#excerpts

[kayleesuniverse]

“I live; I die; the sea comes over me; it’s the blue that lasts.”

Virginia Woolf “Melymbrosia” 1912

On the Seashore, George Elgar Hicks (1879)

[funeral]

Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

[feral-ballad]

Mahmoud Darwish, tr. by A.M. El Messeri, from The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry; "A Lover from Palestine"

[mirukaze]

i’ve read six novels by Austen and this is still my favorite movie adaptation.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) dir. Joe Wright

[deathlessathanasia]

Ares’ name is often used in ways that make it clear that war is his realm, just as the sea is the realm of Poseidon, the underworld the realm of Hades, and the sky the realm of Zeus. In the Iliad, several characters refer to war as ‘the turmoil of Ares’. Nestor refers to a great clash of armies as a ‘deed of Ares’. The works of war are the works of Ares (Hom. Il. 11.732–36). The poet refers to war as ‘the strife of Ares’ (Hom. Il. 5.861; 14.149). It is at the hands of Ares that battles are endured (Hom. Il. 3.126–28), and it is by Ares that the combatants are slain: Nestor speaks of the many long-haired Achaians whose blood keen Ares has spilled around the river Skamander (Hom. Il. 7.328–30), while Priam tells both his household and Achilles that Ares has slain his many fine sons (Hom. Il. 24.253–62, 498).27 When the spears are flying, Ares guides their paths. The poet tells us how Ares causes spears to fall short from Meriones and Automedon (Hom. Il. 16.610–13, 17.525–29), just as he allows the spear to embed itself in the chest of Alkathous, robbing it of its momentum only once the man has been mortally wounded (Hom. Il. 13.443–44). In similar fashion, the sixth century poet Anakreon, as quoted in the Palatine Anthology, describes the battle-dead as being slain by Ares (Anth. Pal. 7.226 = Anac. fr.100D Diehl), as do the seventh-century Spartan poet Tyrtaios (Stob. Flor. 4.10. 6 = Tyrtaios fr.12 West) and a pair of Archaic inscribed epitaphs. To Anakreon, those who survive a battle do so because they have been spared by Ares (Anth. Pal. 7.160 = Anac. fr.100D Diehl). Ares was unique amongst all the gods of the ancient Aegean in being a god whose name was used as a metonym for war. While divine warriors, patrons of warriors, protectors in battle, and bringers of destruction could be found throughout the Near East, only Ares was identified directly with war. The Classical Attic tragedians inherited the idea that Ares was both synonymous with war as its anthropomorphic personification and also its divine ruler, responsible for all deaths in battle and for the survival of all those who walked away. In this, Ares filled a distinct niche, more specific than Zeus and Fate, who ruled over all walks of life, and less partisan than the many warrior-protectors who stalked each battlefield. Stories about and cults for Ares therefore enabled the Greeks to engage with the idea of war as an independent force with a distinctive character. - Alexander T. Millington, Worshipping Violence, in Brill's Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx

[wordedarchive]

a sunny winter afternoon before a plate of rice and coke, we talk of love. i ask my friend about the taste of death and she says it'd be cold. i disagree. i think death tastes sweet. cold but like the other side of your favourite pillow. sweet like that one childhood ice cream. tangy with an after flavor of warmth. embracing me like my mother's go to shawl. surprising in all the familiar ways. hopeful like a sailor pointing towards north. she listens. ultimately, agrees. whatever it is, i hope it tastes like being loved by you for a last time.

[madd-madd]

[asablehart]

new short

[secretsiwhispertothemoon]

Frida Kahlo, from a letter wr. c. November 1933, featured in The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas Apasionadas

[fairydrowning]

– Noor Unnahar, Instagram account "noor_unnahar"

[TEXT ID: / [Lemons] / My father's mother loved lemons. Years after her passing, / we run out of everything, but never / lemons. / Nothing else shelters grief / better than memory. / It's my father way of saying, / even in your absence, you will be / cared by me. / END ID]

[maryqos]

coco mellors, cleopatra and frankenstein.

[dionyrtal]

Vertigo Peaks by Dion Anja 2. Return II by Dean Gioia

[funeral]

The paradox is that we are more awake when we are asleep, to ourselves, than we are when we are awake. [ . . ] But as soon as we wake up we go to sleep. Then we lose all insight, all awakeness for the more subtle processes of our feeling, of our knowledge, and we are asleep to all and that’s the way we live. Is it a wonder that people make so little sense of their lives? That people are so unhappy in the midst of plenty? That people who have everything that would be necessary to make out of life the very best life can give, flounder, are unhappy, dissatisfied, disappointed and at the end of life have often a very bitter and sad feeling that they have lived and yet they have never been alive. That they were awake but they never woke up. That is what it means to be aware of oneself.

Erich Fromm, The Art of Listening

[feral-ballad]

Abd Al-Latif Aql, tr. by A.M. El Messeri, from The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry; "Love Palestinian-style"

[derangedrhythms]

Rebecca Perry, Beauty/Beauty; from 'Kintsugi 金継ぎ'