Back in 2006, on October 1 I was listening to Polnareff’s Kama Sutra. The final verse is poignant: when the dust covered the traces of people that once were, they no longer can answer questions about themselves, and thus anyone is capable of saying whatever they want because nobody knows how it had been.
The poem “Listening to Kama Sutra” that came as an impromptu response to Polnareff’s song preempts the song’s story. Before we can be found in Kama Sutra positions under the layers of dust, we need to find a partner, and many of us sometimes spend forever on this never-ending quest to find a familial soul.
Michel Polnareff – Kama Sutra
When the dust covers our footprints
So that the light no longer shines through
Those who will come to visit us
Will not understand what is happening there.
But so it goes. So it goes.
They will find us
In Kama Sutra positions
Asking themselves
What is happening there
They will ask us
Where they came from
And where they are headed
Et cetera
And they will try to understand, why
They will explain
Where they came from
And where they are headed
And they will try
To understand, why
They will ask us
One more time
The questions that
Nobody will answer
But so it goes. So it goes.
They will find us
In Kama Sutra positions
Asking themselves
What is happening there
They will ask us
Where they came from
And where they are headed
Et cetera
And they will try
To understand, why
When the dust covers our footprints
They will say about us whatever they want
And, speaking of what nobody knew anything,
They will tell us whatever that wasn’t
But so it goes. So it goes.
They will find us
In Kama Sutra positions
Asking themselves
What is happening there
They will ask us where they came from
And where they are headed
Et cetera
And they will try
To understand, why…
Julia Shuvalova – Listening to Kama Sutra
Like the rolling stones
We move in transparent orbs
In the expanse
Of the virtual space
Neither we understand
Nor know
Nor expect
Where we are to get
We merely move
Like molecules in the
Brownian movement
Along the arteries
Of boundless world
And this is beautiful
But how terrifying
To fall into a clot
And never to find an orb
To dissolve in with
And time flies past
Like a monsoon
That buries in dust
The oases that
One wanted to reach
O tear your orb
Stretch out your hand
Let me feel the warmth of its film
O let your lips touch
The sweating forehead
And lids of the eyes
Watering from dust
O while we are
O still here
O while the thunder
Only threatens
To separate us forever
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave…
… me
October 2006