Tuesday 5 July 2011

simply amazed









there are gods in everything, i've heard.
i imagine them locked up in their underworlds,
some of them good-natured and big-bellied,
some slumbering away blindly like moles but mostly
vengeful gods, myriads of them, jealous of
everything they cannot see or hear or touch.

jealous of this bed of smooth warm wood
and the rugged carpet on the floor
with something like purple stars on it.

jealous of these sheets with their clean smell
and big, luminous flowers, as a field upon which
death would come like a soft breeze, and smiling.

jealous of this girl's standing naked
and in love in front of the mirror,
oblivious of them and her own beauty,
simply amazed that this can be.

jealous of this small chair,
still wet
with the afternoon's rain pouring in
through the open window,
on which a body
once sat until dawn,
its shoulders bent,
the night like a raven
upon its back,
wishing for another body to come
and take it in its arms.

but most of all, jealous of this sudden gust of wind
making the moonlit curtain swirl about the room
like a soul in search of another soul
to flood it with its light.




35 comments:

  1. beautiful poem, I love this -
    "like a soul in search of another soul
    to flood it with its light."

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  2. First of all, this is such a poignant piece of writing. A thing that wants to make you find a way to say it for yourself. Or, to find the meaning of it, in your own life. I saw a movie a few years ago starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, I didn't like the Ethan Hawke character all that much. but, being a guy, I liked Julie Delpy a lot.

    The movie was 'Before Sunrise' ( It was followed a decade later by a sequel called 'Before Sunset'. At first, it seemed like a typical fantasy romance story, ....a guy meets a girl on a train, they are going different places, but spend a day together. And then there was a scene where Delpy turns to Hawke in some ambiguous alley in Paris, and she says, (I paraphrase because, I don't remember the exact lines): "You know what I think? I think god is not in one place or the other, I believe god is in the space between you and me." That changed the whole feel of that movie for me. It all seemed to come down to this space between you and me.

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  3. hello my extravagantly beautiful friend,how wonderful to hear from you so soon..

    thankyou for the magnificent quiet beauty of this verse song of a lackadaisical soul

    how I loved it-the quiet content beauty of the breath of wind that becomes your own breath where all that matters is this breathing all strife is laid aside and even death would only be another pleasing dream

    and these gods why do we create them in our moments of the greatest disatisfaction, the greatest disequilibrium these gods of failure striving to become the impossible only to discover that in these exalted peaceful moments there is no discontent no cracks in our existence only the soft breathing of the wind of our breath
    continue....

    to continue

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  4. and instead of tearing down these icons the iconoclast in a benevolent moment simply smiles to the jealousy of these gods that they have created-

    this is brilliant my friend,

    and I have to say also that these are my most serene moments watching the wind play searching for a soul mate and finding this spirit within me...

    spectacular.. and the photo is as beautifully haunting as the words.

    sending you soft summer kisses on the wind of your soul.....

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  5. in love in front of the mirror? with herself? :-)

    couldn't but help think of a thousand small and round-bellied Buddha's for some odd reason.

    A mysterious and simply amazing post though (gosh, how corny is that?!). Now, where's my cinnamon roll...

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  6. "the immense solitude of the wind upon the curtains" --WALLACE STEVENS

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  7. May we be jealous of you ?
    Of your beauty so simply stated ?
    Of your poetry thus slated ?
    Of your dreams and vision
    That leave us elated ?
    Elated here in the dark of night
    Where a glimmer of moonlight
    Speaks of jealousy
    Jealously backlighting clouds
    Feigning silver linings
    Silver outlines shifting
    As the breeze rustles curtains
    In dark shrouded windows
    Where jealous minds lie dreaming
    Dreaming jealously
    Of what they cannot behold
    In the waking world

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  8. Do we create our gods in our own shifting images of our selves? Can we flood our own souls with light rather than wait for another to light the candle of love? Our own wanting is the dark caress that leaves us sitting lonely on that small chair. Thank goodness for the billowing curtain that breathes its hint of a changing wind.

    The poem and the picture are lovely, I find.

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  9. if louciao is right then my first thoughts of a pot-bellied buddha is quite embarrassing! :-)

    It would be interesting to know what the floating bridge's picture of a god is? A rapidly moving stream?

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  10. ganz besonders, aber auch etwas irritierend wirkt Dein Gedicht. Du bewegst Dich in einer ganz eigenen Welt und ich frage mich, ob Du wohl irgendjemandem den Zutritt zu dieser gewährst... Ein Gott, der eifersüchtig ist... dies wäre mir nie in den Sinn gekommen! Ob er das übertragene Sinnbild eines Gottes wohl darstellt, wer weiss...?!
    Ein trauriger Anflug ist hier auch zu verspüren und so hoffe ich, dass er im Gedicht abgelegt ist und dort verweilt..!
    Dir das Liebste, Prinzessin!
    Renée

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  11. If I had to do away with the internet, i would strike a bargain with the gods. Here it is. Let me keep just one thing, and you can have the entire information superhighway to yourself. For these negotiations, i would seek a representative of the god-fraternity who would be sympathetic to my sensible cause. The choice, as it turned out, was overwhelming. Look at the pinkish one with the bushy, gray-tinged eyebrows. He'll do just fine. Oh, it's a she (so difficult to tell
    in these instances)!

    i felt a little queasy gawking at that extraordinary hairdo. Still, i gathered my thoughts to the best of my ability. Would i try the direct approach, or would a sly, off-hand remark best serve my purpose? i could sense the impatience coming from her stiff shoulders, and her small, saturnine eyes gave me cause to worry. Gods and ghost have a way of disappearing at the most inopportune moments. Better ask now before it is too late.

    She sat on the bed. Half of her body had already disappeared and, from the torso upward, a diaphanous sheen could already be detected. The tea cups, capriciously seated in their tea saucers, rattled with mechanical precision. My temples fluttered. The curtains, suddenly acting of their own volition, rose militantly to the rafters as though
    skewered by invisible bayonets.

    Alas, it was over. The room returned to its normal sun-riddled self, and only a telltale depression was left on the greige duvet where the sylph had sadly sat. Nary a chance did i have to say that i would not forgo Roxana's blog for anything. Darn these gods. So mercurial.

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  12. Dios mio, Dioses mios¡!¡
    Querida Roxana, seguramente algunos dioses están celosos de tu ambrosía, pero otros usan tus ojos y tu ser para crear algo único.
    Es tan grande tu arte.....que enmudezco.
    Así que tan sólo me atrevo a decir gracias, mil gracias por tanto amor, tanta creatividad y generosidad.
    Te envio todo mi amor y agradecimiento por este alimento***

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  13. sunt convinsa ca stii deja cat de mult au intrat in mine imaginea si poemul,cat de mult simt mereu ca traiesc in aceste cuvinte si lucruri micute,discrete si atotstapanitoare din jurul meu.si imi place,indeosebi,sa vad cum ele se deschid,sa vad cum lumina le penetreaza,cum vantul sau un sunet,o mireasma le penetreaza materialitatea perisabila si intotdeauna dornica excavat.ma asez pe un scaun si simt briza invelindu-mi umerii

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  14. Since I came to Cyprus I started having this fascination for curtains movement when there's a bit of breeze out there. Maybe because most of the time everything seems to be standing still, the sky is always clear blue and the air seems stuck in the heat, incapable of moving between the palm trees and the olive trees. Your poem and photo have captured a totally new dimension. A dimension I never new existed.

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  15. As I am simply amazed. Amazed at all the small and mysterious moments, at how life changes in an instant like that sudden gust of wind. Amazed at your incredible ability to articulate such subtleties that can pierce one's heart so. Calls me back like a siren's song...

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  16. Gosto destas tuas imagens a preto e branco, têm uma densidade tal que nos fazem sentir como que dentro da cena.
    Até a aragem sinto...

    beijos Roxana

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  17. a haunting aspect of this photograph is the way in which it looks so deeply into the ordinary moment -- which might so easily have been passed by without remark -- as if by chance, hinting that many such moments of the numinous (even the billowing of this curtain full of proffered moonlight, like a night-blooming flower offering its scent, blessing the soft gleam of wood) many visitations of the angels might happen all around us everyday, when we don’t see ... i love this vision that sees and is amazed ...

    and these lines

    this small chair,
    still wet with the afternoon's rain pouring in
    through the open window,
    on which a body once sat until dawn,
    its shoulders bent, the night like a raven
    upon its back


    how they deepen and darken in the mind, lingering … what an unanticipated gasp of wonder, this sudden revelation that one is....

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  18. imi place acest tip de imagine.are acel ,,ceva'' care te face sa o ti minte.

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  20. Marion, i am very excited that you actually like a poem of mine!!! :-)




    merc, such a fleeting moment, this - i like the photo because somehow the soul of photography seems to be hidden here :-)





    Dan, it is a beautiful line, indeed. and i also think a lot about air and its quality of being an invisible shelter of being, even more so when it is a shared shelter. it is such a tension of absence and presence in the image of the air, i think... the Chinese have a wonderful and untranslatable word for it, which also means 'atmosphere', 'mood', notions that are not very important in our western philosophy, a french philosopher and expert in chinese painting, Fr. Jullien, explains why: "The concept of atmosphere was condemned to remain weak in European thought, given that, unlike the activity of cognition, "atmosphere" could not be conceived in terms of the opposition between the objective and the subjective. It is an influence that emerges from beings and things and is valid only by virtue of the impression it produces in us: it e-manates or im-parts and hence circulates inseparably between what is neither "that" nor 'us" anymore... indeed, an atmosphere is diffuse, disseminated, dispersed, elusive..."

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  21. Madeleine, i am so happy my photo and poem spoke so much to you, and indeed you again hit the nail right on the head (though this is such a violent expression :-) when you talk about breathing and become the breath, the breathing, i was just writing a mail to a friend who is in a difficult situation, having to take a decision to let go of something important to her - and i wanted to tell her about this, you know, the importance of letting ourselves go, become the breathing... perhaps i should just show her the picture :-)
    bisous, ma tres chere, du Berlin ensoleille...





    swiss, happy! :-)






    thank you, Gabriel!





    billoo, yes, a thousand big-bellied buddhas with cinnamon rolls, like in this funny drawing of my friend's Lynne:

    http://ragzedge.blogspot.com/2011/06/maxim-of-week_12.html

    :-)

    (and no, you don't want me to have you psychoanalysed, besides that is a simple small bed and a death field, not the notorious sofa :-)

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  22. sutton!!! it's been so long...
    and yes, that is the perfect line, so beautiful it makes me cry -





    Owen, you make me smile, and this will make the jealous gods even more jealous, i am sure :-)
    may you have wonderful days in Florac, i can't wait to see the rest of the golden pics...





    Very interesting questions, dear Lynne, indeed. i am torn between saying that you are right, and it is perhaps good to think so from time to time, and saying that waiting for another soul to flood us with light is also very important, perhaps an essential part of our being humans - how else could we feel love, if we left this need behind?

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  23. liebste Renée, dem Magier wuerde nie ein Gott als eifersuechtig erscheinen, weil er hinter dieser Illusion und jenseits dieser Illusion sehen kann :-) aber manchmal erfinden Menschen Goetter nach ihrem eigenen Ebenbild (oder immer?) und solche Goetter sind es hier gemeint... ich denke nicht, dass das Gedicht traurig ist, es sollte eigentlich die Freude am Jetzt, am Dasein, ganz im Sinne eines Haikus, feiern :-) das ist natuerlich nur meine eigene Interpretation, ich freue mich wie immer, dass es mehrere davon gibt :-)
    lass Dich lieb umarmen, Prinzessin...






    Prospero, as often lately, i see that my posts inspire you to postmodern cinematic re-enactions, which is of course very interesting but they also leave me somewhat frustrated, i would really love to see them become videos at some point :-) imagine the challenge, to show a pinkish one with the bushy, gray-tinged eyebrows next to her tea cups! :-P

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  24. dear Ofelia, how happy i am to read you here again, i've missed you, and most of all your magic images... thank you so much for all your warm words, i send you back my love and hope to see the mineral vegetal soul blossoming again :-)
    besos, de corazon!





    ştiu, Cerasela, draga mea, ştiu că simţi toate acestea ca şi mine, şi mai adânc decât mine, mult mai tremurător.
    mulţumesc pentru că eşti aici, alături, constant, mereu.





    Natalia, such an interesting confession - and how strange that we human beings seem to need the absence of things to realize how important they are for us - a japanese soul would say: only because their impermanence, they touch us so... and only when they are absent, we learn what missing and longing truly means. perhaps that is part of the fascination photography has for us, the fact that the things revealed there are simultaneously present and absent, and so we learn to look at them differently, to really see them, as if for the first time?

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  25. Stickup!!! i am so so happy to hear from you, you are always in my thoughts, you know?
    i know that you feel the same, you, i can feel this amazement, this wonder at life in your pictures...




    Adelino, thank you so much, i don't know about my pics, but i often find that light has a special density, a quality in photos that is unique, specific to photography...





    James, how right you are! yes, as if by chance, indeed - there was a storm outside and i remembered i had to close the window, i had the camera with me because i had photographed on the balcony, when suddenly, upon opening the door, the air draft made the curtain fly like this into the air, i was just there, but somehow deeply aware of every detail, the glimmering rain drops on the chair, the flowers on the sheets, the light, the light - always, in such moments of heightened awareness, i feel that the puzzle pieces of the universe all have fallen into place, just for that one second, and that i am one with them. i would say, this is the mystery and awe of photography for me, if this didn't sound cheap in our postpostmodern world (who cares, though :-).

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  26. I.B., mă bucur :-) de ce nu mai postezi?





    Michael T., again you bring such insight into my photos, yes, you are right, unconsciously this is about Kami, the living ones, not our pale images of them. (and i say 'uncounscious' in the way the german Romanticists and then perhaps Jung used the word, not Freud's 'id').
    are you a Shinto adherent, then?
    i like "universally-immanent theism", though 'animism' is lovely too, at least it allows the reverie to unfold (well if one has such Heideggerian etymological penchants :-)

    ps. it had been a matter of mystery to me how exactly the Bridge was so lucky as to have you stumble upon it, until i made the Olga-connection :-)

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  27. ah poetics of wonder indeed ...
    Though since i'm not a god (merely a humble precarious human) i am not jealous at all - but rather intensely delighted by " this sudden gust of wind
    making the moonlit curtain swirl about the room
    like a soul in search of another soul
    to flood it with its light.
    "

    a beautiful poem, a beautiful photo

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  28. One of my favorite posts of yours, Roxana. It is everything to me.

    (Regarding the movies described by mythopolis, I learned about them from Dex, my son in the Philippines-who became my son via blogging-, as 'Before Sunrise' is one of his favorite films. I bought the dvd for each film and loved them and now must find them to view once again...)

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  29. dearest fff,
    a poetics of wonder is indeed very much what the Bridge is about :-) i enjoy it so much when you say you are delighted by something here, thank you...

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  30. dear Lydia, oh the time you took to come back to these posts and let yourself be connected to them, emotionally... you do this so well, i am every time amazed and grateful.

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  31. Je suis restée assise là , longtemps,souvent,silencieusement...
    Cette image et ce qu'elle évoque est une nourriture pour l’âme,pour le coeur aussi..des qu'on est assis là on se sent doucement envahi par la brise , qui caresse ces rideaux ,on se sent emporté par cette douce quiétude,le voyage n'a plus qu'a commencer...
    Une image avec un tres fort pouvoir suggestif je trouve...
    Du très bel ouvrage Tres Chère Roxana..
    Mille douces pensées estivales..:o)

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  32. chere Clo, je te vois bien assise la-bas, silencieuse, souriante, toute a tes pensees... et je sens une vague de chaleur montant dans mon coeur, de grande tendresse pour toi, chere amie... je t'emmbrasse tres fort.
    (je vais revenir pour l'autre message dans quelques jours, pour l'instant je confirme l'avoir recu :-)

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