Poetry, stories, art, and music from the desk of Jezzie G, a writer without a label
Wildflower
1996
Popular Music
David Foster
Classical Pop
Born: 1 November 1949, Victoria, Canada
Nationality: Canadian
David Foster is a musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music executive. He chaired Veve Records from 2012—2016. Foster has been nominated for 47 Grammy Awards of which he won 16
Violin Concerto
1938-39
Concerto
Benjamin Britten
Opera, Orchestral, Chamber Music
Born: 22 November 1913, Lowestoft, England
Nationality: British
Died: 4 December 1976, Aldeburgh, England
Britten was a composer, conductor, and pianist. A central figure of 20th century British music Britten’s range included opera, vocal music, orchestral, and chamber pieces. He is best known for the opera “Peter Grimes” (1945), the orchestral showpiece “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” (1945), and the “War Requiem” (1962)
Decadent Days
Album: Sons and Lovers
Date: 1980
Genre: New Wave
Artist: Hazel O’Connor
Hazel O’Connor is a British singer-songwriter and actor. She is best known for the hit singles “Eighth Day” and “Will You.” She also starred in the 1980 film “Breaking Glass”
Here
Form: Cyhydedd Hir
Here, where gods roam free
Nature speaks easy
By the old oak tree
In woodland glade
Here, on the soft ground
Silence hangs around
And a distant sound
Waters cascade
The path leads onward
Taking steps forward
Guiding ways toward
Gossiping foam
Here, where the stream flows
Over smoothed rocks, it goes
Each stepping stone knows
This way is home
©JezzieG2024
Second Hand Reading
2013
Video Art
Flipbook Film from Drawings on Single Pages of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, HD Video, Colour, Sound
‘Second Hand Reading’ is a short, animated film created from Kentridge’s drawings on the pages of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. As the story unfolds the artist appears as a character wearing his trademark white shirt and black trousers and wandering through the book. The film is accompanied by an emotive soundtrack from the South African musician Neo Muyanga
William Kentridge
Video Art, Post-modernism
Born: April 1955, Johannesburg, South Africa
Nationality: South African
Kentridge is an artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. He is especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he created in the 1990s, constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. A single drawing will be changed and filmed this way until the end of a scene and the palimpsest-like drawings displayed along with the film as a finished piece of art
Inspired by and written for the Word of the Day Challenge, my thanks to Cyranny
Form: Awdl Gywydd
Through all of life’s ups and downs
He’s shown himself by my side
As that is what best mates do
Me and you take on that ride
Facing those battles and fears
Wiping tears from broken skin
Pulling each other from crud
It’s not blood that makes us kin
©JezzieG2024
Ripening
The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!
Wendell Berry
Born: 5 August 1934, Kentucky, USA
Nationality: American
Berry is a novelist, poet, essayist, cultural critic, environmental activist, and farmer. He is closely identified with rural Kentucky and his attention to the culture and economy of rural communities can be seen in the novels and stories of Port William. An elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Berry is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal
Catching The Butterfly
Album: Urban Hymns
Date: 1997
Genre: Alternative/Indie
Artist: The Verve
The Verve were a rock band formed in Wigan, Greater Manchester, UK in 1990 by Richard Ashcroft (vocalist), Nick McCabe (guitarist), Simon Jones (bass), and Peter Salisbury (drummer). Known for their psychedelic, shoegaze sound the band’s commercial breakthrough was the album ‘Urban Hymns’ (1997)
Room de Luxe in the Willow Tearooms
1903
Interior Design
Wood, glass, textiles
Tearooms were an alternative to working men’s clubs in Glasgow generated by the campaigns of Scotland’s Temperance movement. Catherine Cranston opened several tearooms in Glasgow and all were designed by Mackintosh.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Art Nouveau, The Vienna Secession, Symbolism
Born: 7 June 1868, Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality: Scottish
Died: 10 December 1928, London, England
Mackintosh was an architect, designer, watercolourist, and artist. His approach and stylistics had much in common with European Symbolism and his work, alongside that of his wife Margaret MacDonald, is considered to have been influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism. Mackintosh is considered to be among the most influential figures of Modern Style and British Art Nouveau
The Darkest Hour
2016
Film and TV
James Horner
Film and TV
Born: 14 August 1953, California, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 22 June 2015, California, USA
Horner was a composer of film scores. Over a career of more than 30 years, he worked on 160 film and television productions. Horner won many accolades including two Academy Awards. Horner was also known for integrating choral and electronic elements with traditional orchestrations and for using Celtic musical motifs
Hot Shower
Form: Nine trisyllabic free verse lines
Steam cascades
Over skin
Intricate
Foam massage
Fluid dreams
Embrace lust
Delicate
Moist kisses
Explore heat
©JezzieG2024
Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)
Date: 1982
Genre: New Wave
Artist: Toyah
Toyah is a singer, actor, and TV Presenter. She has had eight top 40 singles, 20 albums, written two books, appeared in 10 feature films 40 stage plays in a career spanning more than 40 years
Sacred Spot
Form: Nonet
High above like a temple ceiling
The vault of night decked out with stars
I stand where the stream gurgles
Across the midnight breeze
With blades of grass bent
Beneath my feet
It is here
The gods
Speak
©JezzieG2024
Pincushion to Serve as Fetish
1965
Sculpture
Velvet, plastic funnel, metal pins, sawdust, and wool
Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom
‘Pincushion to Serve as Fetish’ is an early example of Tanning’s sculptures, A funnel, sawdust, and wool are covered in black velvet and stuck with pins. An open end resembles an orifice whilst the form appears like a strange sea creature.
Dorothea Tanning
Surrealism, Installation Art, Proto-Feminist Artists, Modern Sculpture
Born: 25 August 1910, Illinois, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 31 January 2012, New York, USA
Tanning was a painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Art pervades much of Tanning’s life; her images, objects, and texts have become worthwhile art and her very presence transformed photographs and moments in time to make them more artistic. The whirlwind energy that followed Tanning as a person is found in her brushstrokes. Tanning’s complete oeuvre is dominated by her unstoppable life force characteristics. Her ideas were too big for rural Illinois so Tanning left for Chicago and then New York. In New York, she found both the style and company that she identified as a Surrealist. She also married Max Ernst. Tanning meticulously depicted her own dreams throughout her long career. This psychological exploration of self continued as her work developed into a more abstract and sculptural
Should We Carry On
1980
Popular Music
David Foster
Classical Pop
Born: 1 November 1949, Victoria, Canada
Nationality: Canadian
David Foster is a musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music executive. He chaired Veve Records from 2012—2016. Foster has been nominated for 47 Grammy Awards of which he won 16.
Poetics
You know the old story Ann Landers tells
About the housewife in her basement doing the wash?
She’s wearing her nightie, and she thinks, “Well, hell,
I might’s well put this in as well,” and then
Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts on
Her son’s football helmet; whereupon
The meter reader happens to walk through
and “Lady,” he gravely says, “I sure hope your team wins.”
A story many times told in many ways,
The set of random accidents redeemed
By one more accident, as though chaos
Were the order that was before the creation came.
That is the way things happen in the world:
A joke, a disappointment satisfied,
As we walk through doing our daily round,
Reading the meter, making things add up
Howard Nemerov
Born: 1 March 1920, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 5 July 1991, Missouri, USA
Nemerov was a poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, (1963-1964 and 1988-1990). Nemerov won the National Book Award for Poetry, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize for his ‘The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov’ (1977)
Day 128
Prompt: If your life was a book, what is the title of the current chapter?
Hi Nigel
‘Hiya! I think it will have to be a fun answer to this one’
Why is that?
‘’Oh, Bollocks!’ just isn’t a good starting point, is it?’
Uh-oh, what’s the matter?
‘It’s only 6am and already the day is going wrong’
We all have days when simply getting out of bed is a disaster, mate.
‘Should we just go back to bed on those days?’
Yeah, but you can guarantee it is a day when you have got to do something so can’t get back in bed
‘So even if that goes wrong, that just sucks’
The chances are the day will get better
‘Or it will get even worse’
You really have got the blues, haven’t you?
‘I just feel like I have been taken for a twat again’
Ahh, the date didn’t work out
‘That’s putting it mildly’
That bad
‘How am I supposed to get to know a person if they are fiddling with their phone instead of talking?’
Honestly, mate, I think that tells you what you need to know about him.
‘Yeah, he’s an ignorant ass’
And be honest with yourself, do you want to develop a relationship with someone like that?
‘Hell, no’
Then it may have been a bad date, but it was a useful one
‘Yeah, and I’m on my own again’
I know it hurts, mate, but better that than with the wrong person
‘I know. Knowing it doesn’t make you feel better about it though’
No, indeed it doesn’t
‘Will I ever find it?’
What, love?
‘Yeah’
Of course, you will, but I can’t tell you when
‘Meanwhile, I’ll have another cup of coffee and a bit more fruit cake’
Help yourself, you know that
‘I have thought of a better title for the chapter’
Okay, what is it?
‘There’s Always Coffee’
That works. See you tomorrow, Nige
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge, my thanks to Sue and Gerry
Form: Cyhydedd Fer
From light to dark my thoughts can turn
And so entwined I feel me burn
Sacrificed for evil delight
I fear it’s now forever night
Yet black coldness I feel the rage
My thinkings have become my cage
In surrender, I have no doubt
Inner demons fighting it out
In their battle, I may be lost
That has always been thinking’s cost
I do not cry and wear no frown
As Bipolar spirals drag down
I want to burn my own desire
How do I set my soul on fire?
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Sgeoil
Form: Awdl Gywydd
Monday morning out of sync
Poet’s ink has lost its way
No rhythm sounds to his words
Absurd, it’s always Monday
It takes the day to work out
Turnabout to rhythmic chat
So it goes line upon line
It’ll be fine for all of that
So I’ll simply keep at it
And bit by bit I’ll revoke
This old Monday and its thing
To sing poet cannot choke
©JezzieG2024
On Fields O’er Which the Reaper’s Hand has Passed
On fields o’er which the reaper’s hand has pass’d
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze.
Henry David Thoreau
Born: 12 July 1817, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 6 May 1862, Massachusetts, USA
Thoreau was a naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist he is known for his book “Waldon,” a work that reflects on simple living in natural surroundings
Jealous Guy
Date: 1981
Genre: Rock
Artist: Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock and formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry (vocalist and songwriter)’ and Graham Simpson (bassist). Joined by Andy Mackay (saxophonist and oboist), Phil Manzanera (guitarist), Paul Thompson (drummer), and Brian Eno (synthesizer player) Roxy Music recorded their first album in 1972. The band has split and reunited intermittently since 2001, most recently in 2022 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their first album
Martha Graham
1931
Photography
Gelatin silver print
During the 1930s and 1940s, Cunningham photographed some of Hollywood’s and the art world’s most beloved names, including a series of the dancer Martha Graham. In this photograph, Graham is shot from the neck up with her palms on her face and elbows jutting out. Graham is silhouetted against an inky background and the lighting seems to tilt upward from the right highlighting the dancer’s hands
Imogen Cunningham
Pictorialism, Straight Photography, Group f/64
Born: 12 April 1883, Oregon, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 23. June 1976, California, USA
Cunningham was a photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. She was a member of Group f/64 dedicated to sharp-focus renditions of simple subjects
Roundball Rock
1990
Film and TV
John Tesh
New Age, Jazz, Popular Music
Born: 9 July 1952, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Tesh is a pianist, composer, radio host, and TV presenter. He composed the NBA basketball theme for NBC
Inspired by and written for the Weekend Writing Prompt, my thanks to Sammi
Form: Free Verse
Behind antique glass
Tinted by time
Reside her precious collections
Personal history remembered
In bric-a-brac mementoes
And faded postcards
And she remembers
Behind her fading eyes
Of days before the war
When holding his hand
Walking out
Love conquered her heart
Word count: 42
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Dr Kottaway
Form: Awdl Gywydd
While watching the stars last night
My delight to see you there
In silence I watched you dance
Perchance memories to share
Rare to see your light shine here
So near the glorious shows
Held closer in nature’s whim
A glimmering of night glows
©JezzieG2024
Dancing Silk
Form: Triplets
All dressed in silk as I watch her dance
I think how sweetly flows our romance
With each graceful move, she can entrance
And the silk follows where she goes
Hypnotic and liquid as it flows
And methinks my eyes see through her clothes
My glance casts down now my heart is coy
Yet my soul awakes to her sweet joy
This shyness, making a man a boy
But again I look up so I can see
Her vibrations that move wild and free
O how my dancer has taken me
©JezzieG2024
I Found Someone
Album: Cher
Date: 1987
Genre: Rock
Artist: Cher
Cher is a singer, actress, and television personality. Referred to by the media as the ‘Goddess of Pop’ she has been described as embodying female autonomy in the male-dominated music industry. With her distinctive contralto voice, Cher has adopted a variety of styles and appearances
Le Faux Rire
1954
Abstract
Oil on canvas
CoBrA Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, Netherlands
‘Le Faux Rire’ represents laughter with an abstract, multi-coloured, two-faced figure shown in an awkward semi-reclined position. Above a figure a smiling yellow-orange face hovers. The image suggests a state of emotion that is highly complex.
Asger Jorn
Art Informel, Art Brut and Outsider Art, Neo-Dada, CoBrA Group, Situationist International
Born: 3 March 1914, Jutland, Denmark
Nationality: Danish
Died: 1 May 1973, Aarhus, Denmark
Jorn was a painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. A founding member of COBRA and the Situationist International the largest collection of his work, including Stalingrad, is housed by the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark
Piano Concerto No.2
1935
Concerto
Dmitri Kabalevsky
Orchestral, Opera, Ballet, Chamber Music
Born: 30 December 1904, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Died: 14 February 1987, Moscow, Russia
Kabalevsky was a composer and teacher of aristocratic Russian descent. He was a prolific composer of piano and chamber music best known for his Second Symphony, ‘Galloping Comedians’ and his Third Piano Concerto
NIGHT
Then spoke the thunder, shattering the looming blackness of our national life. The rumble that breaks a spell of the dry season
– Saro-Wiwa, “The Storm Breaks”
Does a zebra foal dream? Head lower, lower
under lenticular dark cloud,
he drags harlequin fetlocks, porcelain
quails’ egg hooflets through pimpling dust,
slower, slower through the silver
rainbow night, this soot and fester
cellar-lighting, electricity of the blue
and evil eye. Night ringed with eyes,
gutter-glow of new-soused theatre,
hyena, leopard, caracal (that caramel cat
with ear tufts, anxious to feed her cubs)
watching the lame foal weakened by drought.
All you know is, that you don’t know,
and are afraid. Moonshadow
where the big rocks laugh apart.
Predator-senses. Cilia. Heat detectors
crowd this long auditorium, segment
after segment of the midnight shuffle-plains.
They radar in on bodies, fluids, molecules
of flesh that do not know they glow, they draw.
Let’s give him one dream-memory,
a zebra wish fulfilled in dazing plod,
some sheer green wall of sugarcane.
And look – he’s made it through
into the bleach and blaze, rose curdling
over indigo and lard, this granult scar
of dawn. One more dawn nearer the water.
Sky blood-taggled, blood-tufted,
rushes over him like a white bowl
at the end of things, the little safe horizon
of a pilot’s dial,
an inventory of therapeutic gems
Ruth Padel
Born: 8 May 1946, London, UK
Nationality: British
Padel is a poet, novelist, and non-fiction writer. She is best known for her poetic explorations of migration, both animal and human, and her involvement in classical music, wildlife conservation, and Greece, ancient and modern
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Punam
Form: Awdl Gywydd
We, her children, cannot breathe
Mother seethes at the dirty air
Her children keep on killing
Self-fulfilling without care
Polluted air kills us too
We knew and kept doing it
The air will poison us all
We fall still denying it
Gaia, sacred mother dear
Let us hear you as you cry
For our crimes against the earth
Our home of birth we let die
©JezzieG2024
Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida
1929-30
Magic Realism
Oil on canvas
The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
‘Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida’ features Albright’s most famous figure, Ida Rogers. A nineteen-year-old mother answered Albright’s advertisement for a live model. The portrait was the first work to be painted at his newly built studio in Warrenville.
Ivan Albright
Magic Realism, American Realism
Born: 20 February1897, Illinois, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 18 November 1983, Vermont, USA
Albright was a painter, printmaker, and sculptor best known for his self-portraits, still lifes, and character studies. Considered to be the master of the macabre Albright is often categorized among the Magic Realists due to his techniques and dark subject matter
Catwoman
2022
Film and TV
Michael Giacchino
Film and TV, Contemporary Classical, Jazz
Born: 10 October 1967, New Jersey, USA
Nationality: American
Giacchino is a composer of music for film, TV, and video games. He is the recipient of many accolades for his work including an Oscar for ‘Up’ (2009), and an Emmy for Lost’ (2004).
Middle Aged Lovers, II
You open to me
a little,
then grow afraid
and close again,
a small boy
fearing to be hurt,
a toe stubbed
in the dark,
a finger cut
on paper.
I think I am free
of fears,
enraptured, abandoned
to the call
of the Bacchae,
my own siren,
tied to my own
mast,
both Circe
and her swine.
But I too
am afraid:
I know where
life leads.
The impulse
to join,
to confess all,
is followed
by the impulse
to renounce,
and love–
imperishable love–
must die,
in order
to be reborn.
We come
to each other
tentatively,
veterans of other
wars,
divorce warrants
in our hands
which we would beat
into blossoms.
But blossoms
will not withstand
our beatings.
We come
to each other
with hope
in our hands–
the very thing
Pandora kept
in her casket
when all the ills
and woes of the world
escaped
Erica Jong
Born: 26 March 1942, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Jong is a novelist, satirist, and poet particularly known for her novel “Fear of Flying” (1973). The book was famously controversial for its attitudes on female sexuality and became prominent in the development of second-wave feminism
Rainbow Curses
Form: Free Verse
Listen to the whisper
The whispering curse of death
As it whistles into your room to define
The final moment
Before it swallows your soul
Like the wind breaking on the hills
That has scoured every valley
Searched every mountain
On its hunt for another kill
Another suffering breath to silence
Yet still you seek the rainbow
Your body no longer can heal
As your mind finally shuts down
For you time has halted, my friend
For those tired rainbows
Are just an illusion
©JezzieG2024
He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’
Album: Deep Sea Skiving
Date: 1983
Genre: Pop
Artist: Bananarama
Bananarama is a girl group formed in London in 1980. They were originally a trio consisting of Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward. Fahey left in 1988 and was replaced by Jacquie O’Sullivan until 1991 when the trio became a duo
Inspired by and written for the Ovi Poetry Challenge, with thanks to Ronovan
Despite several attempts to work with the Ovi and another four-liner stanza form, the Ae Freslighe, I have to admit defeat and say it can’t be done without one breaking the parameters of the other. However, I will honour the Ae Freslighe by using a dunadh.
Form: Ovi
Basic instinct to survive
When feelings take a nosedive
To hold on and stay alive
It seems impossible
A ladder, a shaft of light
From nowhere breaks this night
Could it be it’s alright?
Grab it and escape
Let it balance out the pain
Like sunshine after the rain
It’s okay to smile again
This instinct to live, so basic
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Tracy
Form: Ae Freslighe
Curving line in formation
With creative thoughts released
The canvas their location
Imagination increased
Dreams and senses educate
Deep in the realms sub-conscious
As inner thinkings activate
So awareness can discuss
From the walls of galleries
They tingle in ways nerving
Creation burns calories
As, once straight lines, start curving
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge, my thanks to Gerry and Sue
Form: Cross Sonnet Cross Sonnet 1
A little voice spoke from within
Firm words as if grasping my chin
Advising on matters of choice
Spirit speaks in a little voice
My mind confused, what’s the best
Is my heart ready for the test
Or will I again be bemused
The pain too real, my mind confused
Please guide me now, oh, little voice
I long to feel my heart rejoice
But I cannot find the way how
So little voice, please guide me now
Not hearing you my guilty crime
I promise to listen this time
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Martha Kennedy
Form: Ae Freslighe
Twisting dance floors romancing
And she sends my mind swirling
Every move enhancing
My feelings now unfurling
The rhythm of modern jazz
Senses beyond resisting
Caught up in her razzmatazz
Her rhythm has me twisting
©JezzieG2024
Go Your Own Way
Album: Rumours
Date: 1976
Genre: Rock
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a rock band, formed in London, UK, in 1967 by guitarists and vocalists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer and drummer Mick Fleetwood. They were joined by bassist John McVie and guitarist Danny Kirwan in 1968. Christine Perfect was a session musician for the band’s second album. She married McVie and joined the band in 1970 as Christine McVie (1943-2022), Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band in 1974, replacing Green, Spencer, and Kirwan
Tango Dreams
Form: Rondelet
I cannot dance
The music sings no more of love
I cannot dance
The rhythm of our sweet romance
It plays high in the stars above
That tango dreams remind me of
I cannot dance
©JezzieG2024
Unequivocally Blue
1967
Abstract
Wood collage with acrylic and poster paint on plywood, mounted on hardboard
Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, New York, USA
‘Unequivocally Blue’ is a collage composed of wood and paint. Fine explores geometry, form, and space, arranging wooden shapes painted in blue and black stripes or white and black stripes, on top of each other to form a pattern,
Perle Fine
Abstract Expressionism
Born: 1905, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 31 May 1988, New York, USA
Fine was an abstract expressionist painter best known for her work combining of fluid and brushy rendering of materials and the use of biomorphic forms within irregular geometrical shapes
Batman
1990
Avant-Garde
John Zorn
Jazz, Avant-Garde
Born: 2 September 1953, New York, USA
Nationality: American
Zorn is a composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger, and producer who intentionally resists categorization. His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation include jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, surf, contemporary, ambient, metal, and world music
Late Spring
I
Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days,
Why the sweet Spring delays,
And where she hides, — the dear desire
Of every heart that longs
For bloom, and fragrance, and the ruby fire
Of maple-buds along the misty hills,
And that immortal call which fills
The waiting wood with songs?
The snow-drops came so long ago,
It seemed that Spring was near!
But then returned the snow
With biting winds, and all the earth grew sere,
And sullen clouds drooped low
To veil the sadness of a hope deferred:
Then rain, rain, rain, incessant rain
Beat on the window-pane,
Through which I watched the solitary bird
That braved the tempest, buffeted and tossed,
With rumpled feathers, down the wind again.
Oh, were the seeds all lost
When winter laid the wild flowers in their tomb?
I searched their haunts in vain
For blue hepaticas, and trilliums white,
And trailing arbutus, the Spring’s delight,
Starring the withered leaves with rosy bloom.
The woods were bare: and every night the frost
To all my longings spoke a silent nay,
And told me Spring was far and far away.
Even the robins were too cold to sing,
Except a broken and discouraged note, —
Only the tuneful sparrow, on whose throat
Music has put her triple finger-print,
Lifted his head and sang my heart a hint, —
“Wait, wait, wait! oh, wait a while for Spring!”
II
But now, Carina, what divine amends
For all delay! What sweetness treasured up,
What wine of joy that blends
A hundred flavours in a single cup,
Is poured into this perfect day!
For look, sweet heart, here are the early flowers,
That lingered on their way,
Thronging in haste to kiss the feet of May,
And mingled with the bloom of later hours, —
Anemonies and cinque-foils, violets blue
And white, and iris richly gleaming through
The grasses of the meadow, and a blaze
Of butter-cups and daisies in the field,
Filling the air with praise,
As if a silver chime of bells had pealed!
The frozen songs within the breast
Of silent birds that hid in leafless woods,
Melt into rippling floods
Of gladness unrepressed.
Now oriole and blue-bird, thrush and lark,
Warbler and wren and vireo,
Confuse their music; for the living spark
Of Love has touched the fuel of desire,
And every heart leaps up in singing fire.
It seems as if the land
Were breathing deep beneath the sun’s caress,
Trembling with tenderness,
While all the woods expand,
In shimmering clouds of rose and gold and green,
To veil the joys too sacred to be seen.
III
Come, put your hand in mine,
True love, long sought and found at last,
And lead me deep into the Spring divine
That makes amends for all the wintry past.
For all the flowers and songs I feared to miss
Arrive with you;
And in the lingering pressure of your kiss
My dreams come true;
And in the promise of your generous eyes
I read the mystic sign
Of joy more perfect made
Because so long delayed,
And bliss enhanced by rapture of surprise.
Ah, think not early love alone is strong;
He loveth best whose heart has learned to wait:
Dear messenger of Spring that tarried long,
You’re doubly dear because you come so late
Henry Van Dyke
Born: 10 November 1852, Pennsylvania, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 10 April 1933, New Jersey, USA
Van Dyke was an author, educator, diplomat, clergyman, and poet. Various religious themes are often expressed in his poetry, hymns, and essays. Van Dyke composed the lyrics of the hymn ‘Joyful, Joyful! We Adore Thee’
Inspired by and written for the Ragtag Daily Prompt, my thanks to Curious Cat
Form: Ae Freslighe
Tumble into autumnal
The sun and moon are sharing
Vibrant colours triumphal
While the cool winds are daring
Night and day in equinox
Clouds gather to rumble
Beauty fading in paradox
As all the colours tumble
©JezzieG2024
Inspired by and for One-Liner Wednesday, my thanks to Linda
Form: One-Liner
The quote:
that really says it all, I have nothing to add.
The song:
Fire
Album: Are You Experienced
Date: 1967
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was a guitarist, songwriter, and singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as the greatest musician in rock history
Texas Guinan and Her Gang
1931
Social Realism
Tempera on canvas
Collection of Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York, USA
‘Texas Guinan and Her Gang’ is one of many depictions of the popular burlesque shows popular in 1930s New York that March created. The shows often provided a place to purchase alcoholic drinks during the prohibition. The woman on the left is the silent movie star Texas Guinan who ran multiple burlesque clubs frequented by famous figures such as Al Jolson, and Gloria Swanson
Reginald Marsh
Social Realism
Born: 14 March 1898, Paris France
Nationality: American
Died: 3 July 1954, Vermont, USA
Marsh was a painter best known for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Entertainments such as burlesque and vaudeville, Coney Island beach scenes, jobless men on the Bowery, and women are subjects that reappear throughout his work
A Time for Us
1968
Film and TV
Henry Mancini
Popular Music, Film and TV
Born: 16 April 1924, Ohio, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 14 June 1994, California, USA
Mancini was a composer, conductor, pianist, flutist, and music arranger. He is cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film and won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards. Mancini was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995
Jezzie G 