you used to read poems to me
while the summer heat lingered
on our skin, like honey.
sometimes, you would fall asleep and i would come to your body like a thief,
like that thief of roses whose bones,
bleached and glittering, are still
to be found in the garden
long after the unspeakable struck.
like that thief of roses whose bones,
bleached and glittering, are still
to be found in the garden
long after the unspeakable struck.
in b&w and more
here
..
bellissima..molto bella..
ReplyDeleteMaurizio
why does the memory of first words sound like the last words? I miss[ed] your
ReplyDelete]
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]thin voice]
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing – oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead – or almost
I seem to me.
---Sappho?
Take care,
.
ta robe est trop jolie roxana !
ReplyDeleteet cette pose, alanguie sur ton sofa, j'adore !
...
ReplyDeletecumva,dupa sunetul vocii tale de aseara,ma asteptam,cat te poti astepta la asa ceva:)mi-ar placea sa spun ca ma consider complet iesita din ecuatie,insa nu as fi total sincera:am simtit o placere ca atunci cand ma atingi tu,vazand ca rochia si lentoarea mea au contribuit la aceasta asezare pe palimpsest,pe portativul unde ingani tu atat de multe,incat trebuie sa fii atata de atent,sa nu pierzi nicio fluturare a acelui indicibil subtext.dar asta se intampla datorita felulul in care stii tu sa te asezi usor pe inima oricui,luand forma atator inimi-iar ele nu au incotro si se transforma in trandafiri.imi amintesti de ceea ce spunea maitreyi despre tagore-ca desface un borcan cu miere,incepand sa vorbeasca,si da fiecaruia aroma care i se potriveste.dar gata cu ceea ce am simtit legat de mine din aceasta secventa.
e aproape incredibil cum imaginile pastreaza textul-parca,intr-adevar,se topesc oasele,parca asisti la eviscerarea impusa de "hot",ramanand trandafirii,mult timp dupa...despre acesta rochie scriam,daca iti mai amintesti,in urechea:acei trandafiri desenati de cineva intr-o cuta a timpului.si nici atunci nu m-am inselat,dupa cum se vede,asupra zeitei:)
An extemporaneous rivulet of word and pictographic deed that disembogues into a sea of continuousness.
ReplyDeletepost scriptum -
Music! i suppose she thinks he is a musician... actually, he is a marine biologist (with a puerile hankering for the tubular and somewhat inchoate sound of forlorn whales).
what was the book? ; )
ReplyDeletehello beautiful roxana,I just looooooooove this masterpeice of a photograph,you know sometimes the words are failing you to describe adequately what you feel on deeper levels of the mind because it isn't attainable in words and this is the case but the closest I come to describe the exquisite beauty of this photograph- the darkness and the luminosity flowering from the mindbody scattered in just the right balance
ReplyDeleteand the rape of the spirit bleached and glittering.
and if this represents the figure in the photograph's erotic love of another woman how gentle andviolently passionate and sweet and perfumed in this mundane world....as a contrast....
thankyou for this masterpeice
bises rouges
oh my goodness, what is the unspeakable? Will you speak of it again, without naming it? The blood red of the roses, the bleached bones, the honeyed heat, all played out against the quiet tones of the image, creating a world specific to you, yet invoking personal memories for me. Memories of my grandmother, with her black skirt patterned in blowsy red roses, of her falling asleep on the big bed with me beside her in the afternoon; and memories of myself waking on the floor on later afternoons to find my own daughter playing quietly beside me.
ReplyDeleteyes, the dreams awake every time I cross this bridge...stirred by your own magical arts.
A first poem...that perhaps is telling of final poem's tone, perhaps not. Yet, even the middle poem can be imagined...along with the wardrobe containing only the most exquisite of dresses.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to note that in the final image with head turned, it almost seems that she/you is wearing a mask. It seemed pertinent somehow
Though lovely in all ways, despite the roses of the dress, the soft tones, the gentle moment of relaxing and enjoying a book, the seeming innocence, the encroaching darkness almost scares me. Triggers thoughts of my own unspeakable experiences. Leaves me with an ominous feeling of what must ultimately come to pass... You dig deep!
ReplyDeleteAnd long ago she said "I must be leaving,
ReplyDeleteAh but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan"
So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there -- I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
and people call me traitor to my face
- Leonard Cohen
irgendwie macht Dein Gedicht mich traurig (obschon die Bilder doch Frieden ausstrahlen). Spricht es nicht von einer suptilen Trennung, von einer unglücklichen geistigen Verbindung zu einem geliebten Menschen?!
ReplyDeleteFür Dich, wunderbare ruhige Tage, liebste Prinzessin!
Renée
We enter this place not knowing what we will find here, only certain that we will leave through a different door, into other worlds, thoroughly shaken by the dreams we dreamed here. Thoroughly shaken.
ReplyDeletewhy has she fallen asleep reading to you? is it because you're so quiet?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: you have fine taste. Carson, probably from "If not, winter." Best rewritings of Sappho one knows.
ReplyDeleteYet, all is to be dared? All must be dared? It is.
very beautiful, and the poem and the images are notes of the same song, certainly ... an ecstatic sleep, as if in the second picture the dress is a screen for her dreams of roses, these bodily treasures ... and the pictures are the garden, and the garden is the body, and we enter breathlessly through the poem like a gate, over and over, and assemble once more the shining scattered bones and re-make that day ...
ReplyDeleteMaurizio, ti ringrazio tantissimo!
ReplyDeleteanon, i am baffled about [your missing] my 'thin voice', is this an indirect request that i should post something with voice again, a recited poem, a video where i speak? :-)
whatever the case, thank you so much for this wonderful poem - and for rightly seeing the Sappho tribute in this post, it's been a while since she was last present on the Bridge, i miss(ed) her voice too :-)
Karine, oui, cette robe est magnifique, d'accord :-) mais de nouveau, je suis derriere l'appareil photo, et non pas sur le sofa - je ne sais pas quelle position des deux est a preferer :-)
merci et bises!
Cerasela, Maitreyi, Tagore, Zeiţa şi eu în această ecuaţie?!!! este prea mult, sunt copleşită.
ReplyDeletepaenul, aici, este în intregime, în cinstea rochiei cu trandafiri, lumea se aşează în jurul ei :-)
Prospero,
she is deluded to think that he is many things (one of them Nabokov in karmic disguise), that he mistakes sirens for whales (how is this possible), and that he assigns, in the purest Scriabin-way, a colour to each one of his Bridge-comments, especially to those meant for her b/w-posts.
now, have i got anything wrong? (rhetorical question).
oh, and keeping in tone with this post and the potential idea of musicians - i am listening to this right now.
swiss, Gellu Naum :-)
ReplyDelete“I read my poems with a low voice, extremely low, in the deepest silence, especially while a beautiful woman stood near me. This is nowadays the poetical state, and I kept on being a poet, sure that one day at the end of my speech I would burst into the most trivial laughter, into the most terrifying howls and that would be the first poetic act I would undoubtedly consider as my own.”
Madeleine, thank you, my dear friend, the state of speechlessness is such a huge compliment - and i always feel that, how words are inadequate to 'translate' an image, that is why my texts, when i wrote them, never aim at that, but rather to open up new paths of approaching a theme (and sometimes contradictory paths). perhaps the photographer's gaze is always erotic, i don't know, i surely fall in love with every object i photograph :-) (that is also one of the reasons i am not interested in conceptual photography).
bises d'automne, ma chere...
oh Lynne, how i could thank you for sharing these memories with us here? now it is my turn to be lost in them, to imagine them so vividly. have you ever thought of weaving them into a painting? i would love to see that...
ReplyDeletenow, the unspeakable, that line simply came to me like this, imposed itself unto me with that impossible clarity that only gods-sent lines have, to quote Valery ('the Gods in their grace and favour give us a first line for nothing' and the poet has to struggle to add the rest and make an entire poem out of it, in my case it was the last line :-). i think the unspeakable has a different face for every one of the readers (and of us, generally speaking).
Lydia, wonderful, the mask-interpretation! and what a great idea to continue this post into a series with exquisite dresses, though i can hardly imagine one matching the beauty and mystery of this one (or am i blinded by my love for roses? :-)
Stickup, your feelings are again right (and in this case, as there cannot be a 'right' and 'wrong' interpretation, 'right' simply means: matching my own feelings). perhaps there will always be an encroaching darkness on the bridge.
ReplyDeletemyth, ah, Cohen! with this you can never be wrong on the Bridge :-)
(and wonderful choice, too)
Renée, ach so feinfuehlig und sensibel bist Du, liebste Freundin, ich habe fast immer Angst, dass meine Posts Dich traurig machen... aber bitte denk daran, dass die Bridge manchmal (oder oft) der Uebung eines Exorzismus aehnlich ist, so dass alles traurige und dunkle ans Licht gebracht und gereinigt werden kann :-)
ich wuensche Dir eine gute ruhige Nacht und laechle Dir zu...
Owen, you make the Bridge sound like the Twilight Zone :-)))
ReplyDeleteand i am sure that must be praise!
(i so loved that series when i was young)
Michael T., yes, the fire and the rose are one, i don't have the book close to me now to check, but i remember Bachelard writing in, i think, Fragments of a Poetics of Fire, how the elemental archetype of fire works inside our imagination to transform a flower into a flame.
(he also writes that true poetry is a function of awakening, and it is perhaps the same with photography).
i thank you for reading the other readers' comments so attentively and entering in a dialogue with them. i will only mention that, as i have already said in my answer to anon, Sappho's name is not for the first time spoken on the Bridge. Given your love for language and words, the discussion about some other lines of hers, that i quoted some time ago, might prove of interest to you:
here
James, ah, so many wonderful images in your comment (as usual), they are as many poems scattered on the Bridge and which stay on my mind long after their echo has ceased here, as circles in water after a stone (even a little red stone) has fallen... 'and the pictures are the garden, and the garden is the body'.
ReplyDeletela fatigue c'est l'espoir du rêve, cette position est très enfant .
ReplyDelete