61. nightmare bee

"The issue of Contemporary Annals, with the first chapters of Nabokov's The Defence, came out in 1929. I sat down to read these chapters, and read them twice. A tremendous, mature, sophisticated modern writer was before me; a great Russian writer, like a phoenix, was born from the fire and ashes of revolution and exile. Our existence from now on acquired a meaning. All my generation were justified. We were saved." --NIna Berberova

Bacon's studio preserved.

the sort of folkish-looking black & white &
green Hobbit cover
as the temp'rature just keeps sinking, sinking
& ev'ry record
once was the fav'rite record of somebody
el fin del mundo
registers ev'ry vista with its time stamp
penguins frolicking
Ozymandias in the crisp stratosphere
chipping ice off the
windshields till my fingers grow numb & i put
my gloves on then · i
don't know i've never "kippled" · but if you hum a
few squiggles i can try
not just dancing about architecture but
dancing to describe
buildings & describing them no other way

it's a dangerous place but i know my way

"I think the arts deal with this better than philosophy, because the arts are fully aware that they are not primarily a form of knowledge. Neither is philosophy, yet many philosophers have convinced themselves otherwise."