Book shelves series #31, thirty-first Sunday of 2012
I had forgotten about this Norman Rockwell book, which I promptly took out and put on the coffee table:
It’s funny to think how corny I used to think the guy was . . .
. . . which I guess he is, corny, I mean, but he’s also a master painter, with cartoonish sensibility.
And if at times he’s goofy, well, he also exhibited a social conscience in his art that was, well, human-centered.
A harmonica book:
And a guitar book:
Talking Heads are my favorite band. An old girlfriend found this tabloidy book at a thriftstore and gave it to me for my birthday. This was like 16 years ago. I’d forgotten where the book was:
There’s a few copies of Far Side stuff on this shelf:
And Frank Miller’s Wolverine graphic novel, which was my favorite thing in the world when I was 11.
Sad Wolverine:
One of at least three Magritte books in the house is on this shelf. A drawing from said volume:
A Gustav Klimt coloring book:
“The Moving Waters of Gustav Klimt,” a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti —
Who are they then
these women in this painting
seen so deeply long ago
Models he slept with
or lovers or others
he came upon
catching them as they were
back then
dreamt sleepers
on moving waters
eyes wide open
purple hair streaming
over alabaster bodies
in lavender currentsDark skein of hair blown back
from a darkened face
an arm flung out
a mouth half open
a hand
cupping its own breast
rapt dreamers
or stoned realists
drifting motionless
lost sisters or
women-in-love
with themselves or others –
pale bodies wrapt
in the night of women
lapt in light
in ground swells of
dreamt desire
dreamt delightStill strangers to us
yet not
strangers
in that first night
in which we lose ourselvesAnd know each other
