The Photographer

For Ana

Her palette
of images

both
color
and
monochrome
speak
with
imagination
reflect
vividly
often
playfully

Her
thoughts
dreams
fantasies
life
with
intrigue
and
mystery

Her
portfolio
echoes
visually
an orchestra
but
what
music
would
accompany
it?

Samba
bossa nova
choro
axe
accented
with
cool jazz
riffs
or
the
haunting
melodies
and
lyrics
of
fado?

The photographer
shares
her
work
and
explores

light
shadows
angles
curves
textures
distortions
in objects
interiors
exteriors
landscapes
seascapes
and
people
their bodies

especially
one body

Hers.

Her
self-portraits
entice
tease
challenge
even
seduce
as
she
masks
her
face
and
body
with shadows
while
adding
contrast
with
playful
compositions
of
light

An observer
views
her
images
and
fantasizes …

running
a finger
across
her lips
then
kissing
them

stroking
her
body
slowly
gently
exploring
savoring

the
feel
of
her
skin
first
with
hands
then
with

lips …

Imagining
her
reaction
her
voice

sighing
or
moaning

and
what
might
follow

Her
photography
reveals
just
one
dimension
of
her.

Frederick Fullerton 2023

[thank you so much for your beautiful words]

Versos do prisioneiro – A sentença (segunda leitura)

Você
tem que aprender
a respeitar a vida humana, disse o juiz.

Parecia justo.

Mas o juiz
não sabia que, para muitos,
a vida não é humana.

O prisioneiro retorquiu:
há muito me demiti de ser pessoa.

E proferiu, por fim:
um dia,
a nossa vida será, enfim,
viva e nossa.

Mia Couto [poemas escolhidos]

Nude # 1

Each morning a vision came to me. Gradually I understood that these were naked glimpses of my soul.

I called them Nudes.

Nude # 1. Woman alone on a hill. She stands into the wind.”

Anne Carson (The glass essay)

I said…

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting
.”

T.S. Eliot (Four quartets)

Mixture of memory

As for me I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.

Lawrence Durrell (The Alexandria Quartet)

Teu corpo

Desvelar-te o caminho.
Chover em terra árida
E sermos mar
Por vir.
Semear o mundo
Com prazer.
Tomar-lhe o peito
Pulsar
E vir-nos.
Sermos a tempestade
E a quimera.
O leito
E o assunto.
O silêncio
E os beijos
À chuva.
Entranhar-nos
E humedecer
Nas dobras do calor
A que chamo
Teu corpo.

Jorge Vaz Dias

Estilhaços de luz

Aguardo a hora do dia em que a luz explode sobre a tua pele e me atinge o olhar com os seus estilhaços. O desejo cega-me.