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A Russian speaking philosopher wrote of Ivan Turgenev
“by temperament Turgenev was not politically minded. 
Nature, personal relationships, quality of feeling –
these are what he understood best, these, and their
expression in art.  He loved every manifestation of art
and beauty as deeply as anyone has ever done.”

I agree but I am biased having read his poetry and a
few novels. 

The Sparrow
Ivan Turgenev

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my
dog running in front of me.

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking
game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its
beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was
violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move,
helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree
close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his
nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it
flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling … but all its tiny
body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with
fear, it offered itself up!

What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not
stay on its high branch out of danger…. A force stronger than its will
flung it down.

My Trésor stood still, drew back…. Clearly he too recognised this force.

I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away, full of
reverence.

Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its
impulse of love.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it,
by love, life holds together and advances.

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Steeldrivers  Blueside of the Mountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q3Bo_Kz8qQ

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ruGBHK3.jpg?1[/img]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hVa-d2zq-I (live version)

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Aziza Brahim grew up in refugee camps after
the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara. 
She is both a poet and prominent spokesperson
for the Saharawi people and their ongoing fight
for recognition and justice. 

“You are the essence of my life and its strength
You are the pride in my words that cross all frontiers
Resist, immortal, resist.
You are like the night and the stars
Your voice goes beyond the top of the clouds
You are smiling breeze of today
You are an example of humanity and of fight.
Resist, immortal, resist.”

Aziza Brahim – Julud  (Resist)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SvfLB6bLHM

[img]https://i.imgur.com/20LvSsi.jpg?1[/img]

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Where ever she puts it, she just can't fly

[img]https://i.imgur.com/5FiMKjV.jpg?1[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/jqelxf6.jpg?1[/img]

so settles for a kiss

[img]https://i.imgur.com/6fHJgAX.jpg?1[/img]

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This is Bronzino's Portrait of a Lady in Green
(c.1530-32) – the identity of the sitter is unknown.

Her face resembles very closely a woman I knew
for many years; the most elegant Lady I've known.

The original is at Windsor Castle having been
bought by Charles I in his great spending spree
when he bought the entire collection of the
Duchesse of Mantua for £30,000 .. after his
execution (1649) the collection was sold off or
given away to pay debtors.  In 2019 the collection
was largely reformed for an exhibition in
London which had to close quite soon because
of covid.  She is on my kitchen door where I
quite often talk to her and get her disapproving
look when I dance like a loonie or swear too much.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ugMj7gS.jpg?1[/img]

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Janis Ian  On the Dark Side of Town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R40OVN7NYN8

[img]https://i.imgur.com/I2F5Iaa.jpg?1[/img]

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This one's for a dodgy old bird …

The Things We Do FOr Love    10cc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgptvsHHYK4

[img]https://i.imgur.com/mMeODCz.jpg?1[/img]

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(Philip Larkin 1922-85 .. this is  a product of it's time
it can't be universal as I know of many exceptions
but it also rings true for many… I just love it's wry humour)

This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. 
    They may not mean to, but they do. 
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats, 
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

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[img]https://i.imgur.com/pOgBgfN.jpg?1[/img]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxndvUGdxY

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Laura Viers  Bedroom Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGzCXYTTFWg

[img]https://i.imgur.com/WBXPI6H.jpg?1[/img]

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Passing
By Staceyann Chin

Downtown Brooklyn is easy for me
long sheer skirts do little to hide my open legged stride
see-through button-down sleeveless blouses hug my bodice
so tight my nipples are barely concealed
by the carefully chosen push-up bra from Macy's

see, I'm a femme
a real lipstick lesbian
so I can pass—
smelling like a straight girl in my Victoria's Secret
satin panties pressing against the men who walk alongside me
passing—the way my yellow-skinned grandmother passed
as white women sat in judgment

on plantation stools overlooking fields
of cotton and sugarcane sweetened by gallons
of Black blood and sweat running down thick
between the full breasts of the women
who lay still as blue-eyed men pierced their hearts deep
through the folds joining their legs

it's Jay Street-Borough Hall
and my friend is in trouble
someone takes the time to notice
that the young boy is really a young girl
and the red, white, and blue jacket is not enough
to cover the tattoo on her belly
two naked women wrapped around each other
like pretzels that came out different from the rest

it takes two minutes for them to break two ribs
              one for her lover who passes all the time
              the other she keeps for herself
              and as those bones set
her sorrow breaks wide open
because she knows SHE can never pass
she knows that butch bodies are too strong
too strange, too dark
like those bronze bodies that smell
too thickly of rebellions and revolutions
                            and we know that revolutions take time
and sacrifice and lives to turn this world around

sometimes it makes me angry
that they think I look like them
so they can convince themselves I am okay
but I hasten to show them the tangled wool between my thighs

and I am quick to remind them
that the funk from me only rises
when my woman touches me
that I can only come
when she calls my name

we need to let them know
we do not wish to pass as semi-white
or almost straight
or nearly normal
so we can hold down corporate jobs
stroking narrow-minded dicks
so we can be invited to family dinners
to disown our brothers and sisters who cannot pass
who will not pass

we must let them know
that after the broken bones have healed
that we will still be here
that long after the bruised hearts have ceased to hurt
we will still be here and long,
long after our mothers no longer weep
we will still be here
still gay
still Black
still survivors in the face of this blatant bigotry
that will one day force us to lace arms and strike back

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[img]https://i.imgur.com/Ih8bf6u.jpg?1[/img]

Tove Styrke  On The Low

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6BaHPFa7A

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No.60
(about food)

A duck egg omelette made for two
With mixed herb and sausage too
Eaten with glee
Right next to the sea
Then a snooze, just me and you

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time to dance around the kitchen in yer undies like a loonie (again)

Goldfrapp  Shiny and Warm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RETcwY6nQY

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Bjvtrw4.jpg?1[/img]

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A few fragments of WB Yeats which ring true;
simple statements said in a way that only
poets can.   About woman and controlling man,
about fools and how life is so precarious.

“I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.”

from On Woman

May God be praised for woman
That gives up all her mind,
A man may find in no man
A friendship of her kind
That covers all he has brought
As with her flesh and bone,
No quarrels with a thought
Because it is not her own.

To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain
  Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine

You say,as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But was there ever dog that praised his fleas ?

Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors

What they underook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass

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