Carroll, May & Stevens – November 2019

Orson Carroll, Mandy May, and Genevieve Stevens traded music and words. Orson shared this composition, titled “Our Final Sunrises,” with Mandy:

 

 

In response, Mandy wrote this poem:

Slow build of shadow

This season is a fresh assault:
the slow build of winter
the slow build of throb
the slow build of coal crow

Let each shadow soothe me
let the earth beneath me
seep into me like
the pricking memory
of each dark drowning

Night is ink and itch
Night is sound blur, cave echo
ocean curl, salted mouth
pennies for teeth

If the evening removes me
I lay myself open to be taken
to be wrapped in the undertow
the rush of water in the ear
limb flail of seashell and anemone

and back into the sun I’m thrown
light pouring out the choked throat
a brilliant sky so vast and empty
so cast and wide

* * * * *

Genevieve shared this poem with Orson:

After Francesca Woodman

You erase yourself in half light —
an elaborate game of hide and seek
and us seeking makes you grow.
There — you are half way up a tree, clinging
like a child to a father’s leg.
You show us your hands, your feet, barely.
We can’t know your face,
or how the bark felt on your sex
or how long you waited for the shutter or if you sang or if you didn’t.

The corner of your studio hesitates
as you blur through, smudging the moment before and — o stalling ghost, o captured witch,
where were you going to?

In response, Orson composed this piece of music, titled “Half-Light”: