images and words

or lose our ventures...

2010-10-13T11:30:00.004-03:00

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which taken at the flood,

leads on to fortune.

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat.

And we must take the current when it serves,

or lose our ventures.

Shakespeare

dreaming future

2010-07-05T09:14:00.003-03:00

I dreamt of a fence...closing, stopping, paralyzing one...a fence of imposed and self imposed boundaries...
I dreamt of a free soul, crazily lunging against all borders... jumping over all misfortunes...
then, I heard a voice in that dream.. a whisper repeating Victor Hugo words:
"There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

Kid's dream.. el sueño del pibe

2010-06-28T09:30:00.006-03:00

dreams in black and white, hopes of a colourful future..

the two glances..

2010-05-31T19:17:00.001-03:00

May 25th is over.. 200 years passed trying to be independient.. free...
But still there are two countries..
One with the glance firm, with the eyes full of past glories and hard battles, and within them the untamed will to go on fighting for the future...
The other, with the sceptic glance.. the one who eats but forgot when he coudn't have food.. the one who protests but forgot when he couldn't express himself, just for the single fear to be killed..
How much more time he will need to realize?
How much more he will go on listening and repeating without digesting what he listens and repeats??

an instant..i want an instant..

2010-05-20T17:06:00.001-03:00

A taste of past times, a warmness of childhood...

maybe a stop, so the soul may feel the essence in the middle of all pressures, moving and tiredness...

wish i could have an instant of them there, enjoying life..but sometimes we can only register.. and share..

where to look...

2010-04-17T15:46:00.003-03:00

If you want to study yourself -- look into the hearts of other people. If you want to study other people -- look into your own heart.
Schiller

devils...

2010-03-21T16:33:00.003-03:00

devils at Uquia... carnival and Andean celebration, full of native root’s rituals and ceremonies. Aborigine’s spirit that comes from more than 10,000 years ago and merged with the Christian dogma brought by conquerors without disappearing. Here they come here down the hill. Devils un-buried as

they are the figures that represents Carnival.

more images and clips here http://lvo-photo.blogspot.com/

sculpted..

2010-03-11T15:55:00.004-03:00

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.
~Frank Zappa~

2010-02-01T18:40:00.001-03:00

Are we to paint what's on the face,
what's inside the face,
or what's behind it?

Pablo Picasso

only changing words..

2010-01-15T16:04:00.002-03:00

“As a child, I had almost fallen into the well. When grown up, I nearly fell into the word “eternity,” and its quite number of other words too—“love” “hope” “country” “God.” As each word was conquered and left behind, I had the feeling that I had escaped a danger and made some progress. But no, I was only changing words and calling it deliverance. And there I had been, for the last two years, hanging over the edge of the word “
Nikos Kazantzakis

it goes on..

2009-12-18T17:46:00.004-03:00

Two souls at the narrow streets of Iruya, a small village
at 2800 m above sea level, at Salta province..
and I am almost sure i hear Robert Frost whispering:
"In three words I can sum up everything
I've learned about life: it goes on."

music in the soul....

2009-11-30T14:22:00.000-03:00

"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe", wrote Lao Tzu..

and i can assure you her laugh

was like a whole symphony,

coming from centuries ago

to pervade my soul.

the opposite of love...

2009-11-04T10:12:00.001-03:00

She was so focused on her chat.. but i heard him singing.. waiting..
He finally looked at me and said: " becuase the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference.."
Then, closing his eyes, he calmly walked away...

memories..

2009-10-25T09:47:00.001-03:00

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

egyptian tango..

2009-10-07T10:30:00.006-03:00

From where can I have a word
Full of pain, rebellion and determination?
From where can I have a word born by Earth
A word which cures what Heaven words couldn't cure?

Salah Jaheen.... egyptian poet

tending towards the eternal..

2009-09-25T15:46:00.005-03:00

i am back... two months traveling around my country...
i have passed through snowstorms... sandstorms.. rain...dust and wind covering roads, breaking the glasses of the car.. making stones hit and spoil the engine...weather changing from - 20 to + 34 degrees..

But i have found also souls that warmed mine... some became close, other were just silent meetings, in contemplation...
i have felt, suffered, smiled and grew among them...
and i remembered something i read long ago.. words that changed me forever...
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” Cesare Pavese..

childhood..

2009-07-09T09:45:00.000-03:00

And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? ~Rainer Maria Rilke

pure air and fire..

2009-06-21T00:25:00.002-03:00

He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
And of the heat of the ginger....
he is pure air and fire;
and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him,
but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him;
he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.
~William Shakespeare, Henry V

suspended and.. realized..

2009-06-05T14:51:00.004-03:00

Thanks to the Asociación Amigos de la Fotografía Antigua y del Museo Fotográfico de Quilmes, my exhibition "Souls"( that was scheduled at Museo Fotografico de Quilmes and was suspended by Quilmes Municipality) will begin today at cultural centre Libremente, at Temperley.
Many thanks, from the bottom of my heart, to the Association and to the Museum of Photography's director, Fernando San Martín.

new exhibition... Souls...

2009-04-01T17:11:00.000-03:00

Broken..

2009-02-19T15:46:00.008-02:00

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning. Man, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics… woe is anyone who begin to decipher them and guess what they mean! .
When you see them, you do not understand them.
You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later, too late, that you understand...
Nikos Kazantzakis

more here
http://www.pbase.com/silvia_marmori/hidden_meaning

It's harder..

2009-02-10T12:58:00.002-02:00

It is harder to kill a phantom than a reality

Virgina Woolf

air of heaven..

2009-02-08T09:46:00.003-02:00

"The air of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.."
or the one i still listen when remembering your voice..

for more images, http://www.pbase.com/silvia_marmori/horses

to trot the air..

2009-01-19T08:11:00.004-02:00

When I bestride him, I soar,
I am a hawk: he trots the air;
the earth sings when he touches it;
the basest horn of his hoof is more musical
than the pipe of Hermes.

~William Shakespeare, Henry V

maybe..

2009-01-06T12:03:00.002-02:00

I was taking a photo of the window.. and someone appeared taking the photo of who knows whose soul..
The photo of a photo.. the soul taking a soul.. taking a soul…
I wondered, without an answer.
Like at the insomnia nights…
Like the endless remembrances that appear, as hidden thieves, and instead of stealing they give us a present: a feeling of melancholy..
For the times deeply lived and gone but also for the times to come.. maybe.
And that “maybe” makes the whole difference…

a touch of mighty Venus..

2008-12-17T10:07:00.004-02:00

Walking along those empty, narrow streets, under a thin rain, he had felt a presence following him... penetrating deep inside his thoughts... intense.
Erice, a city full of history. Myths, ghosts coming from immemorial ages. Where Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans had worshipped goddess Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus.. all different names for same entity: Love's goddess. Where Heracles had been inbetween one of his famous twelve works. Where Aeneas had made his father's funeral and had left some fellows before departing to other lands. One of those fellows had established there.... a priestess of Venus... forbidden love... departures to other lands, beyond the sea... and broken hopes.

He went on walking. He had been at a bar, some minutes before, talking to someone he had just met with the feeling they knew each other from years. They had been there sharing their past, hoping their future... somehow a souls' meeting, or a gentle touch of mighty Venus?
He finally reached the church and the singular tower, the one that had been, in the past, a watching point to see if ships would come near the town. Both buildings had been built with the stones of the old goddess' temple.

Rain had ended... and a soft, persistent fog was pervading all. He stopped for a while. Something at the tower... A noise? Just breeze?
He looked at its top... he felt it again, extremely intense inside his soul...
Shivering, he went on walking, knowing that nothing would be ever the same... nothing!

Driven crazy of eternity..

2008-12-12T10:05:00.002-02:00

I let myself be on the Earth because I am the “enjoyer”,
the one that under clouds remains quiet.
I think: if anybody would touch my hands
he would go away, driven crazy of eternity..

Manuel J. Castilla
Salta's poet..

I'm going...

2008-11-25T16:42:00.002-02:00

from Argentina Northwest region, an anonymous copla..

I'm going..
I'm leaving,
of your presence
i walk away.
If only as
a memory
My heart to you
I'm giving

my treasures..

2008-11-10T11:42:00.004-02:00

"My treasures do not clink together or glitter; They gleam in the sun and neigh in the night."
-Arabian Proverb

Finding the past..

2008-10-22T11:47:00.003-02:00

Taken from the boat, while sailing the Nile.. an excavation.
I kept thinking about those ruins. No Egyptian poet came to help me, so, as it was very near Aswan, (and near Sudan border), I chose some verses of a Sudanese poet.. Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi:

Let the maps explode. How can the land be lost
When the future belongs to the Nile?
The Nile knows of the disgrace of cities
That have vanished.
Knows of the old times
Yet never speaks.
It is the Nile…

At the "city of the deads"..

2008-10-11T14:50:00.003-03:00

There is a group of vast cemeteries at Cairo that stretches out along the base of the Moqattam Hills
The cemeteries built in the City of the Dead, as it is called, are much different than the western idea of cemeteries.
This is because traditionally, Egyptians buried their dead in room-like “burial sites” so they could live in them during the long mourning period of forty days. .
Among these cemeteries lives a community of Egypt’s urban poor,
“More than five million Egyptian live in these cemeteries, and have formed their own enterprises,” said Malak Yakan, an anthropologist ..

As the great Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize of literature, wrote:
"The real malady is fear of life, not of death."

Invitation to "the beauty beneath"

2008-09-18T11:27:00.005-03:00

Galería Colorida, from Lisbon,Portugal has invited me to show my work, from September 20th to October 18th.
i am really happy! =)
I've chosen shells..
title is: The beauty beneath..

why?.. just because: "At the beach, we usually love what we see…foamy waves sliding on the moonlit sand, warm sunsets spreading their magic reflections…

But the sea has a beneath, just to make us remind that beauty is not only at the surfaces "

A broken iron ring..

2008-09-12T17:18:00.002-03:00

I was walking along a street at Budapest, when a noise, like a soft moan, made me look at a building..
There , at top, I saw a horse, frozen like a metal sculpture.. prisoner at the column.
I made a shot.. I stayed a moment.. and then, went on my walk.
But I heard a sound, like a broken iron ring..
Then, a flap of wings..
I didn't turn back to see.

A step to freedom..

2008-09-04T17:16:00.002-03:00

At the Río de la Plata, there is a special place, a small island in the middle of it, between Argentina and Uruguay..
Martin Garcia, its name.
With a diverse and beautiful geography, it is more well known for being witness of many facts of our history... battles for our independence at the river... famous political prisoners..
There was, also a common prison. When it was closed, its inside was destroyed, but they kept the walls, the windows and gates..
When I saw it, I imagined the feeling of those leaving... and I remembered something i read long ago..
"As a fish only knows what water means, when it is taken out of it.. a man can only know the whole meaning of freedom when he looses it"

Xtremes..

2008-09-02T14:33:00.001-03:00

About life and death..
about lights and shadows..
about love and oblivion..
about words and silence.

about orphans and Florence..

2008-08-23T14:51:00.007-03:00

Under the scattered rain, as usual lost at the streets, i was walking along Florence, amazed. The silence and solitude I had savoured when arriving by train at 5 a.m… they had been replaced by the noisy tourists.
I admired hundred times the Duomo, the piazza... I imagined Savonarola there, defying the people and the bonfire,, but I also imagined the anonymous victims of the incomprehension, of the intolerance, of the violence of those times…
I shivered…maybe it was the drizzle, or the memories of a past I had not lived… or perhaps the beauty of the architecture, of monuments.

I followed my way and I arrived at the market. Polyglot salesmen, offering leathers, clothes… shouting marvels for few euros.. I bought a silk’s scarf and ran away!
Sky was opening showing a shy sun.. Around a corner, at a near street, an incredible building appeared. The simplicity of the forms attracted me immediately. Arcs, a staircase..
Then, I saw them…

Contrasting with grey of stone and white stucco of the facade, there were some terracotta’s medallions enamelled in white and turquoise … Against a broken background, figures of babies wrapped as in old times, with their opened arms, waiting..

They impressed me. I captured the image, knowing in advance how impossible was to transmit the feeling... When looking for more details to know what this building was, my eyes found those of an old woman, seated in the staircase, with some pigeons around. She smiled, and opening the arms, almost in the same position of those babies, she said to me: - The city and its stories!

I was intrigued.... -L'ospedale degli innocenti, here are you now – she continued - In 1500, the silk’s merchants, made it built to receive the orphans, the god-forsaken ones, to educate them and give them a craft.
I sat down next to her, and she went on telling me the history of this "spedale” as she named it. It had been the first institution of that side of the world, dedicated to help kids. Still at present, it kept on working, giving subsidies for the infancy.
While the woman was speaking, the image of those babies, in the medallions was pervading me.

-You know a lot about this city’s history, madam! - I told her .
- Not so much -she answered - but I like this place. I come often to sit down here, to be with the pigeons and some memories.

She stood up... smiling, again, and said: - My family dedicated to the silk for generations... but here began everything, with me. In this staircase, I was picked up by the spedale, when I was abandoned; here they educated me gave me a craft, chose me a husband, and gave me a dowry at the age of fifteen to begin the business. What would had happened to me at those years, if this place had not existed?.
I stood up , also thinking about the local history. I looked again at the terracotta babies… there I realized: What had she said? “for generations… those years.." I looked at her again, but she had disappeared.
I shivered again.. I had understood!

I took the scarf from the backpack and put it at my neck.
The cold contact of the silk warmed my heart.

Laila and Majnoun

2008-08-19T15:12:00.019-03:00

Maybe her name is Laila?.. maybe she’s waiting for her Majnoun?..
Ahmad Shawqi is the only poet in the Arab literary tradition who was granted the title of " Amir al- Sho’araa’, literally the ‘Prince of Poets.
One of his works,the play "Majnoun Laila", or " Laila’s Love Lunatic" says at some verses..

Men turn as they pray to the holy place;
To Laila’s home I turn my face.
Twice people say their prayers at dawn;
When I think of her’
I know not the times I repeat my own,
Laila hid behind a crowd;
Her lip betrayed a smile,
Like the break of morn,
Or the sun as it shone.

3 of 3

2008-08-13T18:15:00.026-03:00

He ran without stopping. The bad news had to be scattered immediately. Although all were expecting it would happen, as messenger from other hamlets had arrived time before to prevent them, they were surprised. They thought that the inhospitable kind of the place, that the unassailable of the location, would make them give up… but there they were coming...
They were many, too many… it did not matter. The battle would be unequal in number, but also it would be in braveness… and both forces would be balanced.

..........
While going on with her trip, she began to read a book that she had bought at the museum, where it was described how, after one hundred and thirty years, Quilme people had finished. One hundred and thirty years of defiance and bravery against the Spanish. Overcome by hunger, many of them thrown themselves and their sons from the hill, not to be captured.. others, the less, "were lead" on foot through those 1600 km to the place where 500 years later, she would live. There, some of them died infected by diseases unknown at their valleys, some due to the laziness of those who had conquered them.. due to abandonment.

She took the small piece of clay from her pocket.. when her tears wet it, she just realized what was the meaning of that line in zig zag, depicted there… the weeping now had been shared… the pain.
But then, she thought about her city, Quilmes, the one that had the name of the heroic natives, and not the one of their conquerors.
She tightened that piece of clay stronger.. she dried her eyes, and sighed a little bit of justice.

2 of 3...

2008-08-12T16:06:00.009-03:00

She had learnt the meaning of the word “Quilmes”, the name of her city, at school. It was the name of natives who had lived at the very north of Argentina, at Tucumán province. The information provided at that time by the teachers had not deepened much..

Many years later, she made her first trip to those places, crossing the almost one thousand six hundred kilometres of Pampas, prairies, hills and mountains that separated the two cities homonyms. Because it still existed the ruins of a city there. In the slope of a big hill, it was the fortification from which all valleys could be observed. From where the Quilmse natives had resisted the siege of the Spanish conquerors for many years.
Thus was she told in the short visit that had been only a break in the way towards other destinies, more to north. She had visited everything very quickly, guided by a villager; but the time urged and she had to leave. Their fellows had already arrived at the parking, but she resisted hurrying up.

It seemed that the archaeologists had been working, but had not reconstructed everything. She walked between the rows of the former walls of the houses, wishing to climb the top there, where she was told the guards were posted to watch the distance.

She tripped and managed to lean in one of those demolished walls. She staggered, and in her hand slid something that at first sight seemed a stone. However, she knew. Because her profession was the pottery, she had recognized immediately that it was a ceramics’ small piece. She observed it, watched its thickness, wet her finger to touch it, to see how fast evaporated the water of the surface… it was made at low temperature, and still had the rest of painting, iron oxides that gave that red colour, so typical at those valleys’ ceramics…
She remained thinking what would be that depicted line in zigzag that was seen on the red … but the shouts from the car made her come back to reality.

She promised herself she would return, but with more time and information. Because when contemplating the hills, she had felt a strange emotion, almost comparable to the tepidity that she was feeling when tightening that cold small piece of ceramics that had kept in her pocket…

(to be continued, last part)

The zig zag.. or a story through five centuries in three parts..

2008-08-11T18:28:00.007-03:00

(1 of 3)

He knew that day was going to be different.

The previous night, some strange dreams had often waked him up. In spite of the cold weather at the valleys, his body sweated.
He left the house and felt the sun, bringing him just a little bit of warmness, appearing among the tall cactus, called cardones
He sighed... with his calm step, he began to climb the stone’s road until reach that point of the hill where he used to spend almost all day long.
At home, he had left his wife, ready to go to the huge place where she and others women of the village grinded the maize.
Near , he had left his brother, who was preparing with other men, clay to model some utensils. When he passed near them, someone had specially attracted his attention. A potter with moist eyes was giving the last touches to the delicate decoration of an urn, beautiful pot that served to keep the rest of those who died. This one, specially, was small, because the little son of this potter had lived only few months. While observing the urn, our man thought that those tears incised in zigzag descending from the eyes drawn in shaped of two serpents, were those that contained the soul of the artist, those tears that hadn’t succeed to leave his eyes..
Again, he sighed. Life had to continue. The Pacha Mama, the mother earth, gave and took away.. it was fair.
But the dreams, the nightmares he had had, were not related to Pacha Mama. Or with something he knew from before. He had seen blood and horror; he had felt fear like never before… that visceral fear that arises from the impotence. Because when we don’t know our enemy , it is more difficult to let our braveness act...
The invaders advanced.. he had a presentiment..

When he finally arrived at the top of the hill from where he watched the far valleys, he tried to forget those ominous dreams and contemplated what surrounded him.. The sky was so blue that day… the smooth breeze made him feel better. He breathed deep… and thought about his son, still in the belly, plenty of desire to be born and to enjoy being alive...

A cóndor distracted him. It had approached from back of the hill flying high. It moved slowly, until it began to glide, and let take by an airflow that elevated it more and more… when it reached an incredible height, it began to fly again and moved away
He was always marvelled, although something daily, at the majesty and the beauty of the cóndor… his soul went away just a little bit with them, and he wished often to let himself elevate so easy and depart..
But while watching it to move away, he saw them. They were too many… coming from all parts…
He had the certainty... peace had died.

(to be continued)

to eternize that night..

2008-05-27T15:03:00.011-03:00

I am walking through these alleys, music coming from shops, smells from spices mixed with perfumes reach my brain, invading and pervading it…

Colours from clothes hanging on the shops brightened with lights to call my attention… it is unnecessary! all of me is here…watching and smelling and hearing…I feel intoxicated of wonders and I wonder too: where am I?…is there another world in this one?…why I missed this sensation until now!

Finally, the café is here, and while sitting at that chair, with the round small table, and surrounded by mirrors, I feel that I could stay for a long time, just breathing, without moving, not to spoil the magic….
The bench is at one side of the alley…and between my place and the other row of tables, besides the café entrance, it is a corridor, and the world is walking along it…tourists, workers, people that left home to walk, to shop or to meet here…. beggars, sellers…

Oh, these small white flowers making a bracelet that this woman is offering to me …their smell is depicted at my heart now together with her eyes, black eyes watching me…if I could decipher what they want to say..
A girl with her little brother is coming, to ask me some coins… I will say her no, but when I see their feet, their thin arms, I doubt… she notices that, and stays here… she offers to sell me anything, and I say no, putting my hand at my chest, as I saw some people doing… I feel that I am touching my heart, it is paralysed, cold and miserable…

Why, why I am feeling alive…alive in the middle of many joyful but also many suffering people… Alive with people who feels like me, a strange mix of happiness and sadness…accepting life as it is, wonderful and terrible….

I am sitting…but not as a watcher…I am here, and I feel I am part of all this…I am a child now, and a seller and a beggar… I am that man watching at me and thinking: hey, she is a tourist, she doesn’t understand at all… I am the one reflected in that mirror…wishing to eternize this night, sitting at a bench, at Fishawi café, at Cairo’s Khan el Khalili market

the empty river of heavens..

2008-05-26T00:13:00.008-03:00

He waited for the caravan
so when it did not arrive
he turned twice to the right and the left
resting his arms
emptying the sadness of the two earths
in the empty rivers of the heavens.

poem by -Ahmed al Shahawi

The new year!

2008-01-08T13:37:00.000-02:00

Stars.. Flowers.. Lines or Figures.. they were all fireworking the nighty sky at La Boca, on December 25^th..

A new year began, but why to call it “a”?.. why not to call and feel it as “the” new year.. a special, not just another one!

A period of making and also being.. a period of being and also staying ..

In harmony or storm within our souls, but, hey, alive!

the unknown end of a trapped dandelion..

2007-11-21T00:49:00.001-03:00

A trapped dandelion..
A naughty breeze that took it so near the flower..
A disappointed spider, waiting for food, and capturing just a delicate traveller..
Some say it went on its flight, after an understanding photographer came, and freed it....
Some say it stayed there, waiting to see how buds would open in all beauty...
No one.. no one will know the truth..

the decision..

2007-11-15T10:44:00.001-03:00

The shadows of thousand voyages across all seas...
The quietness and safety at the port..
She looks thoughtful, but i know.. her wings will open widely, and she will fly, free, one day...
One day...

applauses!

2007-11-14T11:44:00.001-03:00

I don’t like cemeteries, I don’t believe in going to see a piece of soil where just a body was buried once.. as much as i don’t believe in afterlife..

But when I was at Vienna, i had to go to its cemetery. I saw so many people here, stopping.. some just shooting an image to say: "I was there".. but others, like me, feeling a deep emotion that words cant describe…

Well, why not to think that an artist, that a piece of his soul, may stay there! Why not to think that each flower, that each image made, that each tear, as those that fulfilled my eyes at that time and are appearing now when I write… … all are applauses!

I felt the soul of my beloved Beethoven there.. and I thanked him, deeply, for so much pleasure, for so much melancholy.. for so deep sorrow and happiness that his music brought to me..

Maybe now, when I decide to show this image, I am only clapping him.. again and again.. with the silent emotion of my soul..

alone..

2007-10-30T08:08:00.001-03:00

It begins when loosing the smile... then the things around seem to loose reality, focus and accuracy…

It goes on.. colours, tones, feelings fade in the air..

Then, one day, you find yourself wondering where are all.. asking yourself: were they once?

A shy soul besides you, will have no answers.

a humble gift..

2007-10-24T08:44:00.001-03:00

For those of us who cant bear any kind of chains, invisible of real, any rope tiding our hands and our souls with the social rules, with the heavy duty of being “normal and civilized”..

For those of us who feel that the task is heavy and we will not survive, and fear many, many times that strengths will abandon us..

For us, who cant live our whole life kicking all boards and feeling so tired while doing it..

A humble gift, a vision of the endless sea..
it will be always there, patient, waiting for us..

Rain and chains..

2007-10-18T11:43:00.001-03:00

-Saint Peter sent us the rain!!

He watched at my eyes when telling me those words, with a toothless smile... he was walking happily carrying his bag, as old and wrinkled as his dark skin. However, it was as if the rain was moistening and hydrating both, giving them new life.
Hot weather was nearly unbearable…the air difficult to breath… and the downpour falling, had offered all of us a relief for some minutes.

The sea had veered from the deep blue to the emerald and the clouds at sky had given new greenery to the palms of the Oceanic Avenue, at that magic city of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The fortress was outlined against the summer storm, now brightened by the coming sun and while observing it, I thought about many years ago. I imagined the eyes of other black men, as black as the one that had spoken to me.

They were arriving at the coast… and when seeing that fortress, they would surely had asked themselves what was waiting them at that land, so distant from theirs. They had been constrained to go on board of those ships… some of them came from far villages, where foreigners had arrived speaking with guns and terror…
They knew that they had lost their freedom but what they didn't know at that moment was that they would never recover it... neither them, nor their children nor their grandsons.
Because even the slavery would be abolished many years after, the chains would be others…. maybe concealed… maybe with different denominations…. but chains at last…

Cloudburst had finished, as fast as it had begun… and my heart was still wondering how would have been life for that old man there, at his faraway Africa.
I imagined him smiling to rain, and feeling gratitude… not to Saint Peter, but to who knows which protectress goddess… thanking the blessing for the arid soil…

Fighters at the park..

2007-10-16T16:27:00.001-03:00

I went to the park... while i was taking some new photos, I saw them... emerging from cold, muddy waters and beginning a crazy fight. I shot them many times… their quarrel...but when i left my camera and watch at them, they stayed quiet, as if they would be just fallen trunks…

Later I realized they were gazing, listening…
They knew something was going to happen.. and it did..
They sighed satisfied, they had succeeded this time...

They returned to centre of earth, ready for the next battle..

The violinist..

2007-10-15T17:38:00.000-03:00

She had left the train with sleepy eyes.
While walking along the platform carrying her two bags, she was thinking and wondering how would that city would look like … she had heard that it was easy there to obtain some euro, but she wasn’t sure...
So, she set out to the main street, full of tourists and residents....

While walking along , she was watching the pavement, whose tiles formed crazy waves, and the buildings, impossibly strange and fabulous… what a vast difference this was compared with those she had visited after leaving her far hometown, some years ago…

At once, she realized that she would not earn much money in that street, because there was a lot doing the same as she did. But she went on walking. Few people paid attention to her worn out trousers, boots, and her hair, dirtily punk.

By chance, she looked at her left and saw a square not so far. When she arrived there, she discovered a beautiful space surrounded by buildings, plenty of cafes with people seated at their tables, sharing the sky and that moon between the palms growing at that incredible place. She decided to try there…
At a side of the square, there was a row of people waiting to enter who knows where, so she thought : maybe I had better stay there. She stopped nearby, left one of her bags on the floor, opened the other, and took out her old, out-of-tune violin.

She knew well that the coins she got from people were more for pity, than for her art. However, she did not care. For a longtime now, there were few things she cared about. She was only interested to eat that day… hunger was strong.
When she was about to begin playing, she noticed a little girl standing in the front row of the people watching her. And her soul recognised with surprise that the kid had the same glance that she once had as a young child. Inquisitive, impish, plenty of desire to discover the world, the universe… a glance thirsty of life…

She asked herself when had she lost that glance… she asked herself why…

However, closing her eyes as she always did when playing, she began…
The notes that her fingers whispered, and the music that her heart bestrewed to pervade that square, lasted for many minutes… it was like all those years of containment had been finally liberated…. all that energy, all that eagerness to drink life until the last drop had appeared again.
She played and played, without realizing that people watching and listening all around her had silenced, and without noticing that all at the coffees’ tables had stopped to talk, at that Plaza Reial at Barcelona…
She played as if the night would never be finished, and as if that moon smiling among the palms would be enjoying that moment… she played for lost joys and for the inexhaustible pains, for the remembrance of a laugh and the taste of a chat…
Her fingers, suddenly, stopped. She came back to reality and opened her eyes hoping this time to find more coins in her cap lying on the ground in front of her.
But what she found, in addition to many, many coins, was people with teary eyes. People had not even been able to applaud because it seemed that their emotion had overcome their ability to react…

In front of them, was that little girl. Watching her with a smile, saying in silence that dreams and hopes are always there, within us… and that never, ever, must we confine them.

An universe and four elements..

2007-10-12T14:11:00.000-03:00

Here at Agrigento, Sicilia, 2500 years ago, it was born the famous pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles.. and among all his theories and ideas, he talked for the first time about the existence of four elements : water, air, earth and fire, present in all things. He believed that the origin of the universe was there .. love would be the force joining them all... and discord, hate, would be the one dividing, separating...
When looking at these landscapes, I understood why he had thought about that theory... Water was there, at thin rain and near sea..
Air was there, at fresh, gentle stormy breeze..
Earth was there, at green smell, trees, and stones …
and Fire.. my soul was on fire, trying not to miss any of those wonders and feeling how much all was joined..
A whole universe, yes..

The Certainties

2007-10-09T00:05:00.001-03:00

The fights among Gods and men have always delighted and interested me, firing my imagination. I imagine Mount Olympus as the scene of discussions and quarrels, and I often wondered how someone of that divine blood had sided at those skirmishes, as Homer tells us in the Iliad…

Now I was going to the very place where real blood had pored forth on the earth. Where thousands of men were killed where the only purpose was to save the honour of a king who had been robbed, who had lost his wife kidnapped by a poor shepherd.

When I was a girl, I was fascinated. As I got older, in addition to being fascinated by the epic, I started to wonder why history always looks for incredible reasons to chronicle real facts. And if a brilliant narrator recites those reasons and facts, then I need nothing more to fill my soul with emotion.

The way to Troy seemed to be a long way from Istanbul, after someone had told me it was quite close. Two hours and a half by ferry to Bandirma, two hours more by bus finally arriving at Channakale, and there, after trying to make myself understood by hand signs, I finally found the way to reach the place. The place I never thought that I would see, but indeed I had dreamt about visiting one day.

The communication by hand signs had not been detailed enough to let me know how long that trip would take and I managed to get a lift in a small bus. However, I didn’t mind… I was waiting for that moment, when all my excitement and eagerness would overcome me.

The van was full of local people, and it stopped at many different houses to gather a variety of objects which they had to carry between the seats. Huge pipes, casseroles, hens. It was like travelling in a mobile supermarket.
All of them were watching me… and I knew why! I was sure that no tourists had used this way to reach Troy, since the excursion coaches were more comfortable and they took them there more directly and much more quickly.
It was amongst the throng that I saw her. She was about 20 years old, maybe as young as 18… But her peculiar eyes were those of a baby, half surprised and half shy, and she was analysing detail by detail all that I did with furtive glances. My clothes.. my worn out little travelling bag…

I gave a sideway glance, because I did not want to make her feel uncomfortable, but I was really trying to discover what she was thinking about me.
As usual, my fertile imagination made me wonder how I would have felt, living in such a small town and then seeing an absolute stranger from a foreign land ……coming from who knows where … and I understood why she was watching me.

Suddenly I realized that the vehicle was continuing its way without stopping, I began to worry… I had previously planned to make the return journey on the other bus to arrive in time at the ferry port for my return to Istanbul…
Uffff… It seemed that to see Iliad I needed to live a small Odyssey, but Ulysses was Me, and I wasn’t able to return for many years….
I decided to ask how far away the city was, and of course, the one who was willing to communicate was the girl who was in front of me…
In English and with signs I tried to ask her about Troy, she repeated that shy gesture and lowered her eyes… then I remembered that it was something similar to Truva in Turkish, so I repeated that name.
At that moment, all changed. Her glance was not pensive, her face was enlightened by an amusing thought, almost triumphant… and with a condescending gesture, she lowered her hand a little as if to say to me: You need not worry, stay quiet…
I smiled. I was no longer that stranger bursting into her world. She knew something that I needed, and then she no longer had any type of fear. From there on, she went on observing me openly, and whenever she saw me looking at my watch (I was wondering how much time I would have to see the ruins and come back) she smiled.
Finally, I saw her standing. She looked at me for the last time and pointed down the road, as if saying: there is the city. The small vehicle stopped in order that she and others could alight. And when thanking her in Turkish, again that shy gesture returned, as if nothing had passed between us.
A few minutes later, the conductor also told me, and I got off the bus.

I paid the entrance fee and then I discovered that I had only 20 minutes to see Troy before the bus returned to pick me up and take me back.
I ran the 400 metres to where the ruins began… I was touched seeing the rest of that besieged city… and from there, far away, the sea, and the green fields where they had disembarked ready for fighting. I breathed there the smell of thousands of men and the spirit of the Gods of Mount Olympus, filling with discord the poor souls of those warriors…

I remained thinking and remembering that girl on the bus… the certainty of knowing something, that gives us that confidence that makes us lose any fear, or any shame… I imagined the Aequeus, the troops attacking, consulting the oracle or the fortune tellers, to have the certainty that they would win, made those interminable years of pain more bearable…

Moreover, I imagined Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, with his innate certainty that he would find it, and I imagined him fighting against the mocking of his contemporaries, against the distrust of the Turkish government, losing fortunes to obtain his dream. He was also sure… he had the certainty that the city was there

My time had finished… I ran again towards the entrance, where the bus had arrived…
I had travelled for 6 hours and I had another 6 hours to return. The reward had been those glorious 20 minutes… When I had decided to make that excursion, I did not know if I would arrive on time, if I would be able to see it, if the money I had taken with me would be sufficient…but, in fact, and let me be “arrogant” in this instance… I had the certainty that I would succeed.

autumnal shadows..

2007-10-03T13:54:00.000-03:00

Thinking how much I missed autumn, i was walking near home when I found a bare wall, a window..
I closed my eyes, tightly, and I saw them..
fragile dry leaves, ready to be taken by a breeze…
When I opened my eyes again, only the bright sun
was shining at that wall..
But my soul was fulfilled with autumnal shadows

flowers and war..

2007-10-01T18:53:00.000-03:00

I was walking along the narrow street, in that quiet French village.. night was coming, and the last breeze of the late sunset were escorting me all the time…
Suddenly, a white wonder made me stop.. it was there, in a big pot behind the bars of a balcony… a cactus flower, ready to open in all its beauty.

I stopped, watching it, and remembered the cactus in my garden, far away at home, and how I was always eager waiting for the day that it blossomed. Just one night, but deserving …

A voice brought me back to reality. A man was talking to me, from inside the open window of that balcony…
- Do you like the cactus?
- Sure, sir, I love them, as much as I love their flowers…
- Well, you are lucky then, this cactus offers me only one per year, and you are seeing it now.
- And it is so beautiful, -I added, still watching it- their ephemeral life makes them special. You can watch other flowers.. a glance, coz you know you will see them again the next day, and the following ones.. and there will be many of them ready to blossom when the others die.. but when you watch a cactus flower, you try to fill your soul all of a sudden.. You are intoxicated with its beauty… coz you know it will be brief.. and intense.. And it will have to last a whole year.
- Curious, he said- your eyes watching it, reminded me of another pair of eyes, a long time ago, waiting for this miracle.. and not knowing they would lose it, but gain a better one: to keep alive

His face was ready to bloom, as the flower.. his eyes bright, his voice somehow trembling… I didn’t dare to ask.. but I waited…
- The cactus was behind the window. – He began- my mother had told me it would be flowering for one day.. and each morning, she showed me the stem growing and the bud filling out … that morning she had told me it would open that same evening.
The man sighed.. a pause.. then he went on

-I remember.. that guy riding his bicycle fast while shouting; they arrive! they arrive! (“They” was for the Germans, the "Boche", the enemy)… and we saw smoke at the top of the roofs and we heard explosions in the distance… It was August 1944, young lady, two months after the landing at Normandy and all the German troops were going up north to reinforce the front line, and cross the area… But at Limousine, my place, the resistance, the “maquis” were very powerful and well organized and they attacked the enemy constantly. In the German army there was an armoured division ..very famous, and it was under orders of General Lamerding. They had left Provenza, and through the Languedoc they had devastated towns and villas… when arriving at Tulle, they had arrested all men they found, and had hung them throughout the avenue.

I was frightened.. the man smiled and told me

- It was the war.. for both sides. And they were the ones arriving at my town… I remember old veterans of the World War I, guns in hands, descending the hills… and civilians of the Resistance, with their bracelets red, white and blue, running in all directions, grenades on their waist… and us, escaping, following the course of a stream, and hiding from the shrapnel of the airplanes that flew overhead… finally, we arrived at a farm, on the hill from where we could see all of the valley. There were already lot of people there, who, like us, had left the town… we listened, far away, the explosions roared… we saw billowing black smoke rising, in the valley.

- The battle lasted two days, lady… - continued the man- adults occasionally watched the edge of the hill, to see if the smoke was still there, if they heard explosions… On the third day there was silence… and an old man arrived at the run to tell us that they had gone away… that morning of the third day, they had departed. Soon we found out that they had moved to South Oradour Glane and had set the population ablaze… the women and the children in the church, the men in the garages… but they never returned to Normandy… the Resistance overcame them, annihilating them all…

The man paused… his voice was trembling, and with it my soul.

- I ran to my home - he said – in a rush to see the cactus… but there was only a stem fallen, the dead flower… dried petals on the flowerpot…

And then I saw, in that man’s expression, the eyes of a disappointed boy, who, at that moment, had felt more saddened by a flower, than by the horrors surrounding him…
I watched the flower again, opened now… and its perfume smelled of war and death, but also of hopes and miracles …

Merci beaucoup, Yves..

hiding moon..and the breeze..

2007-09-28T15:39:00.001-03:00

The moon, spying behind trees, watches how autumnal breeze takes twigs and leaves…

Some rational people, belonging to the club “Autumns’ rejecters”, say that it is only a swimming pool, with leaves at its bottom and floating at surface, with some tree’s reflections at a cloudy day....
But I truly disapprove that idea..

no matter how..

2007-09-26T14:13:00.002-03:00

A stop, at this thick stony wall, among the ruins of Agrigento, Sicilia..
I was tired for a while, but ready now to go on ...the sea, the light as a burning candle, are waiting for me.. I'll cross to other lands.. other seas.. other wonders...
No matter how much it will take... no matter when will I arrive...
I shake my wings, still wet of the storm... and fly...

four worlds..

2007-09-24T19:20:00.000-03:00

A world in a drop..
Four worlds at a universe..
Millions of universes just dancing at this wonderful earth..
ready to invite us to dance with them..

to draw the world..

2007-09-22T19:58:00.001-03:00

A bell at an arch, at Palamidi fortress ..the city of Napflios down.. far, an island with Bourtzi castle.. Agamemnon kingdom, at Peloponessus..
The eye’s effort to capture all, to feel all.. to draw the world..
And it came to my mind some words by the great argentine writer.. Jorge Luis Borges..
“A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”

unique and special..

2007-09-21T18:23:00.001-03:00

I was walking among the rocks, and suddenly I saw them... many colourful stones, brightening happily under the sun, inside the tide's waters...
They dazzled me... I took one... I stole one! and slid it in my pocket...

Now I am watching it, and it is just a simple stone, not much different from million others...
But it IS special!

about this world ..and beyond.

2007-09-20T16:01:00.000-03:00

I was walking under the warm sun, looking for a piece of shadow to can have a rest, when suddenly I saw him..
The man was there, sitting on a thick wall, and watching far away..
I didn't know his age, I didn't know where had he come from (the place was full of tourists)
I liked the image.. the architecture, his attitude.. and I shot.
But when i came near, I saw his eyes... his face..
He looked like a statue.. unable to go anywhere.. and i tried to pervade his hard skin.. and i tried to read his stony soul...
Nothing...
I went on walking.. wondering about this crazy world.. and beyond...

because...

2007-09-19T17:27:00.000-03:00

Because we may be some times fragile as a feather, taken by the breeze..
but because we can also be strong enough to float at any conditions, without sinking..

a feather to fly free,
a feather to float strong..

alone...
mighty..

how many?

2007-09-18T14:32:00.000-03:00

"Two souls" or "three souls" to add as a title?..

Or maybe four as I made the capture...

Or maybe five as you are watching it…

behind rusty curtains..

2007-09-17T16:11:00.000-03:00

Between rusty closed curtains, i saw him..dirty glasses were almost hiding his face..
I pretended i was watching my camera, but with its screen rotated, i captured him fast and went on my walk..
When i saw him first, he was looking at other side but when opening the image at home... i saw his eyes, watching at me.
I read them...

I went back the following day, to offer him the only things i was able to: a smile.. a word, maybe..
But the old shop was empty.

leaves heard..

2007-09-16T13:50:00.001-03:00

"..but memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs in the wind and then is heard no more...." words of K Gibran..
Here, at the old hospital at Arles, these leaves will always be heard... they keep the memory, the soul of the one who painted this same place in all beauty, with all feelings: Vincent Van Gogh..

just for a woman's love..

2007-09-15T12:04:00.000-03:00

A tango poet, Homero Expósito, wrote once some verses about a woman that had left him, at the tango : Flor de Lino

Flax's flower, I see you in the star
that illuminates the track
of my solitude...
absence flower, your memory
always hunts me
through my eternal longing's night.

Many centuries before, and with the same pain at his heart, a man arrived at this place I shot, when these stones and walls were a palace.. he begged his brother reigning here to help him to have again his wife, kidnapped by a shepherd/ prince..
I don't know which words he used, but he was convincing... an army departed.. thousand of men fought for ten years a terrible war.. gods flying and blood spreading over far fields overseas.. finally, he recovered her..

So, this image, taken at Mycenae, Greece is for Agamemnon, the understanding brother... Menelao, the sad husband.. the two Homer, the tango poet and the epic genius.. for the one, whose name wasnt flax's flower, but Helena.. and for the souls of all soldiers and warriors from both sides dead at Troy, following a crazy adventure , just for a woman's love..

image and text © silvia marmori

a dream..

2007-09-14T11:53:00.000-03:00

Life had been hard..
Many times he had asked himself why? How?… there had been no answers.

The worst part of the day was in the mornings, when he woke and realized that nothing had changed. Same routine.. walking along the dirty streets, looking for food in garbage cans, avoiding the police and other homeless, who would attack him heartlessly.

That night he had decided it would be the last. His hopes had been lost in some dark alley, maybe on a cold day, many winters ago.
He took his bag and the shabby cover, the only things that he owned, and went to the same place where he had been sleeping for a month.
It was a stinking backstreet, but at least empty of other souls.
He smoked until he scorched his fingers with the last butt he had and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he would go to the bridge and he would end it all.

However, in the middle of the night, he stood up as if demented. A big noise and many shouts.. but he saw nobody and the racket went on.
He took his things and ran away.. the last night had to be calm, calm as the brown waters of the river he would face in few hours…
Suddenly , his scampering stopped at a small lake he had never seen in the west of the city.. a park.. a small sanctuary…

He laid down there, but he couldn’t sleep… the fresh air, the trees moaned in the dark.. how was it possible that he had never been there before!
After the birds woke him as they began to announce that the sun was rising, when the dark faded and the green pervaded his senses and soul, he decided to delay for a few more minutes.. the river would be always there, waiting for him.

How beautiful was that place! He breathed deep, he perceived his blood warming his body. Small leaves brought by the soft breeze danced at his feet.. he took one.. how nice it felt!
Nature affected him.. made him remember his childhood, his youth. He had been happy once....what had happened to his dreams of before, to his ideals .. to his strong will!

But suddenly all became dark… he heard voices, a foul air suffocated him. When he opened his eyes he was still at the same place where he had slept all of the last few weeks.. he longed to cry and he did.
Leaving his things, he ran to the bridge.. he stood there, looking at the dark waters, ready to jump..

A fragile small leaf flew from his hand to the river…

He sighed.. wiped his tears and tried a weak smile.