“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”
― Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)
Art by David Wyatt.
Her skin is like fire
her breath, distant desire
Flowers meet
for their annual feast
any time you kiss
her meatiness white…
Her hair comes from the stars
a supernova dust
it shines and coils
and transports
all of you
in a magic land…
Where seas are soft and wild
Winds blow
Of unknown stories
That paint and burn
Sounds
On your skin
That rekindle
Every time
She moves in sight…
Art by Julia Gabrielov.
Asbestos = a soft, greyish-white material that does not burn, used especially in the past as a protection against fire and as a form of insulation.
“Some writers can handle lava with bare hands, but I’m not so tough, my skin is not asbestos. And in fact I have no interest in confession. My games are transformation and invention.”
–Ursula K. Le Guin
Art by Dani Soon.
I long for a dream,
within a dream
that clears the sight
of you.
I am asleep and asleep
I feel nothing
But the craddle of your arms
like orange snakes
thrashing fears around…
Black and white tale
Shall that be…
Every night a little dream
in the dead of sleep
in the depth of you…
………………………………..
Words spatter lights
in pools.
Do not squander their yellow glare
To guard you through winter…
Art – Ivan Volkov, Tatiana Larina’s Dream from Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’, 1891.
This is an old poem from 2015.
Symbiotic = involving interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association.
“Stories … are genuinely symbiotic organisms that we live with, that allow human beings to advance.”
– Neil Gaiman
Art by Rob Rey.
There are countless lures in our lives or it may be that our lives are made of lures. Mine is the sea. I hear its song all over the year and like Ulysses’ sailors I am not wise enough to deafen my ears. I am trapped into its blue.
The sea knows things and is a cure. For loneliness, grief, unhappiness and love, as Mr. Somerset Maugham wisely put:
“You know, when one’s in love,’ I said, ‘and things go all wrong, one’s terribly unhappy and one thinks one won’t ever get over it. But you’ll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.
Well, love isn’t a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You’ll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.”
―W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
So when one’s in love, get on a boat… I cannot help but love Somerset’s magic realism.
I illustrate with pictures from my short May holiday in the Ionian.
I know someone
who kisses the way
a flower opens,
but more rapidly. – Mary Oliver
I know someone
who breathes as soft
as stories
find nests into lives.
I know someone
who touches
the sunset light
in the sycamores.
I know someone
who kisses
in Binary Code
One in spirit
One in flesh…
Art by Viktor Vasnetsov.
Dandelion = a small wild plant with a bright yellow flower that becomes a soft white ball of seeds called a dandelion clock.
“Most of the dandelions had changed from suns into moons.”
–Vladimir Nabokov
Art by James R. Eads.
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” – Bruce Lee
In the whirlwinds of our existence we don’t look at Things… We are petrified in the rat race. When was the last time you saw the stars? A flower, the blossoming trees? Felt the wind on your face?… I have read that only 80 people on earth can remember every single day of their lives. So why should you be so angry or miserable today, when you won’t even remember Today? We probably remember the best of days that trampled upon our souls in shimmering happiness.
Be like water! Change color and flow…
There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners. –Antoni Gaudi
Maybe the rumors are right, maybe Gaudi was counselled by a fairy about his high-end innovative, dream-like “curved” architecture. In this respect I am relieved and resolved to keep on talking with the fairies that at times whisper soft and pleasurable words into my ears.
Also a fairy has told me that in Love, space is curved, not straight… As Love is the most natural thing of things to feel and to flow in as if in water, smoothly and naturally spreading walls of scented charm like innocently does a plum tree. Amend the curves, give valor to them and expect nothing.
Do you think the moon expects applause when it shines above dense darkness and blinking eyes in the murky forests?
© Iulia Halatz
Art by Vladimir Kush.
Writing is
quieting the burns
from people’s thoughts and deeds
And dissolving
all knowledge
that this will
ever happen…
© Iulia Halatz
Art by Andrea Kowch.