EYES, EYES, TONGUE
The Eyes of my Wife
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
translated & adapted by Majena Mafe
(Goethe is an old man. He sits in his darkening study writing in his memory a testament to his wife who half his age has bore him his son and had tasted his light.)
“Having black eyes,’ she only marginally bruised flowers in the setting sun. Her marriage to me was a serialising of the experiments of shared light. More of her mouth I kissed. Christine Vulpius my red yellow and violet, I am indebted to you for the formation of my character. I hold you deep blue dear for the moments of reprieve you gave to me on the completion of injustices against the fragmented ellipse of light and of life. And the colored correlations of fortunes as meaning. You always said you loved me, green, and I always said I loved you. Two. True. Though at times we were dashed. Tyrants of reason purple tore gaping helms away from our compliance. What I say what I don’t. Your hem. I won’t. The answer to how lies deep.
In another’s eyes you would perhaps be seen to lie fallow.
But my seeing would be enough.
You loved me and my eyes - my eyes to your degree.
Your eyes were mine held … ministry.
Finding no spectrum in them, I found me.
I moved my experiments in your eyes to mine
in the dark/in the light
I called you my prism
I called you my flare to go out from
together we looked into the dark until it flostered as brightness
and light bloomed there widely”.
……….
2. The Eyes of Goethe’s Wife
CHRISTINE VULPIUS
translated & adapted by Majena Mafe
Christine undoes her seams and muses …
“Having black eyes, only marginally darker than my two arms permanently bruised from the making of felted flowers in vats of blackened steam, my marriage to Mr Goethe was the serializing of the abduction of plain sight. More light he called into my mouth with kisses. In my last dialogue in the border of my entree into a light brighter than voiced silence, in all, in all, in all I begin by caressing my tongue.
You, I am indebted to you for the formation of my character. I hold you dear for the moments of reprieve you gave to me on the completion of injustices against fragmented ellipse. And the correlating of fortunes as meaning. You always said you loved me and you always all ways loved me. Triggers wore tiny hems against compliance. What I say what I don’t I won’t. There is no question to further. I aproned you. You swam in me. Still.
Mr Goethe, you loved to your degree.
While you made your experiments with my eyes
in your light
in my dark
you called me brighter but I was your rock a boulder your flag
stone
you called me your dazzle to go out from but I was the ground between us
Still you showed me to look into the dark until the flowers bloom there.
And I loved you.
I saw it all
I lick my palm lying open in my lap and see the map of my life past and present.
My tongue
you thought his so simple.”
……….
3. The Eyes of Goethe’s Wife’s Tongue
CHRISTINE VULPIUS’S TONGUE
translated & adapted by Majena Mafe
“The tongue having lain low laid low, ruminates on the dark of it all.
And declares love.
Love.
She is.
He has been dim. Incomplete.
You did not see her tongue.
You saw a dark passage before it
past it.
But the tongue this tongue can taste you.
In another mouth you would lie fallow. Saying. Enough.
Though you loved her eyes as tongues you said you said, you loved her tongue only to your degree.
They said of him he was too modern.
They said of him he was all light.
They said naught of her.
She says her of me.
But he him found only the spectrum in the prism of Mr. Buttner’s box
you he showed her,
She did unstitch it, petticoat and she tasted it, and that that told me.
Christine Volpius
My Christine … I love you … though I have never seen the taste of your
dark dark eyes. Your dark eyes. Your dark eyes.
You are beyond light … the white of them all. Unlaced. Undone.
You hold me
I hold underneath me all you didn’t say.”
……….
