Te miro y se me abre la mente

.

Ni siquiera una mirada, para verte
sólo he de cerrar los ojos.
Oigo tu voz sin que hables
susurrándome caricias al oído.
Sin tu presencia, siento tu cálido respirar entrecortado
en mi cuello.
Atrapas mi pensamiento, lo esclavizas.
Estás ya dentro de mí y no puedo hacer nada,
mientras avanzas por mis venas como veneno
del que no me puedo deshacer.
Veneno tan dulce por otro lado.
Dulce, pero incurable, quisiera que fuera incurable.

by Miguel A.C.

[zoe]


(please press the photo, then the magnifier for a larger size to see the connecting lines...)

[Te miro y se me abre la mente:The Thread]
This illustration was inspired by Vesna's creation of the title phrase of this post (I look at you and my mind opens), and her initial photo.
I tried to incorporate the spiral connectedness of the shell, linking the various threads around the drawing. The image also fits with the first line of Migue's poem "Ni siquiera una mirada, para verte," as the central character--the clown gazing upon the simple string carried by the bird which inspires the opening of the possibilities of his world--is aware of the presence of all the other characters somewhere within himself. I was playing with the idea that he creates them with his imagination but also that they are there, unseen until he opens his imagination. And that one's imagination can be opened simply--with nothing more than a glance from another or of another. The bird could be the soul of the girl, here shown at different stages in her life all at once.

The vines draped over each of the young trapeze-artist's arms are loosely (the plant is not actually a vine) based on the drawings of the Adonis flammea in The Book of Botanical Prints by Basilius Besler. According to that Dressendorfer and Littger, who edited the book, "their red flowers recall the legend of how the flowers grew from the blood of the handsome favorite of the gods, which is why the plant has had this name since the 17th century." Adonis was a Greek god, a son of Cyprus, closely linked to the rebirth and vegetation deities of several other cultures. Wikipedia says, "He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar." For these reasons, I felt the plant to be a good symbol for the stages of the male aspect of the drawing.

One of the reasons he is linked with the cycles of death and birth lies in his beauty. Again, Wikipedia: "As soon as Adonis was born, the baby was so beautiful that Aphrodite placed him in a closed chest, which she delivered for security to Persephone, who was also entranced by his unearthly beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the goddess of love and the goddess of death was settled by Zeus, with Adonis spending six months with Aphrodite...and six months with Persephone."

[end zoe]

[vesna]
He woke up with a mind like a Harlequin;
to whom thinking feels like a pain.
She dresses like a Mannequin,
She winks to the mirror, a bit vain.

His face is perfect: no apparent flaws.
Beautiful Adonis, ready to shine.
She sings: "He glows."
She believes:" He is mine."

He moves around the town,
feeling tall and proud.
One day she will pick the wedding gown;
One day they will fascinate the crowd.

Their story continues to live;
Their love has a magical power.
There is so much beauty to give:
she is a bird, he is a flower.
[end vesna]

We are the time. We are the famous by Jorge Luis Borges

We are the time. We are the famous

metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.

We are the water, not the hard diamond,

the one that is lost, not the one that stands still.

We are the river and we are that greek

that looks himself into the river. His reflection

changes into the waters of the changing mirror,

into the crystal that changes like the fire.

We are the vain predetermined river,

in his travel to his sea.

The shadows have surrounded him.

Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.

Memory does not stamp his own coin.

However, there is something that stays

however, there is something that bemoans.

Jorge Luis Borges

"Narcissus' Nightmare Becomes a Dream" (by zoe jordan)
[zoe] He looks into the pool--living, not stagnant--and sees not his own reflection, but that of his other... [vesna] image. The image broken into pieces, transformed into some unrecognizable shape, was looking back at him. Narcissus felt broken and unprotected, it seemed like the living pool was reflecting his inner self. His nightmare was there in front of him, so alive and scary: there is this floating ugly creature convincing him that his beauty is invisible, that his fears are out there for the world to see. Narcissus closed the eyes...
[zoe] He wished to see beauty, but new beauty: he wished to look into his reflection and see something more beautiful than himself, himself but more beautiful. He squeezed his eyes shut, and he willed it. And with his eyes shut, his other senses began to take over. He could smell a blossom, some blossom...what was its name? And a gentle, singing voice floated across the air, barely reaching his ears... [vesna]

Alphonse Mucha, Princess Hyacinth

That was the smell of the spring, of his mother's garden full of white hyacinth, smell of her warm hug and gentle touch that was wiping the tears from his dusty face. He was a little boy again. Playful and careless. He only feared that the night will interrupt his play and he'll have to go to sleep. He didn't like nights and sleep when he was a boy, they were bringing with them scary dreams...

[zoe]
...dreams of the forest before him, endless and dark, the monstrous roots and the hidden swamps, and the whispers of all that awaited his fall...the shivering trees that warned him, with sudden silence, of that dreaded arrival...


"Spooky Tress," by Gabriel Jordan