Our Lives' Entropy

© Ron Villejo

I wrote this poem, after hearing that entropy was irreversible, from the film "13 Conversations About One Thing."

Silence

© Ron Villejo

Hillary and Mallory

© Ron Villejo

Rain - The Mystery of Tristan Rêveur

© Ron Villejo

Bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art, because it documents human failure.

Un suicide élégant est l'ultime œuvre d'art [An elegant suicide is the ultimate work of art].

Tristan Reveur is the greatest artist of the 20th century. What is the reason you haven't heard of him? It must be, that he is imaginary. He and his whole body of work was created in cooperation between strangers on the internet. The film erects a monument to his life, while investigating the questions of make-believe and online communities.

*

Henry is obsessed with a fake artist by the name of Tristan Rêveur, reveur being French for dreamer. So, in reality there is no artist by the name of Tristan Rêveur.

Reference:  Who is Tristan Rêveur?

Art work by Tristan Rêveur?

Facebook profile of Tristan Rêveur?

In Memory of Steve Jobs

It was early morning of October 6th 2011, and I was in Dubai just waking up.  I had my BlackBerry, bedside, and without thinking about it, I picked it up.  I saw from my Facebook news feed that Steve Jobs just died.  

I got up, and checked my news feed further on my laptop.  Same news on Twitter.  

On October 7th, a poem stirred in my mind.  By the next day, I had written "In Memory of Steve Jobs."  This long poem poured out of me, and I must've been simply the scribe who took the dictation from the muse that Jobs was.

The Last Hour, by Sharon Olds

Suddenly, the last hour
before he took me to the airport, he stood up,
bumping the table, and took a step
toward me, and like a figure in an early
science fiction movie he leaned
forward and down, and opened an arm,
knocking my breast, and he tried to take some
hold of me, I stood and we stumbled,
and then we stood, around our core, his
hoarse cry of awe, at the center,
at the end, of our life. Quickly, then,
the worst was over, I could comfort him,
holding his heart in place from the back
and smoothing it from the front, his own
life continuing, and what had
bound him, around his heart—and bound him
to me—now lying on and around us,
sea-water, rust, light, shards,
the little eternal curls of eros
beaten out straight.

The Last Hour
Published in "Stag's Leap" in 2012 by Sharon Olds

Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
   It was an Abyssinian maid
   And on her dulcimer she played,
   Singing of Mount Abora.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Kubla Khan

Or, a vision in a dream.  A Fragment.

Written in 1797, published in 1816
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Well, I Have Lost You, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

(image credit)

Sonnet XLVII, from "Fatal Interview" 

Written in 1931 by Edna St. Vincent Millay

To Sleep, by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

To Sleep
Written in 1819 by John Keats

I reflected a long while on how to interpret this poem and what images to draw on. It was simple enough to make it about sleep and night. But that seemed too conventional and convenient, and moreover I was quite curious about Keats' references to "soft embalmer," "oiled wards," and "hushed Casket of my Soul." Was he alluding to death? Perhaps. As a poet, I myself have likened sleep to death and death to sleep.

A few more weeks passed, before I came upon "Romeo and Juliet" as the theme. Shakespeare was, of course, a master at metaphor, and words like "turn" and "die" had sexual connotations. So why not, then, a romantic tragedy, as an interpretation of Keats' poem? "Sleep" becomes a metaphor for Juliet, and specifically Romeo's untrammeled love and desire for her. Its meaning becomes "sleep with" and "go to bed with," and, later on, as the play turns to its tragic denouement, it becomes "kill oneself" and "die." So "Casket of my Soul," as I interpret it, is both figurative and literal.

I have always loved Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet," so I drew images from this film. The young actors are Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.

Night, by Louise Bogan

The cold remote islands
And the blue estuaries
Where what breathes, breathes
The restless wind of the inlets,
And what drinks, drinks
The incoming tide; 

Where shell and weed
Wait upon the salt wash of the sea,
And the clear nights of stars
Swing their lights westward
To set behind the land; 

Where the pulse clinging to the rocks
Renews itself forever;
Where, again on cloudless nights,
The water reflects
The firmament's partial setting; 

— O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.

Published in "The Blue Estuaries" by Louise Bogan

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

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.

Invictus
Written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley

Wanting to Die, by Anne Sexton

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!—
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love whatever it was, an infection.

"Wanting to Die"
Written in 1964 by Anne Sexton

The Road not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken
Published in 1916 by Robert Frost

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

How Do I Love Thee?
Written circa 1845 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Can you name all eight actresses, pictured in my video? E-mail me at Ron.Villejo@drronart.com with all correct names, and you will receive a free copy of my collection "The Song Poems" - to be published later this year, as hardcopy and e-book!

Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me. 

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the side of the sea. 

Annabel Lee
Written in 1849 by Edgar Allan Poe

Mad Girl's Love Song, by Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Mad Girl's Love Song
Written in 1951, in villanelle form, by Sylvia Plath

Musée des Beaux Arts, by WH Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Musée des Beaux Arts
Written in 1938 by WH Auden

We can imagine WH Auden visiting the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, and meditating on the art of Pieter Bruegel (The Elder). He focuses specifically on "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus." Icarus was the son of master craftsman Daedalus, who made wings made of feathers and wax, with which they could both escape prison. Daedalus instructed his son not to fly too close to the sun, but out of sheer delight Icarus did not heed this. The wax melted, and he fell to his death in the sea. Auden's poem is a homage to Breugel's insights into the unflinching ordinariness of everyday life, which for better or for worse speaks to our human lot. It was a masterful painting, rendered masterfully into the art of poetry!

On the Pulse of the Morning, by Maya Angelou

A Rock, a River, a Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
[On our planet floor],
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.

The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River [sang] and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
[They hear.] They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.

Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveler, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock; I, the River; I, the Tree -

I am yours; your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, [but] if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

On the Pulse of the Morning
Written by Maya Angelou

At President Bill Clinton's behest, Maya Angelou wrote this poem and recited it at his inauguration on January 20th 1993. It was broadcasted live, worldwide, a video of which is here:

Above is the best transcript of Maya Angelou's poem I found, one that looks to have the proper stanza breaks. There were two lines on this transcript, which she didn't read in the inauguration: "On our planet floor" (1st stanza) and "They hear" (9th stanza). I also made two revisions to the transcript: "The river sang" (8th stanza) and "but if faced" (17th stanza). My recitation follows her momentous reading more than 20 years ago.

Sailing to Byzantium, by William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

"Sailing to Byzantium"
Written in 1926 by William Butler Yeats

Viva La Vida

This 'church bell odyssey' - Viva La Vida - by Coldplay tells a dramatic tale about a king who lost his kingdom. What it inspired me to do, in turn, was re-cast a story of such a famous king - that is, Shakespeare's King Lear. With poetic license firmly on hand, I bring Lear back from the dead, back to the ruins of his doing, and bid a final farewell to his beloved youngest daughter Cordelia. Out of envy, Lear's eldest two daughters, and their husbands, had Cordelia killed. By the time, Lear reached her, she was already dead.

So, there you go, Coldplay, Shakespeare and I, in a way, conspired to make art that weaves music, stage and poetry together!

© Ron Villejo

The Fear

"The Fear" is a very curious song and Alice-in-Wonderland video by Lily Allen. It's nightmarish in theme and lyrics, yet the imagery and colors are whimsical. In the song poem it inspired, I tried to penetrate and resolve this paradox with a more pointed, darker approach.

© Ron Villejo

Nature Boy

Nature Boy was composed by Eden Ahbez in 1947. Since Nat King Cole recorded the song the following year, countless performers have sung it. No wonder, it's a short song of such philosophical, at times quizzical themes, as to make it a wonder at the same time. It's unique and lovely!

John Leguizamo's magical rendition of this song at the opening of the film "Moulin Rouge" (above) was one inspiration of mine.

Another inspiration was this very simple, very tender song by the wonderful duo of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, who make up PomplamooseMusic:

© Ron Villejo

The Blower's Daughter

The Blower's Daughter was a song in the film "Closer," and the music video by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan features clips from this film.

So from film, to music, to poetry, I am happy to take part in this inspired, artistic evolution!

© Ron Villejo

And I Love You So

My poem was inspired of course by this lovely Don McLean love song.

And also by this lovely version by a Filipina singer named Teresa:

© Ron Villejo

what is ¿poetry in multimedia?

This is my broader vision and aim for Poetry in Multimedia:

what it is

Vincent

Painting, music and poem come together here, in true Dr. Ron Art fashion, that is, art that crosses boundaries.  The song inspiration for my poem?  This cover of the Don McLean classic, by Joanna Wang.

My poem is about the artistic tension between Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, both masters in their own right. Gauguin suggested that Van Gogh paint from his memory and imagination. The latter apparently agreed, but demurred at the notion of veering from having his subject in front of him as he painted. Then, during another stay at an asylum in Saint-Rémy, and without his favored subjects available to him, he painted à la Gauguin, which gave us a glimpse, I believe, of his true artistic genius. That glimpse was nothing less than pivotal: It was 'The Starry Night.'

Starry Night (1889), at the Museum of Modern Art

Here's Don McLean's performance:

© Ron Villejo

Walk On By

"Walk On By" was composed in 1963 by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and sung originally by Dionne Warwick. But it was the sultry, Bossa Nova version by Diana Krall that was the inspiration for my song poem.

Here's Warwick's performance:

© Ron Villejo

Rock Your Body

Justin Timberlake rocks.

This song rocks.

My poem has got to rock, too.

Enough said.

© Ron Villejo

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

"Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" is the iconic song, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics), from their 1978 musical "Evita," about one of the most storied figures in political history - Eva Peron.

It was the 1996 film version of this musical, directed by Alan Parker, and in particular Madonna's rendition of this iconic song, which were the inspiration for my poem.

© Ron Villejo

The Impossible Dream

"The Impossible Dream," as a song, is the ultimate inspiration. It was composed by Mitch Leigh (music) and Joe Darion (lyrics) for the 1965 musical "Man of La Mancha." In turn, this musical was based on the play by Dale Wasserman, who took his inspiration from the classic 17th century novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes.

Miguel de Cervantes

It was Brian Stokes Mitchell's magical rendition of the song, in a stage tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy (above), that specifically inspired me to write my song poem.

© Ron Villejo