Shell
November 07, 2005
November 06, 2005
November 05, 2005
Letters I Have Written, Never Meaning to Send...
As moon dances in a courtyard on the other side of my neatly trimmed existence, the sun starts a weak climb into the winter blue sky.
Bitter taste? Love must be tempered or we never understand the truth in our hearts. How wonderful it is to trust we can push away the ones we love, only to dance back into their arms again. Arms soft and safe. Arms that wrap us into the heart, anchor us to reality.
Everything has an opposite engagement. Like the color of night to day. The ink on white paper. Everything has a shadow. These shadows richen the pallet of our lives. Intensifies the hues. Sharpens the intake of pain. The exhalation of bliss.
I would love to walk in the street with the women in sunset colors. Smell the life there. Taste the language of being a stranger. But what relief would come in the midnight blues, the tropical banana leaf green shade. It is hard to live your life completely out in the sun. It’s hard to understand luck when it is the only thing that crosses your door.
Blot nothing out. Savor that bitterness. It is the only thing that keeps you and me real. It is the shadow that makes the words come.
It’s the light that burns them away.
G.
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
~Pablo Neruda
Bitter taste? Love must be tempered or we never understand the truth in our hearts. How wonderful it is to trust we can push away the ones we love, only to dance back into their arms again. Arms soft and safe. Arms that wrap us into the heart, anchor us to reality.
Everything has an opposite engagement. Like the color of night to day. The ink on white paper. Everything has a shadow. These shadows richen the pallet of our lives. Intensifies the hues. Sharpens the intake of pain. The exhalation of bliss.
I would love to walk in the street with the women in sunset colors. Smell the life there. Taste the language of being a stranger. But what relief would come in the midnight blues, the tropical banana leaf green shade. It is hard to live your life completely out in the sun. It’s hard to understand luck when it is the only thing that crosses your door.
Blot nothing out. Savor that bitterness. It is the only thing that keeps you and me real. It is the shadow that makes the words come.
It’s the light that burns them away.
G.
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
~Pablo Neruda
November 04, 2005
October 28, 2005
Other Windows....
Lessons in Punctuation ~ Blue
There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love,
in the bitter sweet smile
of a lost woman,
in the round concentration
of a red stop light.
I don’t know the last time
there was as magenta a sunset
or a more orange mango.
Was wine ever this red?
Poetry speaks a thousand
tricky words of sweetness,
ten times more in the language
of cold rain.
An abattoir of disappointment,
a kiss, a little death.
sweet as spring in a Russian winter.
Poetry is just the articulated
breakdown
of beauty.
Of death.
Of sorrow.
Her eyes, brighter
than a hundred suns,
or your mother’s Sunday best
crystal high on the shelf.
Take me to dinner,
the princess.
recite to me the words of a whore.
There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love.
There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love,
in the bitter sweet smile
of a lost woman,
in the round concentration
of a red stop light.
I don’t know the last time
there was as magenta a sunset
or a more orange mango.
Was wine ever this red?
Poetry speaks a thousand
tricky words of sweetness,
ten times more in the language
of cold rain.
An abattoir of disappointment,
a kiss, a little death.
sweet as spring in a Russian winter.
Poetry is just the articulated
breakdown
of beauty.
Of death.
Of sorrow.
Her eyes, brighter
than a hundred suns,
or your mother’s Sunday best
crystal high on the shelf.
Take me to dinner,
the princess.
recite to me the words of a whore.
There is poetry in life
There is life in poetry.
In your eyes are the hard
syllables of love.
October 22, 2005
October 20, 2005
Something Blue..........
This week I had letters to write. Real letters, on paper with ink.
First I wrote to Petra. A postcard from the national gallery. Smooth fountain pen on slick card. I always enjoy the ease with which the words come. Words like:
Bliss.
Thankfulness.
Love.
I enjoy the act of writing and have a collection of papers, envelopes, post cards and thick covered cards depicting art I enjoy. I have always coveted these things… kept them in various boxes with special pens tucked in amongst them. These days it’s only a tin box but amongst the delicious paper is a wax seal with my initials. (Ironically, I am never sure if the wax actually gets through the mail to my destination. How can something so fragile survive the violence of the post office?)
I am a bit, shall we be kind, particular. I only like the old fashioned fountain pens. The ones with ink that requires careful application of cartridges. Yes, even at work. The clerk who orders the office supplies knows to order mine in blue ink. How wonderful it feels to make notes on my projects. Words that reflect the commitment I make to myself and others within my organization:
Integrity.
Thorough.
Commitment.
And it’s nice having a pen on hand in case a poem comes to mind or a phrase from an eavesdropped conversation. You never know when the inspiration will sweep in and kiss you.
In the journals I once kept I was mesmerized with how the words grew. Sentences formed. Paragraphs. How the empty pages faded away replaced with the history of my heart, of my life. Of the details I saw in the fabric of my world.
Now I have this world. Light and shadow. The HTML of my world broken down into something digital and intangible. You cannot run your fingers over the font and feel the pressure used to write the words. You cannot see the tear marks from my frustration as the words poured out of me or the passion when I struck bone.
I think something is lost in a way. Our love affair with the written word. How easy it is to erase this. There is no organic working of the words to string them together. There is no verbal jewelry making. When you look at the screen it’s not the same as holding the reassuring weight of my letters, the five pages of neat script in blue ink. (Perhaps with my tea stain on the corner.)
I am tempted to write this out and scan it. But something is lost in the translation from tactile to one dimensional.
In reality, I am thankful that I have this. It’s what keeps me real, knowing that the words are still there if only in font on a screen.
Perhaps I will save the ink and stamps for my next letter. For words like
Soon.
Tomorrow.
Always.
G.
First I wrote to Petra. A postcard from the national gallery. Smooth fountain pen on slick card. I always enjoy the ease with which the words come. Words like:
Bliss.
Thankfulness.
Love.
I enjoy the act of writing and have a collection of papers, envelopes, post cards and thick covered cards depicting art I enjoy. I have always coveted these things… kept them in various boxes with special pens tucked in amongst them. These days it’s only a tin box but amongst the delicious paper is a wax seal with my initials. (Ironically, I am never sure if the wax actually gets through the mail to my destination. How can something so fragile survive the violence of the post office?)
I am a bit, shall we be kind, particular. I only like the old fashioned fountain pens. The ones with ink that requires careful application of cartridges. Yes, even at work. The clerk who orders the office supplies knows to order mine in blue ink. How wonderful it feels to make notes on my projects. Words that reflect the commitment I make to myself and others within my organization:
Integrity.
Thorough.
Commitment.
And it’s nice having a pen on hand in case a poem comes to mind or a phrase from an eavesdropped conversation. You never know when the inspiration will sweep in and kiss you.
In the journals I once kept I was mesmerized with how the words grew. Sentences formed. Paragraphs. How the empty pages faded away replaced with the history of my heart, of my life. Of the details I saw in the fabric of my world.
Now I have this world. Light and shadow. The HTML of my world broken down into something digital and intangible. You cannot run your fingers over the font and feel the pressure used to write the words. You cannot see the tear marks from my frustration as the words poured out of me or the passion when I struck bone.
I think something is lost in a way. Our love affair with the written word. How easy it is to erase this. There is no organic working of the words to string them together. There is no verbal jewelry making. When you look at the screen it’s not the same as holding the reassuring weight of my letters, the five pages of neat script in blue ink. (Perhaps with my tea stain on the corner.)
I am tempted to write this out and scan it. But something is lost in the translation from tactile to one dimensional.
In reality, I am thankful that I have this. It’s what keeps me real, knowing that the words are still there if only in font on a screen.
Perhaps I will save the ink and stamps for my next letter. For words like
Soon.
Tomorrow.
Always.
G.
October 16, 2005
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