Syed Zaman, “Between Body and Breath

Between Body and Breath

Syed Zaman

You. You’re a hole in my life— Of accumulated impressions, Inaccurate adjustments, and heavy Layers of perturbed poetry and Perforated paintings— Seldom straightforward landscapes— Rather—bodily dimensions That capture and hold monochromatic Fields interrupted by blocks of neutral Tones, geometric volumes of coarse Interventions—punctuated by Streaks and strokes of Traced tender touches— Tantamount to watercolors being Applied on a sheet of Fabriano through the Translucency of mylar with the Soft bristles of a sumi Brush—unlike the exploitative edges Of graphite— Parallel to the crossings of Your fingers, drawing texts into Textures, transcribing music Across my torso. You—a secret immersed in darkness— A stanza broken out of context— Bending and unfolding a Crescendo of breaths—their Multi-dimensional potential— Effacing—their original form Frozen in white flames—a Constellation of active sensuality— The predilection of pure and boundless Exploration beyond the heart’s control. You. I had dreamed of you before I knew you—engendering a spectrum Of expressions before we had Been divorced from the evolution Of protective tactics and tactile Contact—an attempt to Assert control under the guise of Passion and benevolence—disguised— In carefully crafted colorful Contradictions. You. I had lost you Before you were found—before We came into existence through

Dark hues and ivory white—terra-cotta Carved out of what I’d envision Remnants of Rodin’s statues would Taste like—a Kiss rendered within the Weight of the wait— Within—noiseless musical notes And dead torn letters, seeking Release from the plausibility Of a timed moment cloaking desire In the rhetoric of necessary, Narcissistic arbitrations that hide Behind the poisonous pride and Lazy stretches of my imagination. You—you’re a wave of resistance Subject to poetic disruptions— Summoned—by the Semblance of change. You’re a hole in my life—a diminutive Part of a larger whole—contrived— Within the fiction of art—ritualized— To accept dialectical loss. You—a three-day memory Mounted on the Meticulously assembled wall Of unwanted, long-forgotten relationships— My so-called beholder of— Diabolical love—my—distorted Perception of evocative depth— An unnoticed death Replete with rust, imbued with red— Between binding bodies—beyond broken Beginnings—beneath—borrowed breaths.

Image by Syed Zaman