Portraits & Mirrors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Must I, in this question I am asking, include myself

Asking it? Must I include my face—

My face that I cannot see—through which I speak

This question about my eyes, about the field

Of vision, in which my hands press down these letters

Unattached to my arms? The sunlight

Comes in the window and lights up my hands

As they work. The world is not being kind

But there is the sensation of kindness.

There is an appeal to a rule when we realize a term

Behaves uncomfortably. God falls down

Into grammar and says I am but the words are spoken

From a bush on fire. God is included in this grammar

Philosophy offers to the fly stuck in the bottle—

There it is on the table, walking in circles within the empty

Bottle, pausing only to rub its forelegs together,

In anticipation or prayer. I remember

Walking into the glass-walled museum and seeing myself

Reflected in the head and in the belly of the metal rabbit’s

Mirror-like skin. This was not long ago, this experience

Of the ancient world, reason simultaneous with appetite,

Watching myself think, seeing my eyes thinking,

My body a body that contained this thinking

That I write in the margins of the books I read, a script

That over time appears less legible, a form

Of cuneiform I cannot read myself what I wrote

In the margins. There is a fragment that floats in the air

Floating in my mind, spoken by a voice not mine:

To study circumcises the heart and calms,

The book steadies the heart [many words are missing

Or illegible] if not, to turn away,

Fire courses through the veins [many words are

Missing or illegible] then

Anger, anger. Leaning back in the tall grass,

Putting my book aside, my toe covers the sun.

I am imagining this world but I’m inviting you in

So I can join you. In the old language, the language

No one ever spoke, the language whose words

In the scholarly papers are marked by stars,

Asterisks that say this word exists by not existing,

The imaginary root pushing down from the sky

Into our heads, the root of the tongue;

In this language “I” meant “here,” it did not mean “me,”

It meant a location in which this body I am

Was not an expression of love but a word of

Presence. Here I am. Voice in a boundary.

In this place I am I once had a dream.

Cylindrical seals rolled across the earth

Printing in the mud the image of a woman braiding

Her hair was loose and then her hair was bound.

These roads end at the horizon where I also end,

Present in this world as the alphabet is present

In this poem. *I. *I. Sometimes *I like to stutter.

*I like to think the sky is blue. *I see sometimes it’s red.

More soon on the nature of impossible constructions.  

The man in the moon. The sea rose. The living room.

 

 

Museums by Dan Beachy-Quick, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

 

White Linen Wide Leg Trouser Suit: from a charity shop

 

White Top Underneath: very old from the high street

 

Vintage Pearl Necklace: passed down from late granny Penny

 

Faux Pearl Bracelets: from Accessorize

 

Faux Wolf Fur Shrug: present from an ex boyfriend over a decade ago

 

Two Tone Leather Brogues: bought in the sale from Toast

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

Claude Debussy: Estampes Pagodes

 

 

 

Photographs of me by Mr Eve, taken when we went for a drink at Combe House, using my little digital camera. 

 

I'm behind on my post visits, as usual, but looking forward to catching up on all your lovely blogs in the coming days!

 

 

I'm delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by the lovely Patti from www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.co.uk, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

Meet Me Under The Ballerina Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been taught never to brag but now

I cannot help it: I keep

a beautiful garden, all abundance,

indiscriminate, pulling itself

from the stubborn earth: does it offend you

to watch me working in it,

touching my hands to the greening tips or

tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild

the living and the dead both

snap off in my hands?

The neighbor with his stuttering

fingers, the neighbor with his broken

love: each comes up my drive

to receive his pitying,

accustomed consolations, watches me

work in silence awhile, rises in anger,

walks back. Does it offend them to watch me

not mourning with them but working

fitfully, fruitlessly, working

the way the bees work, which is to say

by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure?

I can stand for hours among the sweet

narcissus, silent as a point of bone.

I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer

than your grief. It is such a small thing

to be proud of, a garden. Today

there were scrub jays, quail,

a woodpecker knocking at the white-

and-black shapes of trees, and someone’s lost rabbit

scratching under the barberry: is it

indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither,

and expurgate? Should I, too, not be loved?

It is only a little time, a little space.

Why not watch the grasses take up their colors in a rush

like a stream of kerosene being lit?

If I could not have made this garden beautiful

I wouldn’t understand your suffering,

nor care for each the same, inflamed way.

I would have to stay only like the bees,

beyond consciousness, beyond

self-reproach, fingers dug down hard

into stone, and growing nothing.

There is no end to ego,

with its museum of disappointments.

I want to take my neighbors into the garden

and show them: Here is consolation.

Here is your pity. Look how much seed it drops

around the sparrows as they fight.

It lives alongside their misery.

It glows each evening with a violent light.

 

 

Happiness by Paisley Rekdal, via 1 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

 

40s/50s Style Floral Chiffon Dress With Silk Lining: bought from the sale at Toast years ago

 

Vintage 70s Does 40s Blue & White Tilt Hat: from Ebay

 

Black Lace Peep Toe High Heels: old from New Look

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

Anita O'Day: All The Sad Young Men

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera. 

I've had an eye infection for over a month now, which means I'm allowed to wear neither mascara nor concealer to cover up those dark shadows under the eyes. But I've decided to think of the gorgeous ambassador for dark shadows, Jeanne Moreau, and celebrate my dark rings as seductive, maybe even intellectual looking....

 

 

Apologies I've not been visiting and commenting on your posts much lately due to overwork, looking forward to popping by your lovely blogs this weekend!