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There’s a level of confessional that only occurs when someone is driving you home late at night

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Rachid Karami International Fair Dome / Tripoli, Lebanon

arch: Oscar Niemeyer 1962

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The beauty of living in a walkable city is that when you feel sad you can just walk and walk and walk till you stumble upon a place that makes you feel better

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Lee Miller, Untitled, 1920s

© Lee Miller Archives England 2015

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Giuseppe Penone, Biforcazione, 1987-92

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The Cottage Book, 1989

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The Monterey Coast, 1980

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Helene Appel Sink (With Dishes), 2024 Acrylic, oil and lacquer on linen 49.5 × 39.5 cm

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The Invisible Man ~ Pablo Neruda

I laugh, I smile at the old poets, I cherish all their poetry, all their dew, moon, diamond, droplets from submerged silver that my graybeard brothers festoon onto roses, but I smile; for they always say “I,” every where they go something occurs and it is always “I,” down these streets, only they or their beloved, walk down these streets, no one else, there are no fishermen about, no bookstore merchants, no bricklayers walking about, no one stumbles and falls from their scaffolding, not one person suffers, not one person loves, only my poor brother, the poet, everything is happen to him and to his beloved, no one lives but him, the solitary poet, no one weeps from hunger or anger, not one person suffers in all his poetry because he was unable to pay the rent, not one person in all his poetry is evicted from his house with everything he owns, and in factories, nothing happens, no, all our umbrellas, cups and bowls, are forged bombs, guns and trains are built, the elements are mined by scraping up hell, there is a worker’s strike, military police arrive and open fire, they fire upon the people, which is also to say, against poetry, ai, but my brother, the poet, was in love, or he was agonizing for in his throbbing heart is only the sea, and distant ports of call yes, he loves their names, and he writes about the ocean the one he has never seen, when life is as full as the grain from an ear of corn he walks by, never wondering once how to harvest corn, and he rides upon waves without ever touching the shore, and, now and then, he is moved, perhaps profoundly and deeply, but with despair, you see, he is too sublime to fit inside his own skin, he gets himself ensnared, unscrambled, he declares that he must be accursed, with great sighs he drags about the cross of darkness, he knows that he is at odds with everyone else in the world, still, he eats bread every morning but he has never seen a baker never attended union meeting of bakers, and so, my poor brother, he becomes intentionally tricky, he twists his words and writhes and finds himself and his words complex, complex, ai, that’s the word, I am no better than my brother, but I smile, because when I walk down the street I am the only one who does not exist, all of life floods about me like tidal rivers, but I am the only one who is now invisible, I have no cryptic shadows, no melancholia, nothing is dark, you see, people speak to me, people want to tell me things, to talk about their families, all their grief, all their gaiety, people pass by, and people talk to me about things, look at all the things they do! They chop wood, string up electrical lights, they bake bread late into the night, our morning bread, with pick ax and irons they pierce the entrails of the earth and convert the minerals into locks, they rise into the sky and carry airmail and sobs and kisses, someone is standing in every single doorway, someone is being born, my beloved is waiting for me, and, as I walk along, these things call out for me to sing them, but how can I? I haven’t time, I must examine everything I hurry home now, hurry off to the Party office; what else can I do? People everywhere ask me to sing for them, yes, sing forever, until everyone is drowned in dreams and in colors, ai, life is a gift flooded with songs, the gift flies open and a flock of wild birds fly out and they all want to tell me things, they perch on my shoulders, life is a struggle, just like a rolling river and all of humanity wants to tell me, to tell you, why they are struggling, and, if they are to be executed, why they will die, and I pass them all and haven’t time enough for so many lives, I want them all to live inside my soul, to sing out my song, I am not important, I have no free time for my own passions, all night and all day I must write this down what is occurring, please let me try not to miss anything. It is true that, extraordinarily, at times I do get tired, I look up at the cosmos, I lie down in the grass, a bug the same color as a violin marches by, I place my palm across a sapling breast or between the hips of the woman I love, I try to study the silk of the trembling night, all frozen with destiny, then I feel waves of mystery pouring out from my soul, ai, childhood, my little self weeping in a corner, my heartbreaking youth, I feel so sleepy so I sleep just like a log, in no time I am unconscious, with or without destiny, with or without my lover, and when I wake up all the night is long gone, all the streets have come alive without me, the poor barrio girls are off on their way to work, fishermen return from the sea, the miners in brand new boots are going down into the mines, yes, everything is alive, awake, yes, everyone is hurrying back and forth, and I have scarcely enough time to struggle into my clothing, I must fly: no on must pass by without my seeing where he is going, what she is doing. I cannot live without life, without people being people, I must run and look and listen and sing, stars have nothing for me, solitude bears not a single flower, not a single fruit. For my life, give me every life, give me every agony the world has ever had and I will transform them all into desire. Give me every rapture, even the most secret, because if not, how will they ever be known? I must tell them, please, give me your daily struggles so I can make up my song, that way we will be together, shoulder to shoulder, everyone single one, let my song unite us: this song of the invisible man singing along with everyone.

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oh you know

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