Helplessly all thumbs

She has certainly the finest Hand
of any Woman in the World. I can
assure you, Sir, were you to be-
hold her, you would be in the 
same Condition; for as her 
speech is Musick, her form is Angelick. But I find I grow ir-
regular while I am talking of
her; but indeed it would be Stu-
pidity to be unconcerned at such
Perfection. Oh the excellent Cre-
ature, she is as inimitable to
all Women, as she is inaccessible
to all Men!

I found my friend begin to rave,
and insensibly led him towards
the House, that we might be join-
ed by some other Company ..

Sir Richard Steele
1672 - 1729
The Spectator
  Nr. 113
July 10, 1711

Robert J. Allen
  editor
Addison and Steele
  Selections from The Tatler
  and The Spectator
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970©


ii  Eddie Redmayne
     2015

Origins of Wednesday liii: Pendant days

ii   Ezra Stoller

        New York Athletic Club

        from the lobby of the

        Seagram Building, 1958

iii  Ourense Cathedral

        Galicia, 12th C 

        fresco detail

iv  Marlon Brando

        book and matchbook

        undated, uncredited

Stealing a march

     The plan, we remember, was that

     Lupa and Remus were to be "out-

     door dogs"; that, at least, was

     what Ed firmly intended. But I

     had it in mind that they should

     be outdoor dogs only until Ed

     relented and let them move into

     the house ..

      

George Pitcher
The Dogs who 
  came to Stay
Dutton, 1995©

Bright ideas of health care

    With the wind gusting so wildly,

    So unpredictably,

    I'm willing to bet one or two ants

    May have tumbled on their backs

    As we sit here on the porch.

    Their feet are pedaling

    Imaginary bicycles.

    It's a battle of wits against

    Various physical laws,

    Plus Fate, plus -

    So-what-else-is-new?

    Wondering if anyone's coming to their aid

    Bringing cake crumbs,

    Miniature editions of the Bible,

    A lost thread or two

    Cleverly tied end to end.

Charles Simic
New and Selected Poems
  1962 - 2012
  On the Meadow
  2000
Houghton Mifflin 
  Harcourt, 2013©

One on the rocks

If I listened long enough to you,
I'd find a way to believe that it's
all true.

                Your paintings aren't weapons, some-

                one wrote for him to say, you would

                never do that to them, never reduce

                them like that. Maybe you started

                the commission thinking that way but

                then art happened. You couldn't help

                it, that's what you do ..

Of all the arguments to present,

to a man who knows what he's do-

ing, I think the effort to dis-

miss a moral crisis he confronts

is the symptom of a script which

has to end, one way or another.

Expression always has something

to do for others, if it is art.

                If you can't find your courage in a

                war, you have to keep looking for it

                anyway, and not in another war ei-

                ther; in where it's old and jammed 

                until the rocks start moving around,

                a little light and air, long time no

                see .. The war ended, and then it 

                really ended .. I watched the chop-

                pers I'd loved dropping into the sea

                as their pilots jumped clear, and one

                last chopper revved it up, lifted off

                and flew out of my chest. 

Tim Hardin
Reason to Believe
1965

John Logan
  playwright
Red
  Scene iv
Oberon Books, 2009©

Michael Herr
Dispatches
  Breathing Out
Alfred A. Knopf, 1977©

Eddie Redmayne
i   Out
ii  Esquire UK
2015