Saturday, March 07, 2009

she lies in abandoned solitude

her body lies in abandoned solitude
on the beach,
in an uneasy solitude
motionless and limp she lies in restless unease
added to the world's limitless solitude.
though she killed herself, she
really died at his hands

he had left her, he had abandoned her to
die in an uneasy restless solitude.
she killed herself,
she who was alive yesterday, who was alive
last night,
now lies on the beach in an uneasy solitude.

she took her own life after he took her life
away, after he left her.
there she lies
betrayed and used,
her dead bare back sullies the fierce solitude
of the beach, as she lies uneasy in death.

soon the tides will wash her sad body to
a cold sea, consign her forever
to a limitless solitude.
a back without scars, eyes without lids
in a cold sea,
she will burn forever

he crushed her heart, he ate it
he left her abandoned her.
she killed herself though she really
died at his hands.
her black tresses will anchor her forever
to an unforgivable unforgettable solitude.


Note: The above lines were written after seeing this photo posted by Roxana. It is complemented by a perfectly neat poem written by Swiss and Roxana has translated it into Romanian. The above attempt only conveys an impression. The reality is known to Roxana alone.

7 comments:

Lupe said...

I think that demanded prose, Kubla. Either that or a more elliptical verse.

Kubla Khan said...

I guess you are right atenea. the demands were many but they were all self-inflicted.
i think that this is a tame try, anyway.

Roxana said...

I tend to agree with Atenea here, kubla. prose and a more allusive treatment would be perhaps preferable in this case, because what you saw in the picture is already so terrible and oversaturated with emotion. I love the last line:
her black tresses will anchor her forever
to an unforgivable unforgettable solitude.
I have already said this, you are the one who is most sensitive to my women portraits, and understands best what I try to express through them. thank you.

(I am not surprised that you saw the darkest story possible behind the picture, but wouldn't it be possible that she lies exhausted and lost in something akin to death after a love night in the arms of her lover? :-) would this feeling be less compelling and the picture less mysterious if looked at in this light?)

Kubla Khan said...

Thanks Roxana. I agree, prose would have been better but?

somehow i see nothing but death in this photo, an inflicted rather than a desired one( inflicted?).

re her lying exhausted after "a love night", her seeming apathy suggests otherwise. but who knows?

Roxana said...

but why would be 'apathy' contradictory with that? aren't eros and thanatos connected? the vampire myth has actually a deep meaning at its core - it is about this longing of being destroyed in the love's embrace. there is this nice phrase ' la petite mort' in French, used to say 'sex'. the small death...

Kubla Khan said...

hi roxana.

thanatos and eros, yes drives decidedly, but are they not only concepts albeit Freudian? and the little death you mention, the postecstatic throes of death......no no, it will sully the image i have of this photo. i dream death for this maiden, she must die. she has loved and thus must suffer.

Roxana said...

I don't say that "this" is the truth about this picture, only wanted to suggest another way of looking at it.

but I don't understand why imagining the "agony in ecstasy" of the 'afterwards' of a love night would 'sully' the image. oh, but yes, I do - because you share the same vision with Poe: "I could not love except where Death / Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath” and “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic of the world"...