Hearing Voices

[The Path I've Chosen -Louis de Jesus, Ephemeral Visions]

A door marks a threshold: it guards you from that liminal space of decision, from that change of out to in. But sometimes even doors—thick doors, heavy doors, doors without windows, doors fit securely in their frames—can’t hold back all that lives inside of a building.

-excerpt from To Write the Body

Mapping Dreamscapes

There were absolutes in this world. And there were creatures. And there was darkness.

Insufficient Cult

[Movie-goers wear special glasses to see a 3D film - "3D Television to Burst Into the Living Room" The Telegraph]

"What art has been granted a dream more poetical and more real at the same time! Approached in this fashion the film might represent an incomparable means of expression. Only the most high-minded persons, in the most perfect and mysterious moments of their lives, should be allowed to enter its ambiance."
-Severin-Mars qtd by Abel Gance, Le Temps de l'image est venu, L'Art Cinematographique, 1927.

He hunches forward like his soul is on fire and he’s trying to get away from the heat of it

The morning sun of summer shines across the floor of the small sanctuary in red and yellow and purple. The minster nods to the pianist, smiling gently before surveying his flock. He looks at each of them, trying to catch their eyes, glimpse their souls. His shoulders are slightly hunched, an unconscious way he has had of dealing with his height since he was a teenager, an indication that he is always lost in some thought inside of himself. Many people meet his gaze briefly then turn to address their husband or look at their bulletin or reprimand their child. He doesn’t realize the intensity he carries in his faded blue eyes. Doesn’t realize how much the fire hurts to look at. He is barely beyond forty and already he looks like an old man, his soul devouring his body. He knows their minds are already on Sunday lunch, or the lawn that is waiting to be mowed, or the things they have to do during the long week. Some won’t meet his eyes at all. Except for Miss Emily.
-from Ashes

Like to Make it Break

[film still from O Brother, Where Art Tho? - filmgrab]

Thinking how happy John Henry was that he fell down and died
-Gillian Welch, Elvis Presly Blues

The Dream

Sometimes a dream lands so hard
it flattens you.

I liked it better before, you moan
waving my dream like a silk handkerchief,
light and soundless above my head.

It could have been anything,
a kit, a bird, a large balloon
with three passengers.

Instead, it landed in your lap,
you asked for it,
secretly you had been reeling it in for months
like a trapped fish.

Too big for the net--
it loves you more than you love it.

It wants to stay here forever,
smiling and cuddling
in the bosom of your days.
-Naomi Shihab Nye

It's Been Evening All Day Long

[Trees or The Ghosts of us Living - Zeb Andrews]

I just got back from a dream attack
That took me by surprise