The Essence of Being IX

Untitled 2009

The Essence of Being VIII

White Queen 2009

My life as a cat XI

Photographs by Erno Vadas

My life as a cat X

Photographs by Martine Franck

and Henri Cartier-Bresson

My life as a cat IX

Photographs by Edward Weston, 

Wynn Bullock and Imogen Cunningham

My life as a cat VIII

The Cat of Habit

The cat of habit

knows the place by heart

or at least by space, scent, direction, bulk,

by shadow and light

moonlight starlight sunlight

and where to nest in each

with a three-focussed shut eye

on who or what's coming and going

on the earth and in the sky

and distantly, not present, the rays of inkling

shining within the furred skull.

The cat of habit curls her spine

in the most windless the most warm place

shivering a little with, 'It's mine',

an ear-twitch, tail-flip

of permanent ownership.

The cat of habit

has the place marked,

the joint cased.

Feed and sleep and feed

and half-heartedly catch

moths and mice and mostly watch

hourlong for the passing witch

for many, unseen, pass

through the rooms of the house and outside,

under the trees and in the grass.

Janet Frame

Photographs by Imogen Cunningham

My life as a cat VII

THE CAT

Come, beautiful creature, sheathe your claws;

Rest on my amorous heart,

And let me plunge in your marvellous eyes,

Of mingled metal and agate.

When my fingers caress at leisure

Your supple, elastic back,

And my hand tingles with pleasure

From your body's electric contact,

I seem to see my mistress. Her regard,

Like yours, nice animal,

Deep and cold, cuts and thrusts like a sword,

And from her feet to her head's dark coronal,

A subtle air, a dangerous perfume,

Swim round her brown body's dusky bloom.

Charles Baudelaire

(translated by Doreen Bell)

Les Fleurs du Mal

Photographs by Imogen Cunningham

Void

YOU WERE my death:

you I could hold

when all fell away from me.

Paul Celan

(Translated by Michael Hamburger)

http://vimeo.com/nicolepagesmith/void

The Essence of Being VII

Untitled 2009

The Essence of Being VI

Untitled 2009

The Essence of Being V

Homer 2009

The Essence of Being IV

The Head of a Sphinx 2009

The Essence of Being III

Untitled 2009

The Essence of Being II

Untitled 2009

You abyss of light

http://vimeo.com/nicolepagesmith/you-abyss-of-light

O sky above me! O pure deep sky.

You abyss of light!

Gazing into you, I tremble with divine desires!

Nietzsche

Music:

George Frideric Handel

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno HWV 46A

Accompagnato 'Pure del cielo'

Sandrine Piau, Topi Lehtipuu

Accademia Bizantina

Stefano Montanari

My life as a cat VI

Claude Cahun

My life as a cat V

Claude Cahun