Oil painting of two cats who love each other very much. Inspired by Gustav Klimt’s iconic The Kiss.
– Faraj Bou al-Isha (b. 1956), “Wait”
translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
in: “Poems for the Millennium. Book of North African Literature”, edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
temi and james cusati-moyer by john edmonds for the new york times style magazine, sept 2019
“(…I love you, O you entirely possess me,
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and / lawless…)
Walt Whitman, ‘From Pent-Up Aching Rivers’
“I can’t think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there’s no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.”
Franz Kafka, The Castle
“Awake with me all night she whispers,
“You are my angel.
Beneath your skin an angel hides.
Let’s plunge into the deep again, my love,
and leave to others
the height and breadth
of all the kingdoms of the air.”
Adonis, ‘Transformations of the Lover’
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alrie Saenz// The Raven King - Maggie Stiefvater// The Beartice Letters - Lemony Snickett// The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller// I Will - Mitski
“it’s like this; / say there’s a whole room of people and you’re somewhere in the middle of them all. / i walk in and i see you, but you don’t suddenly become the only person in the room. god no. you become the room. you are the room.”
— Salma Deera, from “the room, the building, etc.,” Letters From Medea (via wethinkwedream)