Essays / Only words Archives - Page 11 of 17

Ode to Kronstadt

Kronstadt, St Petersburg – 2013

(I)

the left ear of russia

the eye and brow towards the west

key that locks the gate

when you put on your white dress

only then can outsiders walk towards you

(II)

old brick and dry mortar

varicose veins of cracks in your concrete

ceilings caved under burden of ages

the plaster drip from your tired walls

children’s footsteps imprinted in your dusty streets

(III)

incense through the cathedral doors

seeps softly from the warmth within and

touches and reminded passers-by

that this scent is of ages past

its sweetness filled with faint distant voices

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:57:06-04:00May 6th, 2013|

Lost words

Notebook May 3rd – Kronstadt, St Petersburg

Today I wrote a poem, sitting between the pigeons.

It went something like this…?

I wrote it on the back of my lost luggage customs form.

News finally came from Polcovo and I went to collect my orphaned suitcase.

Handing in my official form, now stamped with red bureaucracy circles,

forgetting about the poem penned on the back of it.

Sign here, sign here and sign here and yes you need to sign there.

Now my lonely words are afloat in the Russian ocean of

duplicate forms of black-pen-only frantic tourist scribbles.

The pigeons are still here but the words departed on a one way ticket.

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:59:54-04:00May 5th, 2013|

Sunlight fills my room

from Notebook St.Petersburg Russia, May 2013

Being here I imagine Anna sitting on my bed and whispers to me in her native tongue while the sunlight seeps through the blinds:

2013 Anja Marais

8th November 1913

Sunlight fills my room
With hot dust, lucent, grey.
I wake, and I remember:
Today is your saint’s day.
That’s why even the snow
Is warm beyond the window,
That’s why, sleeplessly,
Like a communicant, I slept.
~Anna Akhmatova

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:59:54-04:00May 4th, 2013|

Oh Russia…

From my notebook: Key West March 2013

Since being a young music student I was fascinated with Russian musicians, writers and poets. From the decibel bursts of Stravinsky and Mussorgsky to the emboldened words of Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Since then I abandoned the violin for being hopelessly mediocre at it but I could never abandoned the education it gave me. Once you have peeked into the soul of the Russian arts it seems to have permanently nested in the branches of you mind.

Images in “Sculpting in Time” of scenes of Andrei Rublev

One of my biggest influences is that of filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. If you are an artist that values the ethical and moral path of being a creative you only need to watch Andrei Rublev to obtain understanding what art should truly be about. Tarkovsky states: “An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn`t exist, for the artist doesn`t live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn`t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world. This is the issue in Andrey Rublyov” (1969). This idea ties in with Leo Tolstoy’s’ believe in what is good art – that for the sincere artist art is a great matter, not a pleasure, not a solace or an amusement but that it should be respected as the organ of human life.

I will be visiting Russia next month and I can only hope for the art muse to await me…

Keep awake, keep awake, artist,
Do not give into sleep…
Your are eternity’s hostage
And prisoner of time.

~ Boris Pasternak

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:59:54-04:00April 26th, 2013|

The Unethical Artist

Sulfur drapes like an anorak

contemptible stench of seaweed

your soul

Mosquito larvae breeding grounds

sinking away in your mud

others talent

you are the swamp of inverted values

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:59:55-04:00April 17th, 2013|