The tempo of a thousand kisses

Posted on By adcitlali

A thousand kisses said the song and it sounded black to me, absent of color, an emptiness containing love or passion. Absence where movement remains, somehow floating on that emptiness with a sound that makes it belong.

What movement? -you ask. The movement of closeness between two persons, lips sensually connecting with each other, kisses in ephemeral smoke … white … or red. Red with gray swirling into darkness at a larghissimo tempo, almost hypnotizing our senses.

Dark sounds evoking lovers.

A Sensual autumn midnight

lightless and timeless.

_____Adriana Citlali
VI-XII-MMXX

Today’s theme is synesthesia. I wrote a haibun poem. The inspiration came from the fact that I started writing when my stereo played “A thousand kisses deep” by Leonard Cohen. Read other poets take on the theme at dVerse — Synesthesia.

Poetry

Comments (4)

  2. Yes, I think that Leonard Cohen song sounds quite dark too, although perhaps I would say bleak rather than black (but then that would be off-theme). It’d be interesting to know how someone with the right kind of synesthesia (i.e. sound => colour) experiences the song. There’s a brass band composer, Simon Dobson, who experiences synesthesia when he hears musical chords and textures. He wrote an award-winning piece, “A Symphony of Colours” in which he tries, both to pay tribute to the more famous composer, Olivier Messiaen (who also had synesthesia) and to demonstrate some of his colours. Unfortunately, it’s quite a challenging piece to listen to (as some of his more complex work, which brass bands play at competitions, is – although he’s written pieces that are more melodious, such as “Penlee”). I’ve put a link to a recording of the piece itself, and one to a news interview of him talking about it, below, in case they’re of interest, though as he says in the interview, there are many kinds of synesthesia as well as the mixing of colour and sound.
    Happy Easter! 🙂
    Andy

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skit7yJzV_I

    1. Hi Andy,
      Thank you for sharing this. I am really sorry that it took me this long to reply. I have no excuse. To be honest, I read the comment and thought to reply after I heard the piece, which I did and enjoyed even though it is not easy to relate to at first.
      I have a painting, an abstract one, which I painted without a plan. I just let the colors decide what my hand would do. When I finished it, I looked at it and it’s name came to mind: Symphony suspended in the wind.

      http://www.instagram.com/p/ChNM5JIKFEV/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

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