The Sonnets: III

BY TED BERRIGAN

Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,

deep in whose reeds great elephants decay,

I, an island, sail, and my shores toss

on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness

bristling hate.

It’s true, I weep too much. Dawns break

slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,

what other men sometimes have thought they’ve seen.

And since then I’ve been bathing in the poem

lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,

and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place

the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships

O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!

and fall on my knees then, womanly.

I revisit this poem so often. And I wonder, using this as a measure for beauty, sadness, and real emotional movement, if it's possible to create a visual body of work as equally powerful as what this poem does for me?

deal with the situation or go down in defeat?

trying to be more human, trying to be true to myself.

(“When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.” - Eleanor Rooselvelt)

do i want to do photography because it is something i love to do, or have i been feeling interested in photography because i can't bare to say that i'm not doing much (in fact, i am doing a lot, but it is work that i do not want anyone to see or know about)

how do i honor all of the people i have worked with this year when i stay in my house, but away from the emails i should respond to?

needles and pins in my back!

constantly walking on egg shells around myself.

feeling the most satisfying sad after reading berrigan today.

OK, will now spend the rest of the day trying to be useful to myself. i ask, "what happened to my hunger?"

betty davis eyes

my currency is lost! longing for what i don't know, but not in photography. very reluctant to work, to reflect or review all that went down. less than a creative block, more like breathing. "everything is special everyday" my new motto/sale sign at a thrift store i've been very focused on love lately. i've been feeling through anna karenina. have been to very many film screenings of the avante garde nature. most have been very good, but tonight's screening was a pretty big disappointment (a found footage film festival). makes you wonder who/what makes it work/works it. sadness, like the deep kind in east of eden. and never hungry.