Angels around us

My Angel pictures, taken in Twin Falls, Idaho at the Twin Falls Cemetery

Done in Black and White with spotlight to soften the edges

Enjoy!

Too Early...

I took these shots in the Twin Falls Cemetery,  when I was in Idaho. The headstone below caught my eye and I had to photograph it. Something about the lines and sweet curves gives this memorial such delicacy and love.

I love this shot, it was just begging to be taken in Black and White!

The best part of this memorial was the inscription "Zu Frueh Schlug Diese Bittere Stunde" This is German for

"Too Early This Bitter Hour Struck"

How beautiful and romantic is that?

I think Andre Jordan wrote this about me

Since I am such a big fan of cemeteries, this called out to me, I changed a few things, you will notice as you read to fit moi :)

Grave Girl (or Woman)
I found her sitting on a gravestone.
She was talking to herself and cutting up handwritten letters with the biggest pair of scissors I had ever seen.
‘Hello’, I said.
‘Hello’, she smiled, nimbly snipping away.
‘Whom are you talking to?’
‘Everyone’ she smiled, waving her arms around the cemetery.
I smiled. ‘And why are you destroying those letters?’
‘I am not destroying them,’ she insisted, ‘I am just cutting all of the words out. I love words’
‘But why are you cutting all of the words out?’ I asked.
‘Because they are in the wrong order. And some of them,’ she theatrically sighed, ‘have been incorrectly spelt. What is your favourite word?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, wishing I could think of something magnificent. ‘I quite like oxymoron’.
‘Oh that’s a great word’ she laughed, ‘Isobella Monkton’s favourite word is cantankerous’.
‘Who is Isobella Monkton?’ I asked.
‘Isobella is over there,’ smiled the girl, gesturing towards a broken-nosed marble statue covered in ivy. ‘She sadly died in 1842’.
Whilst the girl was clearly loopy, I found her manner quite delightful, and so, not wishing to offend, I half-waved in Isobella’s direction and continued our conversation.
‘What is your favourite word?’
The girl carefully placed her giant scissors by her side and paused for a moment.
‘Oh I have so many favourites. It’s really hard to say, and it all depends upon my mood. Currently my favourite word is melancholy’.
‘Melancholy,’ I sighed. ‘I’ve been melancholy all my life. In fact I was going to say melancholy but I thought you might be frightened by such a word and so I said oxymoron.
‘Why would I be frightened of the word melancholy?’ asked the girl, clearly perplexed.
‘Well,’ I tried to explain, ‘whenever you say words like that, people are a bit shocked. They don’t know what to do with themselves. The moment they hear such words they form an opinion of you – normally a misguided opinion of you. It’s like telling someone you once had the depressions, (Take note here that your dear blogger Wendie does in fact suffer from depression) or your favourite pop group is The Smiths. (Note, that I, Wendie, do NOT like the Smiths, let's substitute The Cure here)
The moment you say it, you can see their faces change. Fear consumes them and they either want to stop talking to you - pretend that you’re no longer there - or they want to run away’
‘I love The Smiths,’ cried the girl, laughing for the first time. (let's substitute The Cure here again)
‘Me too,’ I gushed. ‘What’s your favourite Smith’s song?’ (Cure Song)
And then it happened. The most wonderful thing in the whole wide world happened. In a cemetery. The girl began to sing.
"I found myself alone upon the raging sea, that stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me"
Oh it was wondrous. Truly wondrous. I wanted her to go on forever. I wanted her to never stop. But the girl said she had other things to do and she needed to be alone for a while because ‘cutting out words and putting them back in the right order takes a lot of concentration’.
I said I understood. I would bother her no more.
But I was devastated. Truly devastated.
Would I ever see her again? Did she feel the ‘stuff in the air’?
I didn’t even know her name? There was so much I should have said.
So many things I wished I’d asked and now it was too late.
I had missed my one and only chance.
I closed the cemetery gate, lit a cheap-cigarette and slowly made my way back home.

Oh Andre, did you find me one day at one of my many favorite haunts? Did you see me taking pictures and rubbing or kissing the gravestones that I found particularly sweet, touching or beautiful? Do you see me sit quietly, sometimes talking to my newly found, yet long deceased friends? Do you like watching me put flowers down on the graves of those I don't know, just so I can feel that connection? Am I like a Cemetery Fairy finding peace and love and tranquility where others find sorrow? Were you there when Bukowski and I shared a small bottle of red wine I brought with me for just that occasion; me sipping it and pouring him a bit into his grave? Are you there when I leave notes for my beloved Bela Lugosi? Do you see me photographing myself on top of his grave? Did I look happy?

Spider Webs

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Conqueror Worm??

Ok for those of you who know me or follow this blog, you know that I have an unusual sometimes morbid sense of humor. You also know that I love cemeteries and Edgar Allan Poe. Therefore, when I came across the shot below, I had to take it. How often do you get to see a chicken in a cemetery in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles? I know chickens like worms, so it truly make sense that they'd enjoy a nice fat cemetery worm. That in turn made me think of The Conqueror Worm.

"The curtain , a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the Angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man"

And it's hero, The Conqueror Worm."

The moral of this story though dear readers, is that the worm is not really the Conqueror if it gets eaten by the chicken. It is the Chicken, who sups on worms fattened by human remains, (in an extended way, eating us,) who is the Conqueror. In the End, the chickens have their revenge on mankind.

Something to think about, that might be enough to make you lay off chicken huh?

Angels Among The Trees

Fair Youth Beneath The Trees, Thou Canst Not Leave

Thy Song, Nor Ever Can Those Trees Be Bare

Never, Never Canst thou Kiss,

Yet Do Not Grieve;

She Cannot Fade, Though Thou Hast Not Thy Bliss,

Forever Wilt Thou Love, And She Be Fair!

Thou Shalt Remain, In Midst Of Woe

A Friend

To Whom Thou Say'st,

"Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty,- That Is All

Ye Know On Earth, and All Ye Need To Know."
Photos by Wendie, Poetry by John Keats

The Raven

The Raven...By Edgar Allan Poe, Photography by Me

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore..

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore-

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word did he out pour...

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still if bird or devil!"..

Leave my loneliness unbroken,...

Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!"

Quote the Raven, "Nevermore!"

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting...

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming

And the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor;

Shall be lifted-nevermore!