#light academic aesthetic
It should be enough.
To make something beautiful should be enough.
It isn’t.
It should be.
I had a very childlike rage
And a very childlike loneliness.
And if the devil was ever to see you,
He’d kiss your eyes and repent.
What do you seek?
since getting my essay in I’ve struggled to sit down at my desk, which feels like it has the ghost of psychogeography about it still, so I’ve been finding new places around the house to work for the time being (think this was a little inconvenient for everyone else, but I liked it!)
Post link
drifted into the british museum after my seminar and hadn’t realised the parthenon friezes rooms were finally open again, so came to see my old friends before settling down in the cafe to do some reading. I feel as strongly as anyone that these should be back in athens, where they belong and where their intricacy and their magnitude would be so much more important and so much better respected. I find this museum very uncomfortable and in many ways I would like it to become obsolete. that being said, I’m still a classicist at heart, and I feel an immense sense of comfort in the presence of the ancient world, so while it is still here - and while it’s round the corner - I won’t deny myself that
Post link
blue-toned - early morning scenes from the days leading up to submitting my first MA essay! it’s been a bit like pulling teeth at times, but ultimately a pleasure to write so whatever happens, I’ve had a good time. Looking forward to seeing a bit less of the sunrise for a couple of weeks, but ain’t no rest for the wicked really because this morning’s big job is finishing Beckett’s Molloy which isn’t exactly an easy read! happy first day of term, hope everyone has a nice new 2022 diary and a good pen xxx
Post link
Ocean Vuong, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”
Cover me in Autumn leaves and let me stare at this endless blue ceiling in orange-painted glasses. Cover me in Autumn leaves until my senses liquify and drown me in its homey perfume. Cover me in Autumn leaves and let me drink the sap, make it run in my bloodstream. Cover me in Autumn leaves, so that I can love it enough to be unafraid of changeforevermore.
There are days when I want to write and other days I want to disappear. I want to meld with the air until the dual forces of nature are removed from the equation of time and extant. I will live indisputably but in you and around you. I will turn into an intangible substance you claim to be mystic, almost ghostly without flesh and bones, still lingering in your memories like a driving force of languid dreams. And you will wonder is this dream or real? You’ll clear your throat to feel your voice and the comprehension will give you peace. Then I shall disappear, again.
It’s midnight and you’re awake
For your footsteps echo in someone else’s dream;
Your thoughts louder than the tides that hit the shore,
Bottled up feelings floating on the deep-sea
It can’t be broken, no there’s not a key,
But it unfolds like covered inked pages re-telling a folklore
Sometimes in her softest hush and others in her shrillest scream.
It’s midnight and you’re awake
For the love, you chose to forsake.
We loved each other in circles, never reconciling once but drifting apart every second. To reach a hand, one had to fall; but with our feet on the ground, we chose to run further. And with paper hearts and yellowed letters, you loved me differently and so did I.
Hope is found in the silver thread that stitches the horizon,
In the deepest blue of the sea
The hiatus between your breathing self and the trident of Poseidon
A regal honeycomb but a humble bee.
Where the beauty veils an ugly verity,
Where the kohl and rouge veil the age
Where the mouth mouths against solidarity
Yet expectantly peeking at the bottom of the page.
Hope is a beautiful thing to nurture, without a fee
Hoping to keep igniting an ember of Hope inside me.
The moon shines brighter by the night
And in the daylight buries its head into the blue sea
For it can discern the mistaken and right
Agrees that it can glow till the hours, wee.
And just like the moon, you shall shine
Have faith in yourself, that’s fate’s design.
As you enter the room, you will find a canvas on the wall
The one you painted, starlight glowing behind the two of us,
There on the table is a wine glass, give it a swirl
But don’t come looking for me,
I’m confined where the mortals bite the dust.
When the rain stopped the clock of the forthcoming
I crawled towards my window, my limbs-Prisoner of languor
The fresh dew brought in the memories, summoning
In the Spring of the eleventh hour, when the hands of my watch ticked four
One thing led to another until I had packed bags galore.
Figurines and silhouettes, strewn across the marble floor like puzzles,
Sunlight thawing the layer of frost
From the broken images of a once-perfect memory,
Of the days that were lost.
Meanwhile,
The world slept at the sound of our feet
Your heart throbbing with pain of the one you were going to cheat,
And as the moonlight outshone your gleaming nimbus
We stood under the mistletoe bathing in the light of fading Christmas.
What you were supposed to let go,
You carry them underneath your eyes,
Your aching limbs and fevered brows
In your muffled screams and distant cries.
Inside the paper that envelops your words
Lying on the battlefield, wherein broken limbs and swords
Carry endless echoes than your ashen skies.
