eileen chengyin chow

From “Float” involuntarily. At sudden times. For surprise reasons. Here is an excerpt from a letter Proust wrote in 1913: We think we no longer love our dead but that is because we do not remember them; suddenly we catch sight of an old glove and burst into tears. Before leaving the library I turn off the lights.

Proust says memory is of two kinds.
There is the daily struggle to recall
where we put our reading glasses

and there is a deeper gust of longing
that comes from the bottom
of the heart

involuntarily,
At sudden times,
For surprise reasons.

-Anne Carson
#everynightapoem #fragment

me with my humanities degree when you ask about the difference between RAM and secondary storage:

常に啓蒙的なEileenさんがAI創作についての基本的な視点を述べたスレッドを紹介している。

「そんなこと判ってる」という人もいるだろうが、「判っていること」を言葉にして明示しておくことは自他にとって極めて有益です。

頭のなかだけに置いておくと煮崩れてしまいますから

From “Float” involuntarily. At sudden times. For surprise reasons. Here is an excerpt from a letter Proust wrote in 1913: We think we no longer love our dead but that is because we do not remember them; suddenly we catch sight of an old glove and burst into tears. Before leaving the library I turn off the lights.

Proust says memory is of two kinds.
There is the daily struggle to recall
where we put our reading glasses

and there is a deeper gust of longing
that comes from the bottom
of the heart

involuntarily,
At sudden times,
For surprise reasons.

-Anne Carson
#everynightapoem #fragment

This whole thread. From the ever brilliant @zeets.bsky.social, who does make things.

Attended my reunion earlier in summer - and the anti-Trump mood was *strong* - some 11K alum showed up for Class Day. Friend and I joked that we've never seen so many mostly white, mostly rich, and mostly old folks in one place who were fervently anti-Trump. So school tribal loyalties won out!

same

August arrives in the dark we are not even asleep and it is here with a gust of rain rustling before it how can it be so late all at once somewhere the Perseids are falling toward us already at a speed that would burn us alive if we could believe it but in the stillness after the rain ends nothing is to be heard but the drops falling one at a time from the tips of the leaves into the night and I lie in the dark listening to what I remember while the night flies on with us into itself

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here

how can it be so late all at once

-WS Merwin, Nocturne II
from The Shadow of Sirius
#everynightapoem

(i still google the calendar)

this is a disgrace and a national shame

🥹🥺

Perfect.

July (she will fly and give no warning to her flight)

Shot fired!

August has always felt like late Sunday afternoon.

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

needed this Merwinian season as mortality awareness

Good to see you here!

August.

Merwin, with thanks to Eileen Chengyin Chow, who graciously shepherds poetry to BlueSky.

Black and white filmstill of Jeanne Moreau in the rain, from L'Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Louis Malle, 1958) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJw9HXXoXA

When asked if she felt nostalgic for the French New Wave, Jeanne Moreau responded:

“Nostalgia for what? Nostalgia is when you want things to stay the same. I know so many people staying in the same place. And I think: they’re dead before they die. That’s a terrible risk. Living is risking.”

JULY NOTEBOOK: THE BIRDS Sleep like the down elevator's imitation of a memory lapse. Then early light. Why were you born, voyager? One is not born for a reason, though there is a skein of causes. Out of yellowish froth, cells began to divide, or so they say, and feed on sunlight, for no reason. After that life wanted life. You are awake now? I am awake now.

"Time: / thick honey, and no one saying good-bye."

-Robert Hass,
from “July Notebook: The Birds" (2010)
#everynightapoem

August arrives in the dark we are not even asleep and it is here with a gust of rain rustling before it how can it be so late all at once somewhere the Perseids are falling toward us already at a speed that would burn us alive if we could believe it but in the stillness after the rain ends nothing is to be heard but the drops falling one at a time from the tips of the leaves into the night and I lie in the dark listening to what I remember while the night flies on with us into itself

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here

how can it be so late all at once

-WS Merwin, Nocturne II
from The Shadow of Sirius
#everynightapoem

JULY NOTEBOOK: THE BIRDS Sleep like the down elevator's imitation of a memory lapse. Then early light. Why were you born, voyager? One is not born for a reason, though there is a skein of causes. Out of yellowish froth, cells began to divide, or so they say, and feed on sunlight, for no reason. After that life wanted life. You are awake now? I am awake now.

"Time: / thick honey, and no one saying good-bye."

-Robert Hass,
from “July Notebook: The Birds" (2010)
#everynightapoem

"living is risking" - beautiful

Fabulous.

YouTube video by CEBOLAS tumblr Jeanne Moreau - Miles Davis - Louis Malle - Paris - 1958

This improvised Miles Davis soundtrack for Louis Malle's 1958 film, L'Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, is a thing of true beauty
www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJw...

Black and white filmstill of Jeanne Moreau in the rain, from L'Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Louis Malle, 1958) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJw9HXXoXA

When asked if she felt nostalgic for the French New Wave, Jeanne Moreau responded:

“Nostalgia for what? Nostalgia is when you want things to stay the same. I know so many people staying in the same place. And I think: they’re dead before they die. That’s a terrible risk. Living is risking.”

AS IF As if the tender body is. As if the will is tender. And, like any creature that has its hood up, you take a photo of yourself in front of the window, rain so dark, the day and vision desired, the way you are so desperate for beautiful adventure the lights shut off and the sweat of some hot stranger in your mouth. As if to say before is to enter a house of filled with teenagers piled on top of each other. Did I tell you that it's raining? It's not hard to think that it's already night and necessary, how any green is a wild form, and lastly, I don't want to inspire devotion if it means the I becomes separated from the world. Dawn Lundy Martin, from Instructions for the Lovers (Nightboat Books, 2024)

As if the tender body is. As if the will is tender.

Dawn Lundy Martin

Just another reason I subscribe to @propublica.org.

SOME NIGHT AGAIN When the world vanishes, I will come back here by the power of my dreams and create it again, starting where that clear depth in the mountain lake began, where you swam one night across the moonlight and I thought: Still, it’s good, though it has to end.

William Stafford