despair is yellow - said the blue peacock -
you poets live off metaphors, i laughed.
with sweet disdain forsythia bloomed everywhere,
my dress glimmered with little yellow butterflies
which made you smile.
despair is yellow. i ask you to come to my throat
like a knife, i sweep through you recklessly,
once more, before the last.
time spreads in us both its peacock tail.
we fumble for the fall of leaves, for the thinned blood,
we live off metaphors, once more, before the last.
you poets live off metaphors, i laughed.
with sweet disdain forsythia bloomed everywhere,
my dress glimmered with little yellow butterflies
which made you smile.
despair is yellow. i ask you to come to my throat
like a knife, i sweep through you recklessly,
once more, before the last.
time spreads in us both its peacock tail.
we fumble for the fall of leaves, for the thinned blood,
we live off metaphors, once more, before the last.
..
You take us places never before imagined. Who would have thought to step toward the final metaphor in a yellow blaze of glory, pursued by a bright blue peacock. You have vaporized me into the yellow mist of dawn.
ReplyDelete"Metaphor comes under suspicion at the hour of death."
ReplyDeleteWe have our suspicions. That autumn was not a season, that a fish lives on without the Tigris, that your silence was a kind of last word.
Gorgeous post, btw.
if only she would lift up her arms to the yellow...it would be better for us all!
ReplyDeleteThe Rumor
ReplyDeleteThey say he was taken out by a blonde bombshell whose shrapnel peppered his soul with holes and left a gaping crater in his heart. She was the death of him, it seems.
oricate nuante ma tulbura si ma indeparteaza de mine,sunt mereu atat de eliberata intr-o tusa puternica,acea tusa care imi spune adevarul,pentru o clipa,sau,mai degrba,ca nu exista adevar in ceea ce caut eu:)si atat ma bucur pentru ca exista galbenul,pentru ca il outem vedea astfel,ma rog,vedea,ca il putem numi disperare sau raza de soare,pentru ca pielea ni se ofera,galbena,reflexiei,pentru ca pasarea este absolut infioratoare si simti parul de pe brate ridicandu-ti-se in penaj empatic cu tot versul lumii si toti arborii care s-au colorat pentru a ne celebra.si pentru ca am predat intotdeuna,in pofida gramaticii,culorile ca avand grade de comparatie si pentru ca nu mai pot identifica,da,asa e,clar,metaforele dintr-o poezie,incapabila de vreo diferenta,acolo,in acel galben unde se intalnesc toate cele
ReplyDeleteThe Byzantine empress of metaphor (that's you, dearest) introduces the peacock (naturally).
ReplyDelete(Indian folk tale) A woman, fetching water at the river, habitually met a peacock. It had glorious plumes. It pranced and danced and dazzled her. She, a young wife, commented on the handsomeness of the peacock; in fact, she went as far as to say that it was more handsome than her husband. This remark was reported to her husband. He became furious and had the peacock killed. A great sadness descended upon the couple. To make amends, the husband built his wife a new house. It was adorned with paintings and sculptures of peacocks. Upon completion of the work, the wife shrugged her shoulders and said: "These peacocks are grand and lovely, but they will never dance."
der todesgedanke verlässt die seele wie die krankheit den körper. es erscheint sodann ein wunderbarer gelber schein, das licht der sonne, der klare gedanke, die unsterblichkeit...
ReplyDeletedir schicke liebe nahe gedanken, prinzessin!
renée
Dream, one morning maybe: no more body which breaks. Or wears out.
ReplyDeleteHe wondered whether there were any flowers which would open when called by name.
And the peacock, once again, started to strut.
from Extracts from the Life of a Beetle by Franck Andre Jamme
Despair is like that, when it comes, it's as if you are bathed in it...
ReplyDeleteYou know Roxana, I bought a yellow balloon for my daughter after reading this! Oh, please, no more despair though! We're already buggered enough as it is!
ReplyDeleteTake care,
b.
hello my beautiful friend,thankyou for that beautiful comment on the last post, yes the field of life is actually the soul field, the artist's landscape is actually the landscape of the soul.
ReplyDeleteew how I loooooooooooooove this masterpeice.
a striking characteristic of your art is that it has so many levels of definition that it becomes possible to define,
so just allow me to dream a bit haha.
now in the first image inspite of the flou I feel the colours are set they have boundaries, the peacock is blue and the background is yellow and the colours do not seem to dissolve but in the second image,there is an exuberance of yellow-the gorgeous autumn leaves are falling yet they are part of a dance ritual when the earth returns to the earth,leaving the sky in abeyance.the yellow is overwhelming,in its joyous glory nonetheless overwhelming though and the dark stretched limbs of the tree create a tension to remind us of the paradox of nature and of yellow,the lemon, the sunflowers, joyousness, the colour of the solar plexus chakra yet the yellow jaundice and despair.
and so now we are prepared for the third masterpeice of an image,the figure is despairing but the background yellow is crowning her with glory like a million scintillating sunbeams surounding her aura.
could this be then the glorious sacrifice of life of love,
please dear roxana do excuse my metaphors..
sending you yellow butterfly kisses
thankyou for this masterpeice.
ps. back to this managing comments oh no my friend, things get heated up and I give suggestions,but on looking back Irealize they may not have been the best and I know if you found them useful you would use them at the time.only you can say ultimately what is best for the bridge and well I have to learn yellow-- golden ways to protest here and elsewhere haha.
ReplyDeleteI love you.
have a beautiful autumn day.yes it is still lingering here.
these pictures are stunning, esp the peacock, I'd hang that one up in my livingroom!
ReplyDeleteet je retourne pour admirer encore cette traitement du désespoir en jaune,c'est très originale Roxana, je ne me souviens pas d'un artiste qui utilise cette partie du spectre des émotions coloriée en jaune.
ReplyDeleteet oui le jaune sur le spectre entre le vert éternel et l'orange social de toutes nos expériences qui crient en angoisse ..
c'est magnifique!
bises coloriées comme papillon d'oré.
and my beautiful friend thankyou for this opportunity to express my nausée en jaune.I hope I didn't sound too hysterical.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTres belle métaphore,on sent la froideur de l'hiver ,cette mort annoncée ,tout cela dans ce foisonnement et ce feu de couleurs..le paradoxe de la vie même..sous l'oeil bleuté du paon éternel..
ReplyDeleteBelles images du passage vers les froides saisons..
je t'embrasse fort..Roxana..:)
Hey...Ghost walking in from (recent) past...
ReplyDeleteYou are still painting with your camera i see...
Reminds me of the Coldplay song (someone had say it ;-))
i could never see yellow as despair - it's too close to the colour and substance of the sun, see :)
ReplyDeletebut we certainly live off metaphor
pup
m
Waooow... Magique et onirique à souhait !
ReplyDeleteJe recombackerai !...:)
A bientôt !...:)
Owen, "to step toward the final metaphor", i like this image (taken in a metaphorical sense as well :-)
ReplyDeleteb, death, the greatest metaphor, perhaps?
gorgeous suspicions, btw.
anon, she does, she does :-)
myth, a blonde bombshell!!! the last thing that would have come to my mind about this yellow post, only you could have come up with it :-)
cerasela, un vers mă obsedează de când mi-ai scris asta, "pentru că pasărea este absolut înfiorătoare", ştiu că tu nu l-ai vrut vers, dar pentru mine este un poem întreg, izbuncind din măruntaiele lumii. da, aşa este.
Prospero, what a wonderful tale, thank you, the Byzantine empress of metaphor (that's me, naturally) graciously thanks you for bringing it onto the Bridge :-)
Renée, Liebste, ja, es gibt auch einen wunderschoenen gelben Schein, licht- und hoffnungsvollen :-)
ReplyDeleteich danke Dir fuer Deine strahlende Anwesenheit auf der Bruecke, Du bringst mir soviel Freude hier...
ich umarme Dich ganz lieb (bald bald schreibe ich mehr :-)
Michael, thank you.
(wonderful)
Stickup - yes.
b-anon, i am glad that your daughter got a balloon thanks to my post :-) but you should stop first (writing dark things, i mean), then i will follow :-)
(she promises because she knows she takes no risks :-)
Madeleine, your sparkling metaphors crown my post, as usual :-) thank you so much for your empathy and exuberance, you are right about the passage from colour boundaries to colour flow, it is exactly how i intended it to be understood, as stickup also put it: bathed in despair.
ReplyDelete"the field of life is actually the soul field" - yes, the next post will show other fields of life and soul :-)
colourful hugs and kisses.
ps. i actually got inspired from an old poem by swiss, it is not online any longer, about colours, and at some point there was this line: yellow is despair - which has stuck with me over the years. i hope you are not disappointed :-)
Marion,
a peacock-living room, i like that idea :-)
Michael T.,
i had no idea about that superstition but i am not someone to be trusted when it comes to old folk tales and superstitions.
(somehow we all have to go to places we wouldn't have liked to visit, don't we?)
Clo, quelle belle image: l'oeil bleuté du paon éternel!!! ton passage m'a rendue heureuse, tu m'avais tant manque! (mais c'est vrai que moi-aussi j'ai ete plutot absente ces derniers temps :-(
je t'embrasse de tout coeur, chere amie lointaine...
ZUMA!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletewhere are you??? how are you doing???
i am so happy to see you here again - there are no ghosts of this kind on the Bridge, i have never stopped wondering whether you would come back to blog(ging) again.
Manu,
mi-e asa de dor de tine... ziua cand mai treci pe aici este o sarbatoare :-)
pup si eu si am vesti, scriu maine :-)
jeff,
je t'attends :-)
Le jaune conme liqueur,
ReplyDeleteBoisson des âmes et du coeur,
Jaune d'or est la couleur,
Du soleil, de la joie, de la vigueur...
Tes photos sont à tomber parterre tant elles sont belles oniriques, talentueuses, artistiquement génialissimes de poétique fantasmagorique comme dirait Dali...
Bises bleues de rouge saignant... ;)
First, what a powerful poem. My favorite is the final stanza, but as with all glorious final acts, it would be impossible without those that preceded it.
ReplyDeleteIs it the same with despair? More piled upon more until we are finally "there"? But what is there without here, now? And what is there? Must it be a state of despair or can we get beyond it?
I do not know the answers. I do know I love the images, the middle one especially. And we have been told for ages by untold teachers, designers, gardeners, etc. that yellow is a happy, sunny color! (They do not know the answers, either.)
Jeff, une nouvelle photo pour ton profile? (meme si ceux qui attendent de decouvrir ton vrai visage un jour sont de nouveau decus :-)
ReplyDeletemerci pour tes bises pleines de couleurs et pour etre revenir sur mon jaune, je t'embrasse moi-aussi...
Lydia,
ReplyDeletethank you from my heart for taking the time and going through so many of my recent posts, i am truly touched by your gesture.
and perhaps it is not even important to know these answers, just to ask the questions, when the time is right for such asking.
hugs...