That’s the thing with the winter holidays: I never seem to be in the mood for “merry-making” when Christmas is just around the corner. Of course, that’s explainable, as I’m mostly up half the night every single night doing random stuff. Mostly, I’m supposed to be “working” (whatever that means), but what I end up dong is take random photos…
… reread passages from books that I’ve loved…
She had that cajoling voice, the voice of temptation that all women have at certain moments, a voice like a crystal glass ringing in an ever-widening, swirling nimbus of sound in which the man is caught up, yields and lets himself go.
~ Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte
… and then write poems based on the shape and feel of words levitating in my foggy brain…
The Voice of Temptation. The Attic
by me, of courseThe voice of temptation,
Caught listening at the door,
Is now hung in the attic
But it doesn’t mind:
The view is nice
And you can hear
All the rattling bones
From up there.
You can even see
All the houses of the city
Lined in broken rows
And filled to the brim with people –
They all look thin and black
From up there –
You can almost taste
The melt and decay
Riding high on the midnight breeze,
Feel the sun burning the moon
Little by little.“I’m not even locked up here”,
Thinks the voice of temptation,
“And not reaching the floor
With the soles of my feet
Is almost, though not exactly like,
Flying”, it murmurs to itself.
“I’ll give this place a chance”,
It decides, but just then
The house of cards collapses,
Crushing the voice of temptation
Under a heap of spades.
… and then maybe doodle a little (no, I’m not going to show you those, sorry) and finally decide that it’s close to dawn so I’d better go to sleep. It’s a tiring and frustrating habit. But then again, maybe that’s just my way of celebrating. What’s yours?
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 