stina nordenstam

her voice clings to high notes
like leftover traces of winter
to brownish pastures:
already haunted by spring,
the warmth of drumbeat
from the depths of a womb.

scratching needles echo her moan,
strings halo long vowels,
vibrating beneath my feet
like faraway earthquakes.

she sings of mountains, her words
softly shaping a tangle of noise.
a piano steadies my heartbeat,
slows it to hibernation pace.

if i could touch this voice,
it would crumble in my fingers:
splintered pieces of perfection,
each fraction fragile
as blown eggshell.

shopping

faces and mannequins
shoes, oh my god, these
shoes and good afternoon

bright windows offer
brands labels names
and sales, thank you

dots vs stripes distinguish
mini-skirted mommy longlegs,
colours overwhelm you

hands on your designer hips,
you wish you could curl up
in your D&G handbag and sleep

about the poet: michaela a. gabriel (*1971) is a dreamer, poet, editor and web-designer full of crazy ideas, and with lots of music in her head. a passionate traveller, she needs to get out of her native austria once in a while to explore other beautiful places on this planet, meet new people and gather inspiration for her writing. she currently lives in vienna, a place brimful of history, where she is trying to weave her own thread into the fabric.

about the artist: wilfried gabriel, born 1944 in a smalltown in southern austria, lives in spittal/drau, carinthia, austria. he is married and has one daughter and two sons. photography has been his one great passion for several decades, but for the last few years he has also been working on collages which he composes of material he finds in magazines, books and art anthologies. http://www.geocities.com/michaela_gabriel/wgabriel/collages.html