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Tuesday 26 January 2010

Men and Women


.


File:Paul Cézanne 047.jpg




One man and one man
One man and one woman
One woman and one woman
One man and many men
One woman and many women

Many women and one man
Many men and one woman
Many men and many men
Many men and many women
Many women and many women

Endless complication
Of entangling interrelation
Between human beings
Meaning absolutely nothing
To two cats walking on snow




File:Cat walking on the snow stage-01-Zenera.jpg





The Bathers: Paul Cezanne, 1906 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Cats walking on snow (Leafy and Saphiri): photo by Zenera, 2007

12 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,
Yes, again, thanks for such great 'glimpse' of what's 'really going on' in Cézanne's great painting, which populates the landscape with bodies -- nobody (quite) here in this parallel universe, as you see ---

1.26

grey whiteness of cloud above blackness
of ridge, motion of shadowed black leaf
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

action of color, prescribed
leaf a touch of green

a picture, deep space until
the surface, flatness

grey-white cloud against slope of ridge,
silver of rain drops falling in channel

Phanero Noemikon said...

or the always easy reflexive

the bodies of 'this or that' whateverness, and the whoever
of writer or reader (2 cats)
or the even less single or plural

eye and symbol

ie

n-sibyl

as if the yoke of experience
must always house an ox
within a pre-rutted

record.

Phanero Noemikon said...

or the always easy reflexive

the bodies of 'this or that' whateverness, and the whoever
of writer or reader (2 cats)
or the even less single or plural

eye and symbol

ie

n-sibyl

as if the yoke of experience
must always house an ox
within a pre-rutted

record.

TC said...

Momently what's
'really going on', action of

color, the landscape
or the even less single and plural

silver of raindrops falling,
eye and symbol, foreground

must always house
the yoke of experience,

nobody quite
here,

n-sibyl, pre-rutted
action of color, a record

a 'glimpse' in this
parallel universe, moving across

a picture, deep space until
something swims up to

the surface, flatness
or the always easy reflexive

shifting of the POV, a record,
the bodies of 'this or that'

whateverness, and the whoever
of writer or reader (2 cats)

Anonymous said...

Now this gives me a headache! But I am liking that she does! I am nuts though. I am liking especially, that final stanza.
Yes, very good; you.

TC said...

SarahA,

Many thanks my dear.

Yes, the complicated interrelations of men and women give me a headache too. (But then everything does, can't be helped.)

I probably don't see these things very clearly.

But the cats, they seem to see everything perfectly clearly.

Does this give them headaches?

Hmm.

~otto~ said...

What a great ending, such a turn I laughed and read it again

TC said...

Many thanks Otto.

One of those moments when you feel the looking glass swinging around, and what looked big before suddenly appears infinitely small... or, if you're as blind as I am, can't be made out at all.

You probably know what I mean(?).

Sometimes unsettling when it occurs but often a helpful switch in perspective.

I'm often catching myself seeing things from the POV of the cats, because they run the show.

To them, our world is pretty much just neutral information, except for those parts of it they can use.

And why not.

Adam Katz said...

In the present moment, I am only breathing,
As if there were any question of breaking the silence—
These are only impressions of the morning,
Of the morning where I forgot that I was lost.

In the silence, I am only breathing, unbroken,
Starting to sense the vastness of the physical body,
The “wastness” as Geeta Iyengar would pronounce it,
As Marlene Mawhinney would instruct me.

She is someone who I trust with everything,
As nearly as I trust anyone, with the exception
Of the one who for me is always the exception,
Someone who I think about quite frequently.

Someone, for me, who is more than broken, is lost;
Someone who is all that I am in the morning, some-
one who is kneeling, someone who is afraid, is
Far along, is hard in the field of heroes.

TC said...

The moments when we forget we are lost are the moments when we begin to live.

Then we remember again. That's how it is.

The cats, they couldn't care less, in any case.

And why on earth should they.

Unknown said...

hello Tom,

How can I write to you in private? I'm very interested in this poem musically, but I haven't found any contact to you.

Regards,
Kristina

(fool.onthehill4@gmail.com)

TC said...

Krisztina,

Thanks for your interest.

(I've written you a note...)