Uncovered Treasure 3

touched by cold glass

her own hand

twinned and mirrored

in a mudra of longing

searches with fingertips

for her abandoned self

craving for the other

within her image

to appear and confirm

her reflected sensuality

she remains alone

in unconsummated love

her jewelry of solitude

strung from the bones

of an imagined lover

hangs too heavy

and too bright

around her beautiful neck

her eyes, her mouth

her silent words

cry out for relief

but at arm’s length always

she imprisons her desire

safely behind the vitreous veil

 

In a recent mid-winter apartment purge I uncovered a set of 35 mm slides from some mist-enshrouded past era of my life. These photographic images enchant me, as they must have done many moons ago when I originally captured them on slide film.

Not owning a slide projector I scanned them into digital form and looked at them on my laptop. The images were visual poetry to me and words began to form around each one…

This post is the third of a series in which I will share these uncovered visual treasures paired with writings evoked by each slide.

I am also fascinated by the journey of the process these images have gone through over a long period of time. Originally an unknown photographer created an image using a film camera, manipulating and printing it using chemicals in a darkroom. The image was then purchased, photographed a second time and printed in a book where I found it and transformed it into slide film…a photograph of a photograph of a photograph. Using technology that was barely there when I made the slides, I scan the image, another form of photographic reproduction, adding a fourth layer to the process. Perhaps posting the image on WP could be considered a fifth stratum?

No doubt the images have deteriorated in quality as they have traveled through time but I accept this as an intrinsic characteristic of the process. Rather than treat the aging as a defect I prefer to see it as another face of beauty.

 I have no record of the original photographers of these images. If anyone out there recognizes the photographs please let me know and I will immediately add due credit to the artist.

poem by clinock.

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