“My turn now. The story of one of my insanities.
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes-- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naive rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
― Arthur Rimbaud
For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes-- and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.
What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children's books, old operas, silly old songs, the naive rhythms of country rimes.
I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic.
I invented colors for the vowels! A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.
I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
― Arthur Rimbaud
there has been so much hubbub about the supreme court hearings around doma and prop 8. rightfully so, too. this could be another monumental achievement which will affect the lives of so many gay men and women- both in relationships currently and all the downline duos yet to be.
love is so very under-developed in my culture. it was something that we dared not speak its name just a few decades ago. now it seems as if half the country- including the sequesters with the black robes who are vested with the task of interpreting the language and the intent of those who came before us.
i am quite simply gobsmacked by the prospect of this momentous removal of stigma from the landscape of same-sex lovers. it has proved an albatross and a handicap that so many of my contemporaries have had to trudge through life carrying in their backpacks. it has been the source of so much shame-based trauma which in turn has probably created generations of spiritual nomads- wandering through their lives never believing they had the right to settle anywhere. my brothers and sisters for generations have wandered with their deserted hearts living lustfully for the moment without much expectation of a connection which might last more than a season or two. yet here i sit tonight in quiet awe at this current wind which may blow this drought out of our lives forever. history could be made.
i have to admit that i see so many other issues in my culture- specifically derived from the nomadic nature of our hearts that i struggle strangely with being happy about the prospect of marriage equality. but this is my stuff. there is no magic cure. some of us will not assimilate or perhaps every really feel lovable- no matter how beautifully bright and colorful the celebration glows.
but maybe there is an exception.
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