Mark Rothko No. 14

                      The Revolution Will Not Be Televised




                           You will not be able to stay home, brother.

                           You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

                           You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,

                           Skip out for beer during commercials,

                           Because the revolution will not be televised.

                          The revolution will not be televised.

                          The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox

                          In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.

                          The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon

                          blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John

                          Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat

                          hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

                          The revolution will not be televised.

                     

                           Gil Scott-Heron

  The human being is flesh and consciousness, body and soul; 
his heart is an abyss which can only be filled by that which is godly.

Olivier Messiaen

Osceola Refetoff, Giacometti Sculptures - MOCA - Los Angeles, CA      http://www.ospix.com/

              

                 I Am The People, The Mob

                I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.

                Do you know that all the great work of the world is

                done through me?

                I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the

                world's food and clothes.

                I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons

                come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And

                then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

                I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand

                for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.

                I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

                I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and

                makes me work and give up what I have. And I

                forget.

                Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red

                drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.

                When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the

                People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer

                forget who robbed me last year, who played me for

                a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world

                say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a

                sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

                The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

                 Carl Sandburg

Sotiris Sorongas

                                  Σοφοί δε Προσιόντων

                                             Θεοί μεν γαρ μελλόντων, άνθρωποι δε γιγνομένων,
                                             σοφοί δε προσιόντων αισθάνονται.

                                             Φιλόστρατος, Τα ες τον Τυανέα Aπολλώνιον, VΙΙΙ, 7





                                 Οι άνθρωποι γνωρίζουν τα γινόμενα.
                                 Τα μέλλοντα γνωρίζουν οι θεοί,
                                 πλήρεις και μόνοι κάτοχοι πάντων των φώτων.
                                 Εκ των μελλόντων οι σοφοί τα προσερχόμενα
                                 αντιλαμβάνονται. Η ακοή

                                 αυτών κάποτε εν ώραις σοβαρών σπουδών
                                 ταράττεται. Η μυστική βοή
                                 τούς έρχεται των πλησιαζόντων γεγονότων.
                                 Και την προσέχουν ευλαβείς. Ενώ εις την οδόν
                                 έξω, ουδέν ακούουν οι λαοί.

                                 Κ.Π. Καβάφης

                                (Από τα Ποιήματα 1897-1933, Ίκαρος 1984) 

                            But the Wise Perceive Things about to Happen

                                              “For the gods perceive future things,
                                               ordinary people things in the present, but
                                               the wise perceive things about to happen.”
                               
                                               Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7.
  






                                Ordinary people know what’s happening now,
                                the gods know future things
                                because they alone are totally enlightened.
                                Of what’s to come the wise perceive
                                things about to happen.

                                Sometimes during moments of intense study
                                their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound
                                of things approaching reaches them,
                                and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
                                the people hear nothing whatsoever.

                                C. P. Cavafis

"Look!" I cried. "Look at my face! Doesn't anybody know me?"

The Execution


by Alden Nowlan


On the night of the execution
a man at the door
mistook me for the coroner.
"Press," I said.


But he didn't understand. He led me
into the wrong room
where the sheriff greeted me:
"You're late, Padre."


"You're wrong," I told him. "I'm Press."
"Yes, of course, Reverend Press."
We went down a stairway.


"Ah, Mr. Ellis," said the Deputy.
"Press!" I shouted. But he shoved me
through a black curtain.
The lights were so bright
I couldn't see the faces
of the men sitting
opposite. But, thank God, I thought
they can see me!


"Look!" I cried. "Look at my face!
Doesn't anybody know me?"


Then a hood covered my head.
"Don't make it harder for us," the hangman whispered.

Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to as Desolation Creek. His father, Gordon Freeman Nowlan, worked sporadically as a manual labourer.

His mother, Grace Reese, was only 15 years of age when Nowlan was born, and she soon left the family, leaving Alden and her younger daughter Harriet, to the care of their paternal grandmother. The family discouraged education as a waste of time, and Nowlan left school after only four grades. At the age of 14, he went to work in the village sawmill. At the age of 16, Nowlan discovered the regional library. Each weekend he would walk or hitchhike eighteen miles to the library to get books, and secretly began to educate himself. "I wrote (as I read) in secret." Nowlan remembered. "My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alden_Nowlan

... the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as he goes

Thank you, Olivier...

      My faith is the grand drama of my life. 

I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. 

I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, 
make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, 
and paint colors for those who see none.

    Olivier Messiaen

                   I am brutal, but I have, or did have, a mania for precision.—Valéry to André Gide

Pawel Pierscinski

Ἔχω δεῖ τὸν οὐρανό...

Ἔχω δεῖ τὸν οὐρανὸ μὲ τὰ μάτια μου
Μὲ τὰ μάτια μου ἄνοιξα τὰ μάτια του
Μὲ τὴ γλῶσσα μου μίλησε
Γίναμε ἀδελφοὶ καὶ κουβεντιάσαμε
Στρώσαμε τραπέζι καὶ δειπνήσαμε
Σὰν νὰ ἦταν ὁ καιρὸς ὅλος μπροστά μας

Καὶ θυμᾶμαι τὸν ἥλιο ποὺ γελοῦσε

Πού γελοῦσε καὶ δάκρυζε θυμᾶμαι

Γιώργος Σαραντάρης

*

                  Man... the human person...the free individual...the I...

                  at once torturer and victim...at once hunter and prey...

                 Francis Ponge

                 Reflections on the Statuettes,

                 Figures and Paintings of Alberto Giacometti