Arthur Durkee
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phoenixdragon1.bsky.social
Arthur Durkee
@phoenixdragon1.bsky.social
Composer, poet, book artist, printmaker, letterpress, graphics, recording studio, photography, type designer. Pan/poly/neurodivergent/queer.

arthurdurkee.bandcamp.com

www.patreon.com/ArthurDurkee

arthurdurkeearts.crevado.com
Jupiter, Procyon, Sirius, and Orion
dance around the water tower

midnight cold makes us stargazers shiver
but the clear skies beckon a long look, and a far one
November 17, 2025 at 6:53 AM
Rural Life After Harvest

at sunset the fields,
shaved of crops down to dirt,
make skies look bigger

I eat the last strawberry
from your fingers stained with earth

#tanka #sunset #rural #photography #poetry
November 16, 2025 at 3:50 AM
After the busy past week, I needed to mostly rest today. Still, I did some writing, then revised and re-engraved a TTBB choral fanfare I wrote the music for a few years ago. Satisfying to get this done for publication.

#music #musiccomposer #choralmusic #ttbb
November 15, 2025 at 9:25 PM
This 2-disc recording of the Fauré and Duruflé Requiems is one of my desert island discs. I have other recorded performances, but this one is perfection. I listen to it often on a Sunday morning.

#music #faurerequiem #duruflerequiem
November 15, 2025 at 3:30 PM
This past weekend found me in my happy place for the first time in months: days of music, book arts, printing, creativity. Then I got home and have written a new choral piece. I also started in on cleaning and organizing the basement. If this is a new trend, after so much crap, I’ll take it.
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 AM
My new “Ave Maria” is finished. Lots of fine-tuning of choral effects, divisi, with both thick chords and sparse lines. I want this piece, when it’s sung in a cathedral, to have emotional resonance, to feel transcendent, even sublime. The text is about awe, the music must be as well.
November 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM
I spent much of today polishing and engraving the “Ave Maria” for TTBB chorus that I sketched last night when I couldn’t sleep. Polishing is about smoothing out details, making the music sound internally coherent, and be properly expressive.
#music #musiccomposer #ttbb #choralmusic #avemaría
November 13, 2025 at 12:48 AM
November 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Yeah, so, last night I couldn’t sleep, so I sketched a complete “Ave Maria” for TTBB chorus. You know. Like you do.

It’s a strange world.

Let’s keep it that way.

#music #ttbb #choralmusic #musiccomposer #avemaria
November 12, 2025 at 3:19 PM
That night when you can’t fall asleep, and music starts flowing in your inner ear, so you get out of bed to write it down.

Here’s the start of a nascent TTBB “Ave Maria,” then.

#music #musiccomposer #avemaría #ttbb
November 12, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Moon and stars

#nightphotography #moon
November 12, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Aurora borealis photography RIGHT NOW in southern Wisconsin. These are unedited photos on my iPhone using 6x7 camera app.

The aurora right now is visible with the naked eye. Bright enough to see red and green without assistance.
November 12, 2025 at 4:54 AM
November 10, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Hummingbird and Rose

at origami class tonight.
November 7, 2025 at 2:41 AM
If you want to take a master class in how to do literary criticism right, especially poetry criticism, this is the book for you. Few have done it as well.

Conrad Aiken: Collected Criticism
November 4, 2025 at 10:26 PM
I’ve had a rough 24+ hours. About as bad as it gets.

So tonight’s comfort viewing is more of my Redford marathon: The Sting.
November 4, 2025 at 4:50 AM
suicide road:
I can only teach you
night vision
November 4, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Sea Wind

refastening
his sarong blown loose in wind:
quick glimpse of beauty

#drawing #penandink #haiku #senryu
November 3, 2025 at 12:17 AM
The arguments that “Morning in innately healthier” were made by politicians and capitalists (all probably morning people) who wanted to standardize work and school hours, not to mention early electrical infrastructure was expensive to use.
November 2, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Post a perfect album from the 90’s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.
October 31, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Post a perfect album from the 90’s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam,Soundgarden or Alice In Chains.
October 31, 2025 at 2:12 PM
October 31, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Fog?

Really?

Fog???

Okay.

Fog.
October 30, 2025 at 3:08 PM
October 30, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Eye

See

U
October 29, 2025 at 8:39 PM