As I work to sharpen my knife,
kindly stop fidgeting and listen to
how much you'll enjoy being carved up.
You'll also rejoice in the knowledge
of the house your bones will make sturdy
and the bountiful lush garden
we'll be able to grow with your blood.
I know, you cannot picture it now,
but I've helped colleagues who have done it
and I'm pretty sure you can trust me
to get it right from the very first try.
I've observed and carefully noted
how we must start with the tongue -
we wouldn't want those words you don't mean
to hang about the house like mad rats.
Lecture, by Manuela
is there any named genre or category of your approach?
ReplyDeleteI'm just curious that yours is more than just photo essay.
roxana, Bo-Goh-Shipper.. :p
hi there, Peter :-)
ReplyDeleteBo-Goh-Shipper sounds funny to me :-)
i don't understand your question: what category or genre i personally think fit for my photos? for this series you mean?
exactly.
ReplyDeleteI mean, you have all the feedback from the audience and your work includes the very feedbacks and comments and you willingly allow them to complete your post.
And it affects you for your next posting.
I like the loop which is orgaic and self-sustaining in some sense from positive side.
I just thought whether you like to find something out of this process of feedback loop to initiate whatver new genre of artistic activities.
1.
ReplyDeleteLebendigen Tempeln gleicht dieses Wesen,
Aus seinem Mund tönt tief geheimes Flüstern;
Über deine Brücke geht ich, wo Zeichen mich umdüstern,
Stillvertraute Blicke verfolgen meine Spur.
i was getting uncomfortable by the third, but my heart literally skipped a beat at the fourth photo, and then i got that cold shower of words - i didn't even recognize them until half way through... what power you brought to them! thank you. m.
ReplyDeleteOh! Puternica...
ReplyDeleteRoxana... On peut commencer par la langue et finir par les mots et inversément !
ReplyDeleteTes photos sont d'une qualité à toute épreuve ! je souhaitais te le dire quand même...
Ce regard, ce trou noir de bouche, cette main... Quel interdit il y a-t-il qui attise autant cette main !
C'est le téton qui fièrement montre l'exaltation, la sensualité et le couteau à dépecer ? Mais quel couteau ?... C'est bien une histoire de femmes ! ! ! L'eaurifice est eau centre de cette allégorie !
Bises Roxana...;-)))
Jeff
You are powerful, is all ways and on all sides. Well done.
ReplyDelete2.
ReplyDeleteGeheim verschmelzen wie das Echo fernster Klang,
In großer Weisheit und dunkler Macht,
Weit wie ihrer Augen Glanz in dieser gewaltigen Nacht,
Worte wie Töne, Farben und Düfte.
And may the words of mad rats be banished forever into the night (where they may fly about in the gloom to be eaten alive by bats)
ReplyDeleteThe tension in the photos is palpable... dramatic ... perhaps tragic... one wonders how the story ends...
The two capricious thought enclaves that your post ignited in me were Humpy Dumpty and Raoul Duke.
ReplyDeleteWords -
They’ve a temper, some of them...
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”
And then, this (just a little too near the Datura) -
Has anyone ever quoted Hunter S. Thompson on the bridge? I was thinking of the preface to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where he quotes Samuel Johnson: He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
(bon voyage, m)
Every time I visit your blog, which is not even weekly because I need time to digest what I see; yes every time I visit I gasp. Literally. Mouth open, intake of breath. Always I am suprised, enchanted, disturbed a little. It seems to me that your art is in it's full flowering now, a brilliant bloom, a burning bush. Quite extraordinary.
ReplyDeletePeter, yes you are right about that, very much so, this Bridge is very different from, let's say, a site where i could show my photographs, a gallery or something: it is alive, flowing with my moods, enriched by dialogue, responding to the world - and i like it so :-)
ReplyDeletei would like to thank every one who has commented here, i know this was not an easy post to understand or to react to - especially with Manuela's poem taken out of the context of her own's ponderings and inquiries about the nature of poetry and of the creative process. she's got a series of poems dealing with this topic, especially the relationship which establishes itself between the poem on the verge of becoming and the writer, mostly in terms of power and domination, the speech which wants to be uttered taking possession of the poet who is forced (yet willing, paradoxically) to undergo annihilation in order to be reborn in the shape of the poem, the essential, only one real for her (many biblical images, the purified body becoming the temple of art, the surrender in front of the knife bearing the divine law, Abraham episode). that's how i see this anyway, i have to stop here otherwise i will become boring :-)
ReplyDeleteand my own inquiry into the possibilites of words-image collaboration, in this case the pictures are saying more and less than the poem, at the same time (less because they fail to convey the parabolic stance of the poem, its essential ambiguity and opening onto another level of interpretation, more because they are more shocking in their dark visuals than the words, despite the extreme violence of the latter).
and now i have done something i never do, "explain" a post - but i felt the need to offer my side of the story, next to the ones you have already imagined, i am sure of that :-) and it is good so -
Robert:
ReplyDeleteSterbend in meinem Mund, das suchende Wort. Es sucht nach der Verklaerung, vor der ich mich fuerchte, nach einem Tod, zu dem ich nicht bereit bin. Es oeffnet mich, bis ich ueber mich selbst hinweg zu leben anfange.
Manu, i hope it's a good thing you didn't recognize it, it means that it has really its own life now, mutating into ever new shapes :-)
ReplyDeleteEmese, inseamna ca ti-a placut, deci? :-)
ReplyDeletecher Jeff, j’ai un peu expliqué là-dessus, en anglais, tu parles l’anglais non ? mais en fin de compte ce n’est pas mon « explication » qui compte, mais ce que toi et chacun de mes lecteurs, vous faites de cette histoire, vous la faites vôtre, vous la changez, vous la contestez même – c’est ainsi qu’elle reste vivante...
ReplyDeleteJe te remercie pour ta présence ici, et pour ton esprit si vif, toujours en quête de s’interroger sur le monde...
Bises :-)
Owen, the ending belongs to you, or perhaps we will skip ending altogether :-) i have indeed intended to make the tension visible, i am glad i have succeeded...
D.H., thank you for being here, for your kindness...
ReplyDeleteProspero, Humpty-Dumpty! i would have never imagined that :-)
ReplyDeleteah, the happy Humpty-Dumpty, scornful of the eternal suffering of all poets... but when a word uses us, what then? do we become exactly what it wants us to be, neither more nor less? how painful is that becoming, then? and about images? i could ask (i have a lot of questions, as you see, not only quotes, they will come later on :-): is Prospero really the master of his mask? impenetrability (yet you don't know how Roxana chooses to use this word, even is she says it softly, and not scornfully :-).
no, nobody has ever quoted Hunter S. Thompson on the Bridge - i haven't read it, all the more thank you - how true this is. It reminds me of Shestov somehow, i have to ponder this further...
Oh Susan, now it is my turn to gasp and be amazed - and happy - i don't know what to say, how to thank you -
ReplyDeleteindeed, i don't know...
Imi place foarte mult! Dar cred ca stiai asta...
ReplyDelete:)
chut! regarde et écoute le silence oui le silence qui fait du bruit visage et masque geste du corps tu es vivante profite de chaque instant regarde écoute autour de toi sens l'aire si doux en toi.
ReplyDeleteoui, Allan, j'ecoute, je regarde en moi et autour, parfois il y a trop de souffrance et alors comment faire pour lutter contre? tu connais ca mieux que moi, tu es medecin...
ReplyDelete