VERTIGO
Now I have wandered long years and many,
Have drowned in the haze of the late afternoon
Until my poor feet are bleeding and heavy,
They must give out soon.
As I lounge in the fumes of the charcoal vapors
Questions pop out, like an unpaid debt,
And someone offers- in a tasty little packet -
A cigarette.
And then when I sit with elbows on the table,
Swoonin with awe, merged fearfully
With things not of earth, somebody says
"Here's your tea."
Oh, I am a child of the flame, of the glory,
Visions shine before me all through the night,
But can it be- can it be possible
They will not even know me by sight?
¤ Austin Osman Spare ¤
(30 December 1886 - 15 May 1956)
Artist, Occultist, Sensualist
‡ Rosaleen Norton ‡Rosaleen Miriam Norton (2 October 1917 – 5 December 1979) New Zealand, was an artist, occultist & witch.
Sunday nightA long audient meditation, which chiefly consisted reminiscing about the more peculiar episodes in my sex life.Have decided on a retreat of at least three months -- nobody to be admitted. Will create magnetic centre...................................................
The pen "floats" tentatively above the white paper, until she discovers the spot for the first eye. Only once she is "being looked at" from the paper does she start to find her bearings and effortlessy add one motif to the next....
The Man of Jasmine - Atlas Press 1994
Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained,and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.
Two Satyrs fight for the wineskin 1897
Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex.
1926