Snowdrop girl,
I can feel your presence
in the first whispers of spring;
I can hear your breath
in the windy corners of life-
it’s my favourite lullaby,
it makes me cold sometimes-
you could be cold sometimes,
in a scintillating way that
I never wished to oppose
or even dared to question-
my fear was not of
your reaction,
but the possibility of
your contamination
on some elemental level
Beneath many layers of
innocence and frivolity
and even more layers of
impenetrability and frostiness
I know what lies, I know
the substance, the kindness,
the taboo dreams,
the sweet desires-
and that makes me smile
you opened up to me
in the still wintry light in
a moment of rare vulnerability
I am thankful to have been
entrusted with.
The world may have seen
your masks, but who else
has recognised the rarely-resurfacing,
pearl-like gleam
in your eyes?
I have and I enveloped it in
my spirit shell
where it shall shimmer forever,
even after our farewell.
Tag: writing blog
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A poem: Snowdrop girl
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Review: Mira Nedyalkova’s underwater photography
A selection of artworks from the stunning, eerie underwater photography collection by Bulgarian visual artist and fine art photographer Mira Nedyalkova.
Mira’s work depicts the beautiful facets of pain and sadness in fluid forms, whilst linking water with sensuality and exploring erotic and emotional themes.
Water symbolism always makes us think of regeneration, purification, and catharsis – a reflection of the beginning and the end. Mira emphasises the dual dimension of water, symbolising sin and purity, as well as pleasure and innocence. The aquatic element has both generative and destructive powers; it can be life-giving and apocalyptic. Her models are depicted as otherworldly beings, seemingly frail, yet also dark and enigmatic. Water is also the essential element contributing to the surreal aesthetic of the pictures, since it changes the light, colour, and shapes captured in unexpected ways.
Mira Nedyalkova is not interested in pure photography – as opposed to many photographers who praise raw analogue photographs for capturing unaltered moments, she recognises the creative and transformative power of post-processing and digital editing as a way of enriching photography, of creating something new, conveying an emotion, and telling a story. As a former painter, she now sees digital editing as a way of getting closer to painting again.
Like many artists, Mira believes emotion is an essential part of a remarkable piece of art. Her view is epitomised in her stunning, memorable photographs, often depicting expressive, intense characters found in captivity. Other recurring characteristics of her artistic vision are a preference for nudity, the eerie beauty of nature, enigmatic, fragile-looking animals, and subtle sexuality.
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A poem: Echoes
A silhouette merging with the unknown-
all that is left is your breath in the cold air
as you exhale in slow motion.
I speak in shadows,
you respond with specters of light,
haunting every word-
making sense of it all;
I choose to live in the now,
but if you whisper in my ear
I will take decades to figure out
why you chose to disappear
that day
when I ran down the hallway-
gargoyles staring from above-
for a second I thought I could hear
another set of footsteps
under a different weight
even after I accepted your longing
for the netherworld.
The statues were grotesque,
threatening, demon-like in thunder and lightning,
and still, I hoped that hallway would never end
just so I could hear the sounds again and again
and convince myself they weren’t merely
echoes of my footsteps into the unknown. -
A poem: Afterlife
I taste the blood of dehydrated lips,
admire the inadequately plucked eyebrows
above vapid black circles surrounded by
red on translucent white.
Dark hair, itchy like rope
against my neck,
frozen hands trembling,
features particularly thin:
I forgot how to live,
yet I laugh at my own sin. -
Train of thought
You said to yourself that it was too cold and that was why you could barely function. It was either that, or the weeks-long stagnation of the spirit.
One day you will no longer think of your own passing, or that of those closest to you, no longer delving in scenarios of unhappiness out of masochistic urges, or in abyssal streams of consciousness.
The city, oh, the city. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes the city is in you, sometimes the city does not exist, or is something so detached from who you are, even as you pass right through its heart. The city in daylight and the city at night – such peculiar dualism to which your mindset adjusts, and which appeals to different beings within you, with different dreams and different nightmares.
You need success and fulfilment in order to open up. Is it right? It might be ingrained – inherited or caused by nurture. Unfolding at your most vulnerable seems impractical anyway, what a silly thing to do. Put up walls and let flowers climb them.
I ate everything I had in the house -red and purple fruits and chocolate, then I took the first train and stopped at the station where my train of thought decided to let me go. The station was all empty, I smiled to myself, and nature witnessed. There is a journey ahead.
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Music: Submerged
Their music submerged my body in cold waters- red, blue, and purple lights piercing into the depths. Their voice embraced me, the melody wrapped me up in a liquid swirl, whilst my mind was surrounded by the haze of the late 90’s when I was a child and the very early 90’s when I was not born yet, but it somehow made sense. The fabric of the universe, the condition of being human and of simply being, were reflected in the icy singing. It could be the soundtrack of a trip to the moon, or a trip into the underworld. Of running and never stopping, following an endless white line on the ground, or running and jumping off a cliff not knowing what is on the other side and whether you will survive the crash. Of brides saying ‘I do’ in glittery white dresses inside Christian churches; of a little girl’s tears on her grandfather’s coffin. That moment extended into infinity, the music encompassed everything, and that is how a thousand experiences enriched my mind in an instant.
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Aquarium
On the other side, I see your face distorted among plants and fish; you smile and I’m happy because I know you know how I love rivers, lakes, and the sea from afar, and how I used to take swimming lessons when I was little, yet was never eventually able to swim for long distances as I always ran out of breath. You might also remember that I loved facing gigantic waves during storms, letting myself be lifted up and carried by the motion of the sea. Despite this, we probably talked about how I would not want to live by the sea, rather, I always wanted to find out what it would be like to live up in the mountains for a while, with the people I love, a dog, and a cat, surrounded by the warmth of a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, watching the snowflakes tracing patterns on small windows. Would it be nicer than getting lost in the chaos of a big city?
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A poem: November
The vanishing words,
the vanishing images,
the shedding
of selves like autumn leaves;
of withered lives on wrinkled paper,
dust off the treasure chest
in the desert, next to a snake
regenerating its skin
polished,
your porcelain appearance melting into
the undefined-
does the new verse annihilate
or build you?
perhaps it is the fading portrait
either that, or the smile in between
either that, or the infinite encounters
with the ineffableYou write, you cross out
another identity and over to
another vision. -
Poetry
Awaiting ❅
Butterflies spiralled in silver –
petals sleeping on the floor
Eternally moved, I quiver-
Tenderly pressed against the door.Of the senses ❅
Nostalgia persists
soft as velvet,
sad as lace,
sweet and intoxicating
as your scent sliding down my spine.The fragrant city ❅
Through the alleys,
scents of old seasons
scatter in the urban rain.
Guided by our roots,
the long-withered dreams of being
seem to be reborn from pain.Midnight ❅
Weak,
gently wrapped in white
I seek
a cure for the night.Purgatory ❅
I feel
I love
and then I hate
my fire and my demons,
just before I see your celestial smile,
you icy devil
bringing me back to life,
to an illusion of life
which I knowingly accept as truth.
My complicity – dispersed in time
until it is forgotten
The world – no longer in black and white
it burns
I am only ashes.Identity ❅
Fragrant relics of the heart
crown you as the faerie queen over
the land of forgotten whims
with a rose delicately smothered in your hands
and pearls hanging from your pale thin neck
A down-to-earth Snow White is what I see in you
when all that matters is how you see yourself.Elevation ❅
When the past smells like dust,
its enchantment is upon you no more –
The future glows in sight
on the island of apples
where you dwell feasting upon eternity
and upon everything born out of a lavish ground.
everything – corporeal and incorporeal gathers up
and you find yourself among nymphs, dryads, witches,
heroes, mad men of both virtues and vices,
unearthly fruits and singing crystals,
air and waters sprinkled with glitter,
and a crystalline laughter travelling with the wind.Memories of snowdrops ❅
The snowdrop-scented incense extinguishes
It smells like childhood dreams
It smells like us
in a cornfield
or in our garden
laughing and uncaring
just before I went on the hill
with my kite
laughing,
uncaring.Carved ❅
Red wine, dripping down your lily flesh
like paper tingled by tears of blood
from the wounds of your carved spirit.Pulse ❅
You lay on the river shore
Half awake and spellbound
by the water flowing
rhythmically,
echoing the flow of blood,
mirroring the flow of time.
Illusions bewitch your mind and body into acting strangely-
The past creeps up and there you are:
Standing still in the infinite white space
of children unborn.As below, so above ❅
This place is a crypt and, while you’re all waiting
to go on a long journey,
you admire the countless tiles
bearing the scars of the bodies in front of them-
their motionless, diffuse shadows
never making you wonder what they hide
for, as you see their faces, you can tell
you’re all made of the same substance
and that’s all that seems to matter down there,
on the Underground platform.
No mystery in your flesh and bones,
no light at the end of the tunnel,
no heaven to dream of inside the collective tomb,
you are in this together.Addiction ❅
My shadow on your wall, crumbling
as you wake up from the shivers
entering you like poison-
slowly, from your mouth
passing through your stomach and
limbs in silence,
then back to the skull
By the moon, my black hair
is cast behind you,
Your sickness now caught in my spider web.DM, 2014-2017
DIANA MARIN 