Can We Pretend That Airplanes In The Night Sky Are Like Shooting Stars

Please stop demanding control over my life.

You were never there when I needed you the most; you left me rotting, crumbling and putrefying on the ground. Yet you have returned, after years of absence, declaring your privileges, demanding respect, and love, and trust; when you yourself never gave any. I despise you. I loathe the way you speak, the way you reek and the way you exist. I can only hold back my feelings so much longer, although they are bound to come tearing out sometime. I wish you could acknowledge and accept people for who they are. I wish you would stop being so vain and futile. I wish you would leave me alone, to make my own decisions. I believe I’ve earned the right to make my own mistakes, my own transgressions- is that not how we learn? Isn’t that how we move on in life? – Through experiences and understanding? I guess you wouldn’t know anything about allowing people their rights, or understanding; for all you ever cared about were your own feelings, your own beauty, your own life; never giving a damn about others. I’m sorry life has been so hard on you - although honestly people have experienced much worse- but you truthfully cannot keep living believing that you are God’s gift to the world, while the rest of us are parasites, born to serve you.

I used to be exceptionally naïve, inexperienced and immature; believing that you would change over time, alas how wrong I was. You have only nurtured your self-destructive nature. Your hatred of mankind has grown. You may have aged, and time may have taken a toll on your skin, but your vanity has surprisingly developed and increased with every wrinkle that your childlike face attributes. You have gained supremacy through other people’s weaknesses, you thrive and prosper when you see the less fortunate suffer, you believe that things are destined to be this way, and all is well in your wretched, pitiable, microcosmic universe. But I truly wish you could see what you have done to the people who have always loved you unconditionally; who accepted you despite all of your faults. I used to miss you, in my darkest hours, I would wish to God that you were there to hold me, listen to me, and understand me- alas God never answered my feeble pleas. Instead I was thrown amidst the wolves while you watched them tear my flesh into microscopic pieces of nonentity. Until I was nothing but a shadow of my past self; dismal and bleak, a frail silhouette; that wanted to stop existing for the pain was too strong to tolerate. I was left unaided, devastated and shattered to put back the pieces of your own mistakes; your own egocentricity. And now, now you want me to be a part of your life; you want me to understand you, appreciate you for all you have done. You want me to believe you when you tell me that all is for the best. You want me to love you.

Unfortunately for you, my love for people, my trust, has dwindled over time. Love is not what it used to be and trust never was. My heart has been broken and crushed in an unimaginable way and I shall never be the same person again, but do not fret, or agonize your egotistical diminutive black heart; for this is one mistake that is not your burden at all. I am sorry that I am your largest blunder but it is not like I could help it- believe me if I could turn back time I would have made sure none of this ever had a tendency to happen. I would have made sure lives were never lost, children were not left ravenous, racism never flourished, hearts were never broken, and equality thrived throughout the ages.

No need for self pitying for whether we like it or not we are obliged to live in this world, and reside with our fellow inhabitants, sharing this globe with each other- no matter how much we are required to struggle to survive. I truly wish that you would open up your insatiably voracious eyes to the world around you, and see how things have changed; accept them.  I wish you would stop your insanity and become a regular person. I wish you would stop telling me what to do, because frankly I don’t even know who you are- nor do I care. I wish that you will choose to change sometime because truthfully I wish you would stop being you.

Clear Hearts & Grey Flowers ♥

There’s something about the deliberate emphasis of positive expression, the distinction an artist puts on a fantastical reality, within our reality that attracts me to their art. It’s beautiful, magnificent, unrealistic, innovative, even grotesque and bizarre. So before I go into why I am being exceedingly drawn into the world of Mark Ryden, here’s a brief account on the advent of surrealism. It began in the twentieth century as a literary and artistic movement, and flourished predominantly in Europe. The interest in surrealism grew out of the preceding Dada movement – art that focused on the idea of anti-war politics- and the rationale for its amplification, was not only the rise of World Wars I and II, but also the succinct fact that people began to see the flaws attributed to the destruction that came with the “rationalism” that was the main supporter of European customs and policies. André Breton, publisher of “The Surrealist Manifesto” and who is now recognized as the founder of Surrealism tried to generate the idea that Surrealism was to be used as a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience, in a world where dreams and fantasies collaborated and are brought forth to be viewed and critiqued in our “rational” world. According to Breton, in order to classify this type of work as “genius” you need to access a generally unexploited realm, search deep within your soul and combine your feelings, your intimate fantasies, and dreams and this advice is to be adhered by poets and artists alike. Fortunately for art lovers like myself, this movement continues to prosper in all corners of this globe producing some of the best art ever to be seen.

As for Mark Ryden, he came to dominate the surrealistic world in the 1990’s, a time where artists and critics alike were eagerly awaiting the return of the art of painting. Although Ryden’s work can be classified as surrealistic, he seems to surpass the initial Surrealistic techniques by choosing subject matters that are quite diverse from the previous ones painted by artists such as Salvador Dali – another favorite of mine- Ryden is permeated with ambiguity and would rather attribute the drastic boundaries of his imagery to the intricate and convoluted composition of those leaps of imagination that lie outside the limits of intentionality. Ryden fills his paintings with cultural connotation, in which the viewer feels reassured by the exquisiteness and beauty of the painting only to be transported into the intended world where oddity and idiosyncrasy thrive within the culturally familiar. Dewy eyed vixens, alchemical symbols, cuddly plush pets, slabs of meat, religious emblems and primordial landscapes challenge the audience and allow the viewer to enter a world where childlike creatures filled with a sense of innocence and honesty live together in a world created by Ryden’s fingertips.

Amazingly, paintings are not Ryden’s only works; he has created a myriad of statues, ornaments, books, skeletons, and toys as well. The humorous yet intriguing thing about Ryden’s work is that if it is menacing, it is still immersed in an inexorable ray of reassurance. If it is morbid, it still manages to emanate life and verve. If it is tainted and cruel, it is so with such a pure innocence that we must attribute that idea to our own sullied minds. You don’t have to like his art to know that Mark Ryden does have talent, a talent so miscellaneous, extraordinary and unique that he allows us to delve into his personal idea of reality, and although his paintings are obscure and very surreal in nature, we all manage to find a way to connect with his passion.

So here’s my question to you; would you rather merge in with the norm and prolong the traditional theme of exclusively believing and following what seems to be “rational”, or would you select the other path, be exceptional and innovative, and even start your own movement? Oh, if you are looking to see more of Mark Ryden follow this link http://www.markryden.com/index.html, and enjoy the video.  :)
xoxo ♥

Dover Beach ♥

"The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves drawback, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
- Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold

I love this poem. I love it so much that it is always there when you open up this website.

I love it ♥

Sometimes I wonder why I like it so much. It’s certainly not the best of poems, not the most famous or infamous, or even notorious. However I find it beautiful, stimulating, desolate somehow. Although this dramatic monologue/ elegy is written in free verse, there is a sense of cadence to it, a rhythmic flow of melancholic ideas dispersed upon the page that Arnold engraved his thoughts on. The fundamental significance of the poem is essentially that; challenges to the validity of long-standing theological and moral precepts have shaken the faith of people in God as well as religion. Bearing in mind that Arnold lived around the mid-1800’s, this little detail makes this precise poem all the more intriguing. The pillar of faith that was predestined to support society for centuries, was ultimately crumbling. The credence and weight of science and evolution impacted belief systems throughout the world. I mean, once believing that we were all put on this globe as a consequence of the sins of Adam and Eve, then having that whole perception shattered and molded into a new perspective of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. I'm sure that made someone roll around in their grave for a while, if not at least turned some heads.

My speculation is that even the most divine and pious of people would at least have their concealed intimate thoughts shaken. Consequently the very idea of religion and the existence of a God was very much in doubt… Therefore the dying of the beam of faith is symbolized in this elegy as the persona – Arnold himself- sees the once gleaming, now dimming light, on the coasts of France. Ultimately, Arnold sustained his confidence and devotion to God and religion, exclusively his elected path of Christianity… Although I cannot pronounce the same conclusiveness for others as secularism took hold and brought forth our world as we know it today.

So enlighten me, what is it that you believe? Would you disregard everything that has been enforced and drilled into you since the day that you were put on this earth? – Since the day you started existing? Or would you sever the ties that formed with time from age old traditions of prophets, myths, legends and folklore and embrace the innovative dawn of science and technology.

Tell me, do you believe?
  

xoxo ♥