Jabberwocky

Salvador Dali

Toreo Noir

Jabberwocky

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

~ Lewis Carroll ~

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Edvard Munch

White Night

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears,

I prayDo not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~ Dylan Thomas ~

Psalm 23

Paul Gauguin

The Spirit of the Dead KeepsWatch

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

If We Must Die

Katsushiku Hokusai

Great Wave Off Of Kanagawa

If We Must Die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

~ Claude McKay ~

I Sing of Olaf

Jackson Pollock

War

I Sing of Olaf

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or

his wellbelov'd colonel(trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but--though an host of overjoyed

noncoms(first knocking on the head

him)do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments--

Olaf(being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responds,without getting annoyed

"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave)
but--though all kinds of officers

(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)

their passive prey did kick and curse

until for wear their clarion

voices and boots were much the worse,

and egged the firstclassprivates on

his rectum wickedly to tease

by means of skilfully applied

bayonets roasted hot with heat--

Olaf(upon what were once knees)

does almost ceaselessly repeat

"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which

assertions duly notified

threw the yellowsonofabitch

into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)

i pray to see; and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because

unless statistics lie he was

more brave than me: more blond than you.

~ e. e. cummings ~

I Have a Dream

Jasper Johns

Flag

…I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true

meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men

are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former

slaves and the sons of former slave owners will they be able to sit down together

at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with

the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed

into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they

will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today…….

…….So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tenneessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi,

from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring,

And when this happens,and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from

every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to

speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and

Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words

of the old negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are

free at last."

~ Martin Luther King ~

No One Left To Speak Up For Me

Jasper Johns

White Flag

No One Left To Speak Up For Me

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time
there was no one left to speak up for me.

~ Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945 ~

Invictus

Arnold Böcklin

Isle of the Dead

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley ~

Winged Man

Henri Matisse

Icarus

Winged Man

The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,

The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,

The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,

Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,

The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.

His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,

A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up,

Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,

And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,

But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes through the sky,

Braving the crags of ether, daring the gods on high,

Black 'gainst the crimson sunset, golden o'er cloudy snows,

With all Adventure in his heart the first winged man arose.

Dropping gold, dropping gold, where the mists of morning rolled,

On he kept his way undaunted, though his breaths were stabs of cold,

Through the mystery of dawning that no mortal may behold.

Now he shouts, now he sings in the rapture of his wings,

And his great heart burns intenser with the strength of his desire,

As he circles like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre.

Gazing straight at the sun, half his pilgrimage is done,

And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves

In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls in broken curves.

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous,

Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus,

See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous.

You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan,

Man absurd, gigantic, eager for impossible Romance,

Overthrowing all Hell's legions with one warped and broken lance.

On the highest steeps of Space he will have his dwelling-place,

In those far, terrific regions where the cold comes down like Death

Gleams the red glint of his pinions, smokes the vapor of his breath.

Floating downward, very clear, still the echoes reach the ear

Of a little tune he whistles and a little song he sings,

Mounting, mounting still, triumphant, on his torn and broken wings!

~ Stephen Vincent Benet ~