The Cats of Claudel

from Choral Soliloquies (I) by Stephen Mead

/

about

The Sculptor, Camille Claudel, during her last days of freedom, trying to rid her love for Rodin from her tattered soul

lyrics

The Cats of Claudel

Should I not have cried about the flood?
The mud sluiced back the statuettes
That I made, one shelf, two...
The others were not catastrophic,
And among the figures, the faces,
Balanced my cats, their whiskers,
Silver water, their meows, my pulse...
Where are they now, now after
The plaster’s been salvaged,
And the kiln-set clay, and the marble,
Not mammoth, but long as my vision
Which once sought such light—
Sculpting from that
Was a whirling dervish in wreckage,
And I should have laughed
About the backed up Seine, should
Have done as my cats did:
Found a spot, curled for sun,
The milk of it, the ivory...
Still, of all that, I made a show,
My triumph, the salon,
Though nobody believed,
Nobody paid, except strays
With a fondness for felines,
Their genius of just being—
The Seine might take care of this too,
And these... the depths... a whoosh...
And then crash...white chunks entering
Indigo...
To de-sculpt is a pick ax at my blood,
Not liquid silk, not satiation, but
Breaking and dust—
I suppose that’s when the cats left,
Yet here, in these prisons, a roving
Eye, a scraggily head reminds me
Of their company, and the silence,
The music, in stone
I created

credits

from Choral Soliloquies (I), released May 20, 2017
from FreeSound.org, contributors I.D. from site

39914__ digifishmusic__katy-sings-laaoooaaa

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Stephen Mead image

Stephen Mead Albany, New York

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of the above-mentioned genres for links to his multimedia work and merchandise. To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com ... more

contact / help

Contact Stephen Mead

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Stephen Mead, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Seafood Sam joins the show to discuss his newest album, " Standing On Giant Shoulders".
listen now