In distant lands, on hill and plain,
thus do I dream, when nights are long, —
and memory gives back again
the whisper of that long-lost song.
— V. Nabokov
The Russian Song
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: #illustration
Still Life
You can almost hear it —
autumn’s last gasp
a pomegranate split open
grapes hang low drowsy
a pear half-turned to gold
held by the brush
silently resists decay
— jujube
Rainy Day
The window holds the breath of rain.
I sink into the blueness of sleep.
Dream and daylight braid,
as the shadows of the leaves
sway.
Nocturnal Travels
I have no need, for my nocturnal travels,
of ships, I have no need of trains.
The moon’s above the checkerboard-like garden.
The window’s open. I am set.
— V. Nabokov
Night Is Young
Wine hums, lanterns flicker.
Moon sneers, time falls into dust.
Who stitches sorrow in the dimming light,
While night is still young.
Hotel Room
Not quite a bed, not quite a bench.
Wallpaper: a grim yellow.
A pair of chairs. A squinty looking-glass.
We enter — my shadow and I.
— V. Nabokov
Still Life
Tipsy antiquity, barely holds
the coolness of the gleam.
Time lingers,
soft as the evening’s breath.
The University Poem #30
in that townlet in the towers’ shadow
the sound of life was reckless clatter,
the mixture of tipsy antiquity
and of the present liveliness
were healthful for me: my soul’s ready
to relish everything beneath the moon,
the ancient and the new.
— V. Nabokov
We So Firmly Believed
We so firmly believed in the linkage of life,
but now I’ve looked back — and it is astonishing
to what a degree you, my youth,
seem in tints not mine, in traits not real.
— V. Nabokov
Alley
Memory creeps like moss along the wall.
I stand in the hollow alley,
recalling her voice
only to hear
the murmur of my own shadow
Unusual Colors - Digital and AI art 