Wednesday 20 June 2012

impressions. the decoding and creation of

every night they've been coming one by one;
a person of significance from my past.
in dreams. bringing amongst other things
maps and histories retold
to me with my apologies, my childs' eye,
my chest harbouring the potential for thunderstorms.
*
the light of the longest day dims
filling the room with the kind of violet grey
i wish it were possible to touch.
*
stepping out of my body
i picture the scene as a painting.
the crack across the bathroom ceiling
with it's peeling paint that prompts a recollection
of the morning we lay in your bed in your house
and named every country
cracked across the white of your ceiling.
*
funny how as humans we are psychologically inclined
to attach meaning to random markings and shapes,
of how important it is to have all the answers.
*
your freshly ironed shirt balances
on the narrow frame of mount everest
hanging on the wall; walls the colour of buttermilk;
walls that have never seen straight,
lined with books, which are the only things here
that belong to me.
*
impressed in ghostly fashion on the wonky wall
a shadow slowly gains prominence -  flowers
on the windowsill opposite. flowers
that only yesterday i arrived home to find stood,
as a gift, in one of my boots left outside the door.
*
the candle to my right fizzes,
quite timely burning itself out allowing the dark to deepen
and me to prepare once again for sleep
with it's tangle of nocturnal visits
and mysterious subconscious journeys.


"what is true of art is true of many other things whose virtues fly away as soon as their names are spoken...it is quite probable that soon the painting, a rectangle hung with a nail on a wall, will become an outdated and ridiculous object--a fruit fallen from the tree of culture and henceforth considered an antique....the notion of art...will have ceased to be conceived of and perceived when the mind will have ceased to project art as a notion to be gazed upon, and art will be integrated in such a manner that thought, instead of facing it, will be inside it..." ~ jean debuffet

3 comments:

Lilli said...

Thank you, once again. I have had to wait for the right moment ro read, allowing me to take the time I need. In order to fully understand, or grasp is maybe better, I have to unlock. In a split second, your words takes hold and flungs the door open. I sit and let the wind of words fly straight through me.

Or something like that :)
Lilli

Ritva said...

thank you.

(on a journey i am.)

ellom said...

(Not a direct comment to this post of yours, more a response to many of them I have been reading, and loving)
Beautiful. I too long to touch light these days. Having always felt I belong to the warmth and acceptance of darkness, I now have learned to love the light. Good to meet it in your latest poems here too. I think I recognize the northern summer, the one that feels so unreal in its generosity and briefness. The way it lifts us so high, almost too high to feel comfortable.