in softness of crumbling asphalt
falling stone
M-ai ţine la distanţă, dintr-o privire suspect prea familiar.
Tu mă ţineţi la momente apropiate, luând-mă jos înapoi pe străzi pentru a descoperi frumuseţea ta.
Aruncarea-mă la marginea din dimineata rece, aşa că am să vă uit adune mulţimile.
Puteţi purta bijuterii si invelitoare elaborate, dar nu este nevoie.
Al tău este de o frumusete naturala, care este purtat de griji şi de tulpina, dar încă soarele te face de aur.
Tu nu se teamă de greşeli şi le purta cu îndrăzneală; critica oarecum constantă.
Eu te uiti de la fereastra mea, eu te uiţi de la cea mai aglomerata strada, eu te uiţi la cele mai întunecate tunel, şi eu sunt captivat.
Eu am respect faţă de dumneavoastră greutăţi; admirand de moliciune dumneavoastră atunci când se confruntă cu astfel de complexitate.
Tu ţii tot, uneori, sunt un fel, uneori eşti atât de crud, dar nimeni nu fuge te prea rapide, de aşteptare pentru zilele de glorie pentru a reveni.
You hold me at a distance; a suspicious glance to the unfamiliar.
You hold me at times close; taking me down back streets to reveal your beauty.
Throwing me out to the fringes in the cold morning so I can watch you hoard the crowds.
You can wear jewels and elaborate covers; but there is no need.
Yours is a natural beauty that is worn by worry and strain but still the sun makes you golden.
You are not afraid of your mistakes and wear them boldly; the criticism somehow constant.
I watch you from my window; I watch you from the busiest street; I watch you from the darkest tunnel; and I am enthralled.
I am respectful to your hardship ; admiring of your softness when faced with such complexity.
You hold all; sometimes you are kind; sometimes you are so cruel; yet no one flees you too fast; waiting for your days of glory to return.
Fragments snatched on the late night bus trips
Littered conversations in fragments and distant memories of other places
The bus arrives
His phone stolen
Walked by an old man to some place of safety
‘No one can stay out there in that’
The heat rises
Only the dog, which sits in the empty palace can remain.
There is never a silence
The midnight hour sees the sex palace hit its rush
More arrests
More shops
And the lady continues to sell her dead flowers
The bright lights of the mall illuminate their quiet rooms,
Drips from the air conditioning provide men with a shower
The kiosk will never shut and the lamps never go to glooming
The park in the early hours a hub of monotony and excitement
The ladies of the night parade
The ladies walk their cats
And the wild dogs roam in packs with red eyes
Don’t chase them, though I do, it’s my exercise for the day
A maze in concrete form.
Suffocated
In aspiration of sophistication.
Endless sympathy,
Play is not a mode of expression; It functions as a joke, of which there are none.
Together in the city; as alone.
Through muddled steps of infinite departure,
The infamous 20 gallons.
The exhaust of salutation.
Between pauses, between the gasps
As mode of indignations
Endless rapture.
The old lady who steps out to the pavement from her house
And falls
And scorns me for helping her.
This is a city in an endless state of becoming, yet in its decay, has lost sight as to what the state might be. Waiting in partial light for some news of home, I am struck by how the city does not let me sleep, in constant motion, constant construction and deconstruction. I watch a man teach his son to steel. Suspicion and adversity, a mistrust for any object, person as knowledge, when trying to become, one must gather. Objects allow us to take on form. Such objects, when they cannot be obtained through fiscal means, need to be found, need to be got. In places of plenty, where the meek tourist flaunts an open zip, exchange, something for the sensation of having lost, is deemed to be only a fair sampling of local dialog. When in the dusk hours, the city changes, all becomes less translucent. The lady with the rabbits in the cardboard box puts the box in a polythene bag and carries it home, minus one rabbit. The man drinks a cup of cold Nescafé, 3 in 1, the drink a la mode and lights another cigarette, the lights don’t change, and the old lady, sensing calm, crosses the unmarked highway. When sat in bright smoky room, I am thankful for the cheap pasta and new friendly faces and old friends. The beauty of this city, in all its hardness never seeks to amaze. And in the back room, a man begins to sing, such sadness. The ruins will still crumble but we can still forge some strange archaeology of present, rather than let it drift in to the archive of its own decay.
The city in motion, the movement of the mass through the city; some how from a distance; no individual story delineations and the image formed is that of an outsider; grasping key motions of the city which can be used to reflect a overview as to how the city functions. Arriving back to a city; each city as its own unique choreography. Arriving to walk. Arriving to learn.
The city as an endless studio; an endless map of encounter and suggestion; of form and conclusion.
As fragments the city takes form; the body collects and in turn creates an imprint of its encounter; this forms a practice.
( All images copy right to Beatrice Jarvis; permission needed for reproduction)
Urban re:passages 