbia, and I've been FB friends with her for about 16 months. I met her and several other wonderful people through a FB fan page for the painter Yves Tanguy (my favorite Modernist).

The thing about Lu is............

Yes, the volume of silence. It is palpable.

I have never known anyone like this before. I know a few who also impress with their coiled, quiet, and mysterious self-possession. But I've never known someone like Lu, who could make the Buddha flinch first in a staring contest. India, China, and Japan think they have the market cornered on the transcendental stuff. Ha! They require special gardens and temples and flowering trees. They need their Zen propped up with nice, peaceful environments. Lu would win big-time in a reality contest!

Here's the deal: she likes the poetry of Hölderin and philosophy and art and the kind of films that knock me over, like Ikiru and things by Tarkovsky. And music! -- she likes very intersting music. Some of it is beyond me. That dark "European" stuff, with cool guys sort of complaining in higher registers about things I can't quite make out. But I like some of it. She likes Leonard Cohen. Lu rocks!

Last year, I spent some time researching the history and geography of Serbia. What an amazing place. It was a cross-roads for so many different peoples over the centuries. Such an interfusion of cultures. And great heroes, leading movements for independence. The scenery over there is stunning -- ruined castles, sparkling rivers, a variety of landscape. And the present culture is fascinating, from ancient residues to modern absorptions. One of my favorite movies is Underground, which many Serbians don't like, owing to its stereotypical portrayal of wild gypsies. But, god...that thing is funny. Sorry.

Back to Lu and the spherical aura of poise that surrounds her. This is not an anti-social or arrogant poise. Within the dimensions of her being, a sweetness and a genuineness are alive. Of course, I'm a goofy goose. Of course, I'm a needy human being. So of course, I like to imagine that, from that far distance, Lu occasionally smiles quietly at my written antics. I like being liked by people of depth. Who have taken their time in life to discover significant things.

Well, it's kind of hard to write about someone who inhabits regions of spiritual silence. You'd have to obliquely brush up against her soul to know what I'm trying to express. In the meantime (and if her privacy settings allow), here's a link to her FB page that contains an album -- The Book of Silence: Facebook album


And here's a song for you, Lu --

Marquee Moon

Matt Dioguardi -- about his brain

Matt lives in Japan and teaches English. Matt thinks about things. The neuronal pattern of his brain has a certain array or shape that is different than mine. At least as far as processing rational information goes. He is reasonable and perceptive and methodical. I am irrational and hallucinatory and slap-dash. But there is one area in which our brains seem to align -- poetry.

But first, more about the differences.

He recently ordered my favorite book in the universe: Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles. That was so neat of him, that gesture of camaraderie...of desiring to share in a piece of my world. What, I wonder, does he think of that book? OMG! He will be confronted with things that express the essence of my being. With that region from which my odd thoughts spring. If a great metaphysical difference appears in those pages, I hope it is not too jarring. I hope that book does not cause him mental illness.

Occasionally on FB, we get into discussions about general things. When I type something, it always seems perfectly simple and unquestionably correct to me. I post it, and then WHAM!...Matt has some different ideas about it all. And then when I try to restate his case (which is the proper way to debate), I never even get close to what he meant. Damn. Our brains are not in alignment. It's frustrating for me, and it must be for him, too. But I tend to concede the fact that his brain is wired according to the proper directions. Whereas mine has a few wires loose. So when it comes to philosophical, economic, other didactic stuff, I'll simply sigh at my wrongheadedness and eventually salute his tighter frontal lobes.

Now when it comes to poetry, Matt and I have no such problem. He seems to like some of my poems, and I like some of his. We both acknowledge that mysterious aesthetic domain as a source of subtler, intenser truth. Matt writes a new poem every day and posts it on his cool blog Shadow of Iris -- Shadow of Iris blog. You can click on the player below each poem to hear his recitation. He writes these as a challenge to himself and as a way to keep the juices always flowing.

I like most of his poems. And some are remarkable. Here's one that especially struck me:


a gibbet swings

in the sullen winds
while drizzle falls
on old bones
grown green with moss.


Matt is civilized, self-effacing, and reasonable. And talented. He's okay as far as I'm concerned. And maybe it's a good thing that his brain and my brain were wired by distinct mischievous gnomes.

Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor

Usually when I listen to Dvořák's magnificent score, I think of unrequited passion, romantic love. I just listened to it again, and something else came to me. Isn't music wonderful? It can stimulate so many different worlds in the heart and mind.

I'm always put in a dark-toned mood. Is that because I usually listen at night? I don't think so. This work seems to have a nocturnal personality, at least a spirit of twilight. And my imagination? Last night, it received this concerto as a Lament of the Pagan Gods.

In the farther depths of a Slavic forest. In a grotto strewn with boulders from craggy heights. Those invisible beings – those felt forms – of lustful energies and creative dynamism huddle round a large fire magically blazing its cold flames. They know their end is near. They have felt themselves fading from human minds and hearts for centuries. Christianity has trespassed the circle of Old Nature and is conquering with sword and with new conceptions of time and meaning. Now, a direction toward “truth” is displacing the enchanted stasis of pure being. As the people begin to embrace this new way, the rains falling in forest and in village are mingled with the tears of those rejected Titans.

The last movement – Finale: Allegro moderato – is like a Dance of Hoary Pride and Ancient Memory. Yes, those gods must fade as a new form of experience pervades the land. But they will not perish. They will merely sleep in hidden places of the land and deep in Slavic hearts. Someday, when the the madness of “truth” lifts like an exhausted plague, the Mighty Ones will awake and carry human imagination into a future beyond belief.

Cello Concerto in B minor
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Van Gogh's DRAWBRIDGE WITH CARRIAGE

Drawbridge with Carriage -- 1888

Van Gogh's vibrant, light-filled painting does something to me. And it does something of itself: it comes to freaking life! It's not simply a matter of vivified geometry and color, not only that it seems to pulse beyond the two-dimensional plane. Yes, it does that, and the viewer senses that he could step into the scene, breathe the very air. More than those things, a spiritual dimension presents itself.

The half-drowned boat is a cradle of cerulean water dreams. Time has been dismissed from this picture. We are, for a “spell,” eternal observers of an eternal riverside. The bright morning light touching the bricks and bridge scaffolding brushes our souls with an incomprehensible melancholy. Those washerwomen are not ordinary citizens of reality. No, they are strange angels extruded from evolution's durational mysteries. And the sky! That blue vault – somehow light and dark simultaneously – is the Spirit of the World holding all beauty and all strife together in a tension of possibility. My mood is one of wonder. My imagination is overwhelmed.

Connie Stadler -- poet of depth and beauty

Constance Stadler's current profile picture on Facebook shows her as a girl playing a violin. Her expression is indescribable. Well, I'll try anyway: she is in a moment of depth and beauty. That photo always gets to me. It affects me with a pleasing melancholy.

Facebook is an unusual place. We can form relationships that are important, even when we don't know that much personal detail about someone. I know that Connie has earned a couple PhDs. I think she has traveled a lot. Seen things. Personality-wise, she comes across to me as a warm, quiet, and thoughtful person. And very eloquent in writing. Yes, Facebook allows the formation of slightly shadowed angles, within which something essential and intense might appear.

Connie's poems have appeared to me.

In general, her inexhaustible vocabulary enriches many of those poems. In general, her expansive awareness enables variety of theme. In general, her heart and soul move the lines through passion and many other moods. But I want to focus on one poem here:


I dream, now...

In the forest of blue heron
On the whitest of white nights
The moon clouds pass
As laden caravanserai.
Cedar shadow calligraphy
Communicates what no human can
Cygnets sleep in sepia wash
In fearless surrender.
Darkness and I stroll among these
gardens within myself.
Sip wine, exchange no thoughts.

Copyright 2009, Connie Stadler


I keep coming back to this poem. To me, it is a wondrous thing. It is a gift to world literature.

Sometimes, I'm a bit dense. Is this a dream or a reminiscence? Or a living stroll through scenic intensity? It mostly doesn't matter to me. It seems to have an Asian quality. Or a timeless quality of equivocal location. That's very good. That opens space for the imagination to live in.

I'm unable to describe, really, how this poem affects me. This will have to suffice: it affects me like measures of haunting music.

Technically, these lines are perfect. The rhythm is sparkling and flawless. The line-breaks are exquisitely done. And this poem does what I respond to so well: it conveys meaning and emotion through images. Theme is implicit. The soul's mood is presented via natural analogs, not through maudlin and irritating confession. When the protagonist finally appears in the last three lines, she comes compellingly, intensely present. The last line is marvelous. I'm right there with her, like a transparent comrade.

Yes, what lines! Those beauties breathing with a Poundian cadence. Coming from a depth of numinous poise.


Connie's newest collection of poems is RUMMAGING IN THE ATTIC
Rummaging in the Attic (Differentia Press)