patterns . . .

the
blind
eye

(I)

sees
a
prism

(prison)

of

colors

Copyright © 2005 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

art for OUR sake ! ? !

"Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion – that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake, has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake."

(Walter Pater, Conclusion to Studies in the History of the Renaissance)


"Heraclitus says that all things give way and nothing remains"

(Plato's Cratylus)

Observations on Dreams

"Mein Freund, das grad' ist Dichter's Werk,
dess er sein Traumen deut' und merk'.
Glaubt mir, des Menschen wahrster Wahn
wird ihm im Traume aufgethan:
all' Dichtkunst und Poeterei
ist nichts als Wahrtraum-Deuterei."

(Hans Sachs, Mastersingers)

"My friend, that is exactly the poet's task,
to mark his dreams and to attach meanings to them.
Believe me, man's most profound illusions
are revealed to him in dreams;
and all versifying and poetizing
is nothing but an interpretation of them"

(Clifton P. Fadiman's translation)


"The beautiful appearance of the dream-worlds, in creating which every man is a perfect artist, is the prerequisite of all plastic art, and in fact, as we shall see, of an important part of poetry also. In our dreams we delight in the immediate apprehension of form; all forms speak to us; none are unimportant, none are superfluous. But, when this dream-reality is most intense, we also have, glimmering through it, the sensation of its appearance: at least this is my experience, as to whose frequency, aye normality, I could adduce many proofs, in addition to the sayings of the poets . . . the aesthetically sensitive man stands in the same relation to the reality of dreams as the philosopher does to the reality of existence; he is a close and willing observer, for these pictures afford him an interpretation of life, and it is by these processes that he trains himself for life . . ."

(Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

A Study of Poetry

"But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact."

"More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry."

"Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic character . . . if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word classic, classical), then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can . . . This is what is salutary, this is what is formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry."

"Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar."

(Matthew Arnold, "The Study of Poetry")

beforeverafterwords . . .

beforeverafterwords

Quick now, here, now, always –

there and then, when
there was time
there was no time
for here and now,
while meanwhile,
now nowhere,
in the meantime
time is everywhere
but there and then,
in the end,
still here and now,
how or where
will I begin,
in time whenever
there is time

? ! ?

Copyright © 2006 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

"And all shall be well and . . ."

"And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."

(T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding")

The Road to Roam

runaway child
far away, all alone,
daddy’s dead and mama’s gone
to bed awhile –
no place like home–

and thus all roads must lead to roam . . .

no time or space
to bear the face
that wears a mask –
do I dare? you ask –

as one who has no one to turn to
now yearns to know how to learn when to
hide and seek and then turn aside and say –

something . . . nothing . . . anyway . . . –

the grief, the disbelief
of knowing, not knowing,
of never really coming to know

anything

forever freely going
to and fro
from end to end
to question

everything

while meanwhile
the runaway child
far away, all alone,
wonders why . . .

if all roads lead to roam,
do I still need a home?


Copyright © 2004 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

my beginning is my end is my beginning . . .

my beginning is my end is my beginning . . .

"In my beginning is my end . . .
In my end is my beginning."

(T.S. Eliot, "East Coker")


"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . ."

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

(T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding")

"On Incomprehensibility"

“Of all things that have to do with communicating ideas, what could be more fascinating than the question of whether such communication is actually possible?”

(Friedrich Schlegel, "On Incomprehensibility")

"Usually incomprehension doesn't derive from a lack of intelligence, but from a lack of sense."

(Friedrich Schlegel, "Athenaum Fragments")


"You're not really supposed to understand me, but I want very much for you to listen to me."

"To begin with, I speak only to those who are already facing the Orient."

"I have expressed a few ideas pointing towards the heart of things, and have greeted the dawn in my own way, from my own point of view. Let anyone who knows the road do likewise in his own way, from his point of view."

(Friedrich Schlegel, "Ideas")

versos inversos . . .

Em Verso

que meus versos sejam
quase versos, quase palavras
sem
que meus sonhos sejam
quase sonhos, quase memórias
de alguém
qualquer
que nunca será nada sempre
ninguém
que sempre será nada nunca
alguém
que quer
que seus sonhos sejam
quase sonhos, quase memórias
nem
que seus versos sejam
quase versos, quase palavras


Copyright © 2002 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira