Thy voice, as tender as the light
That shivers low at eve -
Thy hair, where myriad flashes bright
Do in and outward weave -
Thy charms in their diversity
Half frighten and astonish me.

Thine eyes, that hold a mirth subdued
Like deep pools scattering fire -
Mine dare not meet them in their mood,
For fear of my desire,
Lest thou that secret do descry
Which evermore I must deny.

Hard is the world that does not give
To every love a place;
Hard is the power that bids us live
A life bereft of grace -
Hard, hard to lose thy figure, dear,
My star and my religion here!

Text: To a Friend, James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
Image: photographer, sitters, unknown,
Daguerreotype circa 1850, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Have no shame, you’re mine for good;

We share a sole insurgent fire,

We live in boundless brotherhood.

I do not fear the gibes of men;

One being split in two we dwell,

The kernel of a double nut

Embedded in a single shell.

Text: Imitation of the Arabic, by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, 1835
Translation: Michael Green
Image: Photographer, sitters, unknown; via deak/ipernity

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age old pain,

Its ancient tale of being apart or together.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers,

Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,

the distressful tears of farewell,

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -

And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Click to Click to listen to male vocal: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Dear Peter,

Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long. No matter what I say or do, I’ll still feel you here ’til the moment I’m gone. You hold me without touch, keep me without chains. I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.

Set me free, leave me be. I don’t want to fall another moment into your gravity. Here I am, and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be — but you’re on to me, and all over me.

You loved me ’cause I’m fragile — when I thought that I was strong. But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone. I live here on my knees as I try to make you see that you’re everything I think I need here on the ground. But you’re neither friend nor foe, though I can’t seem to let you go.

The one thing that I still know is that you’re keeping me down. You’re on to me, on to me, and all over

…Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.

Monty

Image: Photographer, sitters, unknown
Vocal: Brent Wilson
Text: Song lyrics, Gravity, by Sarah Bareilles,
imagined here as a letter from one lover to another

You have returned. You have returned, my joy:

you have returned as polar morning comes

after a whole night winter. Throb the drums,

– yes beat my blood to greet my darling boy.

My heart with wild delight shall now employ

both tongue and pen to reckon up the sums

of all my gladness. Pleasure almost numbs

my reason. I am shaken like a toy.

Like sunlight after a storm, like flowers from ice,

yes, like a torch lit in oblivion

you have returned, and heaven bursts above.

No music mad enough shall suffice.

My heart shall paean like a clarion.

I am the bugle for the mouth of love.

Text: #19,  from Carmina Amico (1932), by Edwards James
Image: photographer, subjects, unknown 

BERLIN — Rudolf Brazda, believed to be the last surviving person who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp because of his homosexuality, has died, a German gay rights group said Thursday. He was 98.
more from the washington post

‘I Had Always Been Blessed with Good Fortune’
An inspiring profile on Brazda, about whom a book was published this year.
see: spiegel online

Never forget

At age 96, Rudolf Brazda speaks out to tell his story.

i love this boy, not for his beauty only,

but just because my life that was so lonely

knows in his presence some strange healing power,

an unfamiliar peace — as if each hour

should pause a little in its swift-winged flight

and breathe a benediction. in his bright

blue eyes his happy spirit sits and smiles,

and never evil dreams, or wanton wiles,

or lusts o’ercloud their sweet serenity:

i dare not hope — but, when he looks at me,

something half-shy, half-trusting, leaps therein

and shadows of dead passion and old sin

all dreadful haunting memories, take flight –

you think i’m happy? well — perhaps you’re right!

image: photographer, subjects unknown
text: excerpt, ‘the beautiful,’ by f.s. woodley, (1888-1957)

By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;
He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea,
I would adventure for such merchandise.

…I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Image: Photographer, subjects, unknown
Text: William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii,  c. 1591-1595

i do

what greater thing is there for two human souls

than to feel that they are joined together

to strengthen each other in all labour,

to minister to each other in all sorrow,

to share with each other in all gladness,

to be one with each other in the

silent unspoken memories.

i do

Text: excerpt from ‘Adam Bede’ by George Eliot, c. 1859
Image of men: photographer, sitters, unknown c. 1900
Image of women: Glass plate negative, sitters unknown,
photographer possibly Arthur Phillips, Australia, c. 1910
Powerhouse Museum collection

Never thought this was possible, this tug-tug-tugging of the heart. A face I didn’t want to take my eyes from. That face can never, will never leave me. A face to light up my own. My piece of treasure. A nail to pierce the hands and feet. Always be with me, I thought to myself. Always be with me and always look this glad to see me.

Text: excerpt, London Triptych, Jonathan Kemp
Image: Photographer, subjects, unknown, c. 1940s