Thursday, July 28, 2011

My life as a cat X







Photographs by Martine Franck
and Henri Cartier-Bresson






Wednesday, July 27, 2011

My life as a cat IX






Photographs by Edward Weston, 
Wynn Bullock and Imogen Cunningham





Tuesday, July 26, 2011

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



Monday, July 25, 2011

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




Sunday, July 24, 2011

Void








YOU WERE my death:
you I could hold
when all fell away from me.
Paul Celan
(Translated by Michael Hamburger)













Sunday, July 17, 2011

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