Coetzee's Harem (from "Youth"): I Knew 2 of 3

Like Coetzee I fell  in love with Monica Vitti via the films of Antonioni (Once, shortly before he died, I was in the same room as Antonioni at UCLA's Film School--I believe I saw The Passenger that night).

Monica Vitti


Photo by Christopher Matson


I recently reread Ingeborg Bachmann's The Collected Poems: Songs in Flight (and how many poems have I written after or about Bachmann?).
Here's a Bachmann poem I marked up a bit (I guess that means I liked it):

Estrangement

Within the trees I no longer can see any trees.
The branches are bare of leaves, carried off by the wind.
The fruits are sweet, but empty of love.
They do not even satisfy.
What shall happen?
Before my eyes the forest flees,
bird song no longer reaching my ears,
and for me no pasture will become a bed.
I am full with time
yet hunger for it.
What shall happen?

Nightly upon the mountains the fires will burn.
Shall I prepare myself to draw near to them all again?

I can no longer see on any path a path.

(translated by Peter Filkins)


I did not know of Anna Karina (a young Coetzee is watching her in Godard's Bande a part = Band of Outsiders):


Anna Karina Pictures, Images and Photos

 

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