The Inner Valley

We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are. Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family. Then back to the world, polished by soft whips. We dream; we don’t remember. Machine of the family: dark fur,  forests of the mother’s body. Machine of the mother: white city inside her. And before that: earth and water. Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass. And before, cells in a great darkness. And before that, the veiled world. This is why you were born: to silence me. Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece. I improvised; I never remembered. Now it’s your turn to be driven; you’re the one who demands to know: Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant? Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us; it is your turn to address it, to go back asking what am I for? What am I for? ******* ✍   Louise Elisabeth Glück (New York City, 22 April 1943). ◙ Artwork: Honoré D

There the hungry wolf with his teeth has ripped out the hot entrails. There the fugitive convict stone by stone has dug his grave. There the naked dead on a table of their bones have chopped up the moon. There the rutting stags, their antlers entangled, have turned into skeletons. There on hard arid ground sorcerers have woven a wedding feast banner from their veins. The groom is the wind, the bride is the mist. Amazingly in their cradle (a handful of earth and hope) a nameless flower opens. Let's go and name it: let it be called Dream. ******* ✍ Slavko Janevski ( Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, 11 January 1929 ~ Skopje, 20 January 2000). ◙ Artwork: Agostino Arrivabene

In the circus tent of a hurricane designed by a drunken god my extravagant heart blows up again in a rampage of champagne-colored rain and the fragments whir like a weather vane while the angels all applaud. Daring as death and debonair I invade my lion's den; a rose of jeopardy flames in my hair yet I flourish my whip with a fatal flair defending my perilous wounds with a chair while the gnawings of love begin. Mocking as Mephistopheles, eclipsed by magician's disguise, my demon of doom tilts on a trapeze, winged rabbits revolving about his knees, only to vanish with devilish ease in a smoke that sears my eyes. *******   ✍  Sylvia Plath (Boston, Massachusetts, 27 October 1932 ~ London, 11 February 1963). ◙ Artwork: George Bellows

When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset. The true meaning, ready to be decoded. What never added up will add Up, What was incomprehensible will be comprehended. - And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day Make no sense following each other? And on this earth there is nothing except this earth? - Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.  ******* ✍   Czesław Miłosz (Szetejnie, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire, 30 June 1911~ Kraków, Poland, 14 August 2004). ◙ Artwork : Nikolai Astrup