Thunder in my chest Earth under my nails I dig a grave For my own heart
Tag: separation
Postcards from Istanbul /9
“You are always my concern. Nothing has happened to me to make me suddenly think more intensely of you… you, beautiful things and gloomy things are spread over my fleeting days” – Ingeborg Bachmann to Paul Celan May 1949 (unreceived letter) Mosaics are works of art comprising thousands of broken pieces. They are perfect symbols…
My body sends you letters
I miss you. From the rumble inside my gut I miss you. From the wince and gasping ache for your heat, I miss you. From between my tendons, from the twitch of my muscle, from the creak of my aging bones, I miss you. From the soft dark of my hot heart, the steady rise…
Postcards from Istanbul /6
“She inspired you, you loved her and sang of her; her task was done.” – Franz Liszt in a letter to Hector Berlioz, 1854 The give of a soft pear surrendering to my teeth. The burst of plum in my mouth; juice dribbling down my chin onto my helpless blue shirt. The tickle of…
Postcards from Istanbul /5
“Or give me back one shred from our hundreds of days – a forgotten word, or look – that I might lie here counting them, like sheep, waiting out the dark.” – Greg Johnson, Insomnia Dear, sweet one. Gratitude today for the precious few moments I received to see you. Your face that I…
Postcards from Istanbul /4
“When I met you, you were both for me: the sensual and the spiritual. The two can never separate…” – Paul Celan to Ingeborg Bachmann Paris, 31 Oct 1957 Precious, precious one. The day closes on me again. I am left wondering just how little life is and how fleeting our time on earth….
Postcards from Istanbul /3
“When I feel like being with her I almost prefer not being with her So as not to have to leave her afterwards.” – Fernando Pessoa My precious one, Today my heart has been with only you. I miss you more. All this beauty I see fades before the way your face glows in my…
Postcards from Istanbul /2
“To write words I put a symbol in place of an absent sound. To write the words ‘I love you’ requires a further, analogous replacement, one that is much more painful in its implication. Your absence from the syntax of my life is not a fact to be changed by written words.” – Anne Carson…
part-broken, part-whole 