this heart of mine

Coming and going
I feel neither
beginning nor end…
what a strange thing
this heart of mine!
 

 

Ōtagaki Rengetsu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and off into the empty sky

you will be able to see more photos from my travel to Japan on the new blog that i have created for telling the story of my trip:  

and off into the empty sky

july the 7th: Tanabata

He is coming, my long-desired lord, 

whom I have been waiting to meet here, 

on the banks of the River of Heaven.... 

The moment of loosening my girdle is nigh!

On the River of Heaven

the sound of the water has become loud: 

perhaps my long-awaited lord 

will soon be coming in his boat

The love-longing of one whole year 
having ended tonight, 
every day from tomorrow 
I must again pine for him as before!

When autumn comes, 
and the river-mists spread over the Heavenly Stream, 
I turn toward the river, and long
 and the nights of my longing are many!

*poems about Tanabata from the Manyoshu , tr. by Lafcadio Hearn

.

some spring-time snow

here, amidst flurrying cherry blossoms
it’s as though some spring-time snow
were falling and did not melt  

monk Soku (ca. 880)

spending the spring night in the foothills
I slept, and deep inside my dream
blossoms fell without cease

Ki no Tsurayuki  (872-945)

..

on a moonless night

like a black cat
i come to you
in my dream

longing burning

breasts racing fire

heart in flames

my body is

the field of dreams

this moonless spring

of your lust

.

these autumn fields

between my withering body
and these autumn fields -
the blue.

..

beyond thirst (tentative answer to Michaux's Ma vie)

they say they can take everything away from me,
even that which makes me see the world
coming together in a bowl of tea.
so be it. they may be right.
it is not for me to prove them wrong,
those who can only fulfil themselves
by taking away.
my voice is hardly a whisper, my truths are scarce
(and even those vanish quickly beyond the horizon,
ashamed to glow brighter than the stars).
so be it, then. they are surely right.

when they have taken everything
away from me, even that which
makes me see the world
fading within a bowl of tea,
i will still be the moment
when a sky forms beyond
the line of the heart,
and the moment
when a sky meets a mirror
to empty itself of its blue.

..

last petals (2)

View on ExposureRoom for HD

Note: This is the second in a series of intimate videos in which i intend to express my personal aesthetic views, while questioning myself and how i see the world. You can watch the first of the series, seeing, here ( i posted it a while ago).

..

last petals

you know what the Japanese say.
the flower turns people's blood crazy.
you said, too, the cherry blossoms were like butterflies
on my skin, making your blood crazy.

a darker flower grows within me now.
you left before it caught you beneath my ribs,
before it turned me into that butterfly,
that you'd kill someday, in your sleep.

note:

In the Japanese tradition, cherry blossoms are linked both to renewal and death, life joy and madness. And of course, ephemerality. It is said that one who enters a forest of blossoming cherry trees will go mad, because of their unbearable beauty.

..

self-portraits with snow and mirror

looking into the mirror
until one becomes another
at the window gazing

white pure white
the snow has fallen
silver hidden within silver
self nestled into self

note:
after Akahito's poem:

Coming out
from Tago's nestled cove
i gaze:
white, pure white,
the snow has fallen
on Fuji's lofty peak.




..

two stories from other lives

J’ai deux histoires à te raconter.
Je sais que tu ne tarderas pas
à me tuer dans l’invisible.
Shéhérazade du geste révolu,
vaincue mais souriante.

Ecoute donc bien ce que j’ai à te dire.


Première histoire

C’était à l’époque des cours de jade. Parmi ceux qui s’attardaient dans le jardin presque désert, il y en eut un qui énonça tout d’un coup cette vérité :

En abandonnant les branches, les dernières feuilles deviennent les derniers pétales.
La mémoire caresse la mémoire.

La limpidité, voire la transparence de ce principe était telle que même la clarté des yeux des jeunes filles s’en troubla.
Jusqu’au jour où l’une d’entre elles se leva brusquement, dans le même jardin frappé par l’odeur du chrysanthème, déchira ses vêtements, défit ses longs cheveux noirs, proclama:

Les dernières feuilles, tout comme les premières feuilles, n’existent pas.
Les derniers pétales, tout comme les premiers pétales, n’existent pas.
La mémoire invente la mémoire.

Puis elle se donna la mort avec un petit couteau de nacre.
Les oiseaux de l’abandon descendirent alors en elle,
leurs grandes ailes déployées, immobiles,
le temps d’un instant.



Deuxième histoire

C’était à l’époque des grottes insouciantes. Assis devant leurs os et leurs coquilles, il en était qui, un soir, tentèrent l’aventure silencieuse de l’onde se refermant sur elle-même. Donner une forme à ce qui, au fond, remplissait depuis toujours chaque os et chaque coquille : le néant. Cependant, aucun bras ne bougeait.

Jusqu’au moment où une jeune fille se leva d’un bond et se mit à danser, les longues manches de sa robe envahissant l’espace. Hésitante, une main traça la silhouette de cette danseuse au corps blanc, aux seins nus, enveloppée dans ses brocarts comme dans un autre soi, plus léger. Elle dansait, somptueusement éloignée de la vie. Ses manches pourpres, déjà mêlées aux branches noires des arbres. Un autre trait de pinceau vint alors ajouter un petit bois à côté de la figure qui palpitait.

Ils pressentaient toutefois que cela demeurait bien loin de la forme parfaite du néant, puisque la fille dansait encore. Même si elle n’était déjà plus la fille.

Une main, soudainement, osa effacer le bois et mit à sa place le feu. Lorsque les dernières flammes s’éteignirent, de cet air encore mouvementé qui avait accueili jusque-là le corps de la danseuse, jaillit le temps écrasé.


J’ai une seule chose à demander, moi qui ai si peu à offrir. Dont les cheveux sont lourds de si peu de réalité. Moi qui n’ai pas de couteau de nacre, moi qui ne sait pas danser.

Ne couvre pas ton visage. Sois l’arbre noir, sois le feu.
Accepte.

Mon souffle, qui se précipite en toi.

Et du rêve encore tremblant qui aura, le temps d’un instant, accueilli ma forme inachevée, se lèvera peut-être, un jour, l’au-delà de la grâce.




Note: l’idéogramme 無 (non-existence, vide, rien, non, cesser d'exister) provient des anciens dessins tracés sur des os et des coquilles, qui représentaient à l’origine une figure en train de danser, se cachant derrière les longues manches de sa robe, à laquelle on a ajouté dans un premier temps l'élément 林, „forêt” (pour marquer l’idée de l’égarement, la disparition dans la forêt?). Il y a eu une forme intermèdiaire, les branches des arbres étant devenues les manches volantes de la danseuse. Cependant, la forêt a fini par être remplacée avec 火、灬, „le feu”. Les chercheurs développent encore les théories les plus compliquées pour retrouver le lien entre arbres, danse, feu, ne plus exister.

I have two stories to tell you.
I know it won’t be long until you kill me
in the invisible.
Scheherazade of the obsolete gesture,
defeated by dawn, smiling however,
turning still.

Hear me out, then, listen to what i have to tell you.


First story

It was at the time of the jade courts. Some, lingering in the garden, now almost empty. With the sudden glow of revelation, one uttered this truth:

Falling, the last leaves turn into the last petals.
Memory caresses memory.

The clarity, one could almost say the transparency of this eternal principle was such that even the clarity of the young girls’ eyes clouded.

Until the day one of them stood up with a sudden burst of grace, in the same garden where the scent of chrysanthemums was still floating, tore off her robes, let down her long dark hair, spoke thus:

The last leaves don’t exist, and neither do the first leaves.
The last petals don’t exist, and neither do the first petals.
Memory invents memory.

Then she took her life with a small mother-of-pearl dagger.
The birds of abandon fluttered down into her,
their crimson wings open and motionless.
The time of an instant.


Second story

It was at the time of the carefree caves. Crouching down in front of their bones and shells, some who wished for the silent adventure of the wave falling back unto itself. Who struggled to give shape to what had, in fact, always filled each bone and each shell: the non-existent. Yet no arm moved.

Until a young girl leapt forward, with the sudden fever of truth, and started dancing. Her long sleeves afloat, swallowing space. A hand fumbled to trace the silhouette of this dancer, her body moon white, her breasts bare, enfolded in her brocades as if in another self, a lighter one. She was dancing, sumptuously driven away from life. Her crimson sleeves swirling through the black branches, already one with the forest. Another brush stroke then added a small woods next to the trembling figure.

However they all sensed this still remained far away from the perfect shape of nothingness. As the girl’s dance hadn’t stopped. Even if she had already ceased to be that girl. A hand dared to erase the woods and drew a fire instead.

When the last flames burnt out, from this vibrating air which had until then enclosed the dancer’s body, gushed forth the vanquished time.


Only one thing i ask, i who has so little to offer. Who hides so little reality in her hair. I without a mother-of-pearl dagger, I who cannot dance.

Don’t cover your face. Be the black tree, be the fire.

Accept.

My breath, precipitated in you.

And from the dream, still trembling, which will have, for a moment, contained my unfinished form: another dawn will sometime rise, perhaps, its clarity unsurpassed.



Note: the ideogram 無 (nothingness, no, non-existence, void, cease to be) was originally at the time of the drawings on bones and shells, a dancing figure with long, concealing sleeves. The element "woods" 林, was later added (to express the idea of disappearing into a forest?). There existed an intermediate form in which the tasseled sleeves look very similar to trees. In the end, the woods was replaced with 火、灬, „fire”. Scholars still evolve complicated theories linking trees, dance, fire and cease to exist.

how much

How much I desire!
Inside my little satchel,
the moon, and flowers

Bashō
(tr. Sam Hamill)



.
.

and if i...

none of the roads i knew led to him.
the doors wouldn't open,
they didn't seem to be closed, either.

one of the old masters said:
'To learn bamboo painting,
take a branch of bamboo
and let its shadow fall upon a white wall
on a moonlit night,
then the true shape of the bamboo will emerge.'

and if i took one of his gestures -
those gestures detached of whatever
they were supposed to hold,
for which i was unable to find a name -
and let its shadow fall upon the white skin
of my moonlit night,
would then, oh master Kuo Hsi,
the true shape of his absence emerge?

a jar

A Jar
I want to love a jar.
Today—oh!
O jar, that arises in the calmness of my heart!

You have nothing in you.
Your emptiness!

O jar, my heart
strangely trembles
calling you, “My jar.”



Jūkichi Yagi
(1925)
Tr. William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura

Note:
i had thought 'my jar' in the last line to be suspicious as soon as i saw this translation, and sure enough, going back to the Japanese original confirmed it: there is no 'my' in Japanese, a language which practically never uses pronouns (some linguists argue there are no pronouns in Japanese, at least not what we call 'pronoun' in Indo-European languages) and which values most the qualities of ambiguity/indirectness/indetermination/vagueness.

the threshold on which

they had led me to believe
there existed so-called soul-revealing gestures
(ah the delightful lullabies passed on
from one mouth to another)
i don't remember when i started to suspect
- it must have been later on, after you had already left -
(see, how wise i am now, you would be proud)
that nothing was mirrored there except
the threshold on which
each self attempting to become
was quickly butchered and made
into a luxurious memory

(it was then that i started to learn
how to move through greys
with apparent easiness)

undoing

an arm reaches out
a curtain is pulled
a window is opened
the light is let in
yet behind each one
of these gestures
there is another gesture
undoing what is being done.

i seek the silence
undoing me.

start painting (old style, absolutely!)

start painting your shadow
you said quietly
the same one, all over again
until your fingers bleed
it's the only way you'll learn to give up
this fastidious attachment to being

how - i asked shyly
(i knew you were tired of my questions
why is it i always have to learn painfully
what the others appear to master
with such ease and grace:
how to put one foot before another
how to breathe without unleashing a cloud
how to dwell in the falling of leaves
as peacefully as you in the shaded
house of the vague)
so i didn't want to upset you
even though it seemed impossible to upset
the clear water in a bowl of light.

i am still struggling,
my razor blunt, my charcoal burnt.
i am so tired, if only you knew.
carnations fill my ripe mouth,
a wave of darkness crushing within.
come, stop the bleeding.

only then will i fall away from myself
and become your silence.