“No one sees me changing. But who sees me? I am my own hiding place.' – Joë Bousquet
“All intimacy hides from view, and I recall that the late Joë Bousquet wrote: ‘No one sees me changing. But who sees me? I am my own hiding place.”
– Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
I went away because I had something to focus on – or so I thought. After 2 years away from this site, I realize that I miss writing a lot. I don’t know how long I’ll be back here on, but I started posting reviews of the books I’ve been reading on Instagram, and would LOVE to share them here too.
I look towards the door. I think of her.
I think back to the drawer, that little piece of paper.
Something like reality. Grainy and full of pulsating life –
buzzing flies, little black and white stars; nestled among the curling papers.
Then he closes the drawer, before I can make out the full word.
And about those words. euryewreyrsjdhg. Wait, what again?
iuweyrweyrufegfdxfkrogrggrtjjtgtkghjgthrgregre.
I don’t get it. I open my mouth. Her face turns stormy.
Then she turns back towards the windows.
I wish he would tell me. I can’t read what’s between those eyes.
I peer into the sinkhole. But the noodle is gone.
© Zelda Reville
Blessings
encapsulated into being:
an A, an E, maybe a D
or, perhaps, two Ts:
You grow into your name,
or maybe you don’t know
what it means. Google tells you
that you’re a “child of God”,
or “the Messenger of Angels”.
But I don’t want empty titles, or
non-definitive purposes. Neither am I
a word lost in the passages
of light, or meaningless verses.
The story spills, rolling about
from the dregs: pale pastures of bitter coffee.
Of two really bad wines –
a glass flute lies casually on its thinly, curved side.
A discarded button lies on the floor,
reflecting a pale bluish Singer hue.
Ethereal grandmother eyes, sandwiched
between ancient, jovial mischief
now sparkle as she takes to the tale:
“80 years of strife,
and of withered family life –
of the seas and of many lovers,
drowned in the jungles of Malaya.
A man that disappeared off the coast,
taken by two khaki-clad men:
who is to say, or say afoul
of these dangerous mice
that masquerade as men?”
Somewhere in between
the halogen lights
rests the slight pause
of her dexturous fingers,
the shadow looming
in the form of benign presence,
all in all, right in front of me –
she who wears them all,
clandestine threads
inpalpably woven in her blood:
she, half-hidden by the light
of the lamp, who gently
pokes the needle through the cloth,
humming the medley under her breath.
“I took you to the fortune teller
and he took a look at you –
and he named you right there, and then.”
But what does it mean, Mum?
She continues to sew,
the silence punctuated
by the scrape of the key.
The door creaks open
and a stilted gasp of light peers in.
It dances on her face,
illuminating buttonhole dimples,
tracing soft-worn wrinkles
and lifting her face
from somnabulant monsters.
“I don’t know, honey –
count it as a blessing from the gods?
But what you make of it:
that, I can say, such will be.”
a heart
seems to remember
what the mind
has long forgotten
© Zelda Reville
Christine’s thought-provoking piece on what it takes to become a poet.
There was a dude
who bought a bouquet of roses
for a girl he really, really liked –
but the colours that leapt before her:
January’s spring! Quivering arrows;
hiding their thorns
in crinkled, silver foil
brought not joy – but, instead –
dismay to her eyes.
Then the girl said,
“Never mind this awful Valentine’s Day cliche,
but there’s something you have to know:
“you can bring me to the flowers,
but not the flowers to me!”
The dude, surprised by her words,
only had two words to offer: “But why?”
She continued, her mature stance belying
the terra-cotta freckles on her little hands:
“You see, my hands may bring them warmth,
but not the sustenance they truly need:
some water, sunshine, earthworms
to loosen the soil – or, even better – butterflies!
So leave them alone in the mucky dirt,
because that’s what they really, really like –
and bring me to the treetop walk instead,
because – my darling – that’s what I truly LIKE!”
© Zelda Reville
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!
Pro tip: not all women like flowers, not all flowers are like women. Enjoy.
This poem is written with relation to these quotes by Osho. Or maybe not. 🤣
“So I say to you, even to a well frog it is possible to communicate something about the sea. And if the messenger is really inventive, he can create devices to communicate. That is what a Buddha is doing, a Jesus is doing – creating devices to communicate something of the sea to well frogs. Because there is one thing in common – the water. If there is one thing in common, then connection is possible, a bridge exists.”
And this quote here could describe both the ecstacy and frustration that occur when we communicate with someone else.
“There are three hundred languages in the world and three hundred languages for rose; there is no relationship, all relationship is arbitrary. Cold is related to hot, well is related to the ocean. Their relationship, however indistinct, is there – real, not arbitrary. But between a word and reality there is no relationship, they are not related at all. So you can have your own words, a private language, you can call anything by any name.If you like to call it something else, the rose will not fight in a court. And nobody can prove that their word is more correct than yours, nobody can prove it because no word is more correct or less correct. Words are irrelevant, they are not related.
And this snow –
born in the cold:
the shade of an old man’s beard,
marking transitions –
the pearl, glistening,
spread open, all opportune
nestled between hinges.
The untouched language
of Indian textiles; before
purple and gold existed –
the bare glint of a pebble,
all lonely on the sand.
How could I even try
my hand at comprehending?
There’s 50 words for snow,
but no single word
to cut to the absolute bone.
Ruminate all you want,
come up with dialectics
till you go blue in the face –
but still,
“All this snow –
always born in the cold…”
I’m really, really enjoying this book…and really, really enjoying this rain….
An infinite keyboard,
on which raindrops
play their circular melodies –
instead of do-re-mi-fa-so,
or A-B-C-D and E
we hear ‘plip-plip-plop-plop’
and little sampans
drifting,
in their
uncertain ways.
© Zelda Reville
You – that guides my hand –
not towards the page;
but, slowly –
a spark softly striking –
the little firefly that hovers
in between gaps.
Deepening velvet blinds.
You – who visited,
crushing my back
in a middle of a muted scream –
you – !
© Zelda Reville
This poem was originally published here on 6 September 2017.
i
How, best,
to persuade myself,
that the dark
was only the sonorous prelude
to a devastating new dawn?
How best, then,
to swallow
my owned ennui,
tasting as bitter as the medicine
it was supposed to be
where you could feel
it going down the throat,
working its twisted magic
around that seductive word:
“This is you. That is definitely you.”
“Why don’t you? Why can’t you?”
“You! What did that person say!”
“That’s not you! Defend yourself!”
As the first spit
of bulleted words
come out of reflex,
allowing cynicism’s seeds to win the war –
Thought patterns of negativity?
Nope. Nope!
Welcome to my new positivity!
ii
Now let’s take the other roundabout.
Maybe I should
sip gently at grief instead,
taking it for a flute of champagne –
which Ol. Mrs Diddlydum thrusts
into your shivering hand, saying:
“Plum, and plumpest
of them all –
the entertained always pull
the biggest strings.
So, of course,
the most bigoted capitalist
makes for the best agony aunt!”
Tell me, then –
who spins the purple umbrella,
while coaxing
the most virile tongues
to do the dirty work?
iii
All the woodwork
of the old,
the bastardizations
of the new –
Is this now
the only exception to everything:
a strictly allowed diet of blood, and only blood?
Zelda Reville 