Slight and weightless
as consumptive boys,
they glide like
pretty phantoms of
Rilke's ideal.
Radiance runs
off limbs figuring
off limbs figuring
a strange geometry
where bodies
lose curve
lose curve
to line.
isn't Rilke's ideal, androgeny.. isn't the interchanging of women with young boys something neither would admit, nor would their admirers.
ReplyDeletehow come this is numbered 15, and there is no 1? Is this menagerie open ended.. no beginning, therefore no end.
ReplyDeleteEmaciation, poverty, hunger, and genderless spirituality--all stamps of Rilke--I use Rilke here but do not blame him--it's a playful use...and does illustrate his fleshless work--but the point isn't Rilke, it's an aetheticism which preaches a christian like asceticism for "beauty"---Something Rilke admired in the Russian Monks--they had the "radiance" Rilke extolled--
ReplyDelete#1 comes last.
ReplyDeleteA purging purgatory ...
ReplyDelete"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away."
ReplyDelete~ Antoine du Saint-Exupery
There's alotalotalot to take away from your writes ... so plan on working for awhile. I hope you get my message David.
ReplyDeleteSarai,
ReplyDeleteI didn't post the Saint-Exupery quote. Secondly, I think the person who quoted it was referring to the models---in a humorous vein.