my pale-bellied body
flicks
watery tremors
across the skin
of this dark prism
starlight
the only form
the only colour
my hungry eyes
my hungry mouth
sensitive
to the slightest movement
the faintest light
senses taut
and drawing in
the holy slightness
-
so bear with me, and if I thrash and groan
in those throes of sleep, believe me that i saw
the great fish tunneling the purple sea
excerpted from "night piece" stanley kunitz
music played by marilyn crispell: "one dark night i left my silent house"
The heartbeat rhythm of the dancing shaped in the video had me mesmerised. Now I want to know how the images were made...You certainly keep my brain ticking over...
ReplyDeletehi jinksy, the video is of shadows and light. this person did what i've thought would be very cool and that os to film the little shadows that result from chance rays of light catching an object or passing through a confined space and plaing across the walls and floors of my home. steven
ReplyDeleteAs usual steven everything fits together perfectly. Have you finished school for the summer yet?
ReplyDeleteHello Steven:
ReplyDeleteThe flashes of light against the dark background are indeed reminiscent of the movement of fish in the depths of some deep ocean. And, the poem is a perfect companion.
Often a golden light is reflected from windows opposite directly into our apartment on sunny days and now, after this post, we shall be thinking of golden fishes as the lines flash across the walls and ceiling.
weaver i finished school for the summer as of july 1. so i'm now two weeks into slowly unpacking the coiled tension - a necessary tension i might add - of my work. and loving it!! steven
ReplyDeletehello jane and lance. i remember a turning point in the way i saw the world when i watched shadows and light diffuse and scatter through the course of the day in the little room i grew up in as a teenager. steven
ReplyDeleteLOVE Marilyn Crispell!! Wow.
ReplyDeleteHave a luxurious uncoiling. x
me too reya! steven
ReplyDeleteAs you know I have only just discovered Kunitz for myself.
ReplyDeleteI am returning your 'wow'.
'the holy slightness' — could be your motto, I think. The delicacy of this post slows me down, makes me wish I'd paid closer attention to shadows and light. But I will.
ReplyDeleteThe video and music haunt me into presence. The visuals remind me of the exhibition of smoke (live) behind glass, boxed, at the Orsay museum one year.
friko - kunitz is a really exciting "find" for me. anyone who can open my eyes and heart wider . . . . . steven
ReplyDeleteruth - perhaps you've figured out just how slight i am - of build i mean - to suggest that i adopt that as my motto. i love the way shadows soften a space. soften objects. i feel myself drawn to them as much as the colourful lights that play off the glass and through the windows. steven
ReplyDeleteQuite mesmerizing, yes. My music and the images are so minimalist. Music that emerges from and tends to retreat into silence. Images that emerge from and tend to return to darkness. Simple tools: a plastic folder reflecting light. A piano and a baritone saxophone? Not much, but more than enough to cast a spell.
ReplyDeleteKind of like summer: We teachers are left with little dots of light to fill up a vast, dark emptiness left by the sudden and simultaneous departure of two dozen supernovas into a summertime vacation.
I agree with Ruth on the holy slightness. It is yours, you own it, and share it again and again. And I find myself upon your shores of words, awed, grateful.
ReplyDeleteI sit here tonight looking out over the ocean, Selene looking down on me, both of us watching the watery tremors so intently...senses taut.
ReplyDeleteHow wondrous it all is.
Thank you, Steven.
dan i've found that i write more easily and more directly - even more concisely - when i'm listening to music. it has to be the exact and right piece of music. so that can be a challenge. sometimes i'll write some words and hear the music - or a phrase - and then i put my headphones on and i'm good. if music shows up here, it's because it was the right" piece for writing. steven
ReplyDeleteterresa - perhaps i have my grandfathers to thank for that. one was a methodist minister and the other a lay preacher - both in england. then my fayjer who travelled through blavatsky and crowley to buddhism. i built on all of that and i'm still making bricks. steven
ReplyDeletejo you lucky blessed person!!! steven
ReplyDeletesteven! the holy slightness. ha! and while i think there are those who might argue with having a hungry mouth, or hungry eyes (as i have despite knowing better in this world of trying to just be) this is an honest and terribly wonderful image. it will stay with me.
ReplyDeletewhen my children were little we read, My Many Coloured Days. love this book! there is one part, Green Days. Deep deep in the sea. Cool and quiet fish. That's me. the green days have always swelled in me.
xo
erin
erin . . . i've been hungry for as long as i can remember. i crave so much. i wish that i could contain experiences especially sacred or holy experiences in their entirety - hence "slightness". steven
ReplyDelete