direct link to Veils to Clothe Venus with music (2:33min)
Buz Hendricks created an original track for the Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems. I have used a section of the ethereal, jazz-influenced, sensual track he sent me for this particular poem. You can hear the whole piece with poem and music (his mix) at Jamendo.
Veils to Clothe Venus is the 10th track in the album of poetry performance recordings I am working on. Music from a Jamendo musician accompanies each of the readings in the album. While I still have to write the poem for the last track, and the muse can be quirky, I am hoping to have the album available for listening and free download on Jamendo within a few weeks.
In the process of creating a listenable track, I recorded the little poem maybe a dozen times. Since I liked the reading alone and with Buz's music, I offer a shortened voice-only version of the same reading above. The simple, plain, unadorned voice:
direct link to voice-only version of Veils to Clothe Venus (1:48min)
Veils to clothe Botticelli's Venus
A poem arises catching the energy, imparting meaning, hesitant, faltering for words, images, rhythms.
My love for you.
Slowly, through endless revisions,
shaping this love.
Disparate layers emerge, an undercurrent infiltered with strands, approaches, understandings, memories, hopes, desires,
the way the sensual mind composes.
We create ourselves through each other. It's more complete,
who I am with you.
Not a version of reality but a veil of being,
the poem of love that is
a transparent garment we clothe ourselves with,
our metaphors and concepts of a world
which resists
our gaze.
Writing is a deeply
meditative act.
A language of love.
A listening.
From Women In Summer - the process of painting |