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In a night of synaptic silence:

I eat out of the palm of your hand,

cupped round like a globe

to my curved lips,

silent as the bells

of abandoned churches,

where only the monk

runs his fingers along rusty ridges,

refusing to look at the stars.

He fondles his Bible

like an erect phallus,

as your fingers crawl

up my thighs.

Like the sound-waves

of his whispered prayers,

our bodies' hymns will fade

into a dusty dawn.

Beauty

She was a dancing sculpture: Alabaster skin peeking out from chiffon, china-prints of flowers under fading sunsets. When she twisted her arm she looked like a tea-pot. Her feet were not dainty; they were set with the heaviness of stone. Her hair, falling in brown waves to her shoulders, did not quite conceal a water-stain on her marble cheek.

At night, cracked and broken, she went back to her cupboard. In the morning, she draped silk over her shoulders, pulled her hair into a chignon, and danced arabesques in the sunlight. The only traces of her fissures were slight slips at the end of twirls, and a crystalline line through the place where, in another world, she might have had a heart.

Broken Words

I am pretty sure it is a faux pas to start off a blog entry with a quote from the Mexican artist whose life and work have inspired me, but I will take that chance:

Frida Kahlo once wrote in her journal, "Feet, what do I need them for when I have wings to fly?" These words are accompanied by cracked and broken feet of stone. For me, this image, and the words that accompany it, encapsulate the feeling of broken-ness that can permeate our lives and our art. I think this feeling of broken-ness goes by many names, and some might call it existential loneliness. This loneliness is discussed in the works of Rabbi Joseph B. Soliveitchik's classic work, "Lonely Man of Faith" - for it is from a place of alone-ness that spirituality emanates. Thus, in order to find God, Moses and Elijah each must journey by themselves into the wilderness, though the ways in which God appears to them are almost polar opposites: God appears to Moses through the burning bush, a show of might and miracles, while God appears to Elijah in "a still small voice", a voice that comes after a mighty wind, earthquake and fire have each passed by, but none of those mighty miracles contained the Divine Presence. (1 Kings:19).

I see art as a way of listening to and expressing the silent voice within us, whether it is through visual, musical, or literary works, as well as through other genres I am neglecting to mention, especially in our multi-media age, when new genres are being born every day.

So what is the purpose of this blog? I suppose it is a place for me to post some of my work, a way of ensuring I set aside time to write. Most of the works here will be works in progress, and I always appreciate (constructive) feedback.

As for the phrase "palavras quebradas", it is Portuguese, a language dear to my heart, since I am half-Brazilian, yet a language that my skills could use much improvement in. I found the beauty of the assonance of As too tempting to resist however, and had to put it in my blog's title.

I hope you will enjoy this blog, and I hope that I will enjoy writing for it. I will try to make future posts less tangentially rant-like.

PS: Link to the Amazon page for Frida Kahlo's journal, which has the image shown in this post.

Link to the Amazon page for "Lonely Man of Faith"