Of course I'd like to nail that sexy guy, what are you kidding? Maybe he can respond to my post, no not this one. Maybe we can meet in the middle, G.B. and Lenox about a 45-minute drive...

The only man I've ever been attracted to, and he comes with a bloody contract, a flogger, and a whole world of issues. -- p. 176, Fifty Shades of Grey

***
Oh sweetheart, many kisses hello. I'm in a really good mood. I had the loveliest thoughtful message this morning from a guy in Holyoke, a CL acquaintance I've never met, and will never - we're not right for each other, but he's nice - and he's been looking at my blog, which I can tell from my statcounter, and I sent him a message this morning saying thanks for thinking of me, or of my blog, and in his reply he said straight off "I love your blog." Only the word 'love'? He put it in bold-face and in bright-red -- he bothered to go through all that -- it just made my day.

And now I'm back home from an afternoon of culture, a play followed by an operatic recital, at which I arrived a half-hour late, due to the play. Oh the two of us would have been great codemakers and codebusters -- I looked at the statcounter and instantly connected the dots --- and burst out laughing! Oh, I wish. Nice fantasy. I'll probably finish the James first, I'm afraid -- but I'll be thinking of you.

Oh dearest, okay let me settle down. I've changed out of my nice dress outfit, back in a slinky tee and panties as I type. I wonder if by his posting an overt, provocative post about his dom/sub proclivities, that Alpha had meant it as a way to let me know, sideways fashion, his true bent - that he's way more kinky than I think, than he was ready to divulge. And so possibly he let me know in this fashion? Because he yanked the post soon after, the day after - after I'd clearly discovered it. Though at the same time I doubt at this point that it's about me -- maybe a real live bona fide self-aware sub responded to his ad -- and well, yeah, he reeled in his fishing line, why ever not? I'll never know, I don't think.

Please forgive me this post, dearest(s), it's all over the place. I've just gotten up to fish around my bookshelves for my volume of Szymborska's poems in translation. Ah, here it is, and I turn to page 48, the poem Colaratura. Because I've just arrived back from the most delightful recital of an astonishingly talented, animated, lovely, high-spirited, virtuosic soprano, who celebrated her personal Polish-Italian heritage through a program of song, by the likes of Chopin, and Puccini. She was astonishingly good, such a privilege to hear her sing in this tiny room really, no more than a downstairs Victorian streetfront salon at the local Opera House, whose upstairs grand auditorium is in renovation. I had arrived late, as I mentioned, and slipped into my hard plastic seat, and was instantly transported. I know that it's sort of a cliche, and maybe it's not all about that, but I thought she was so great, so perfectly nailed high notes, sailed, jibbed, jagged, sallied, absolutely mellifluously and seamlessly, all the while so sparklingly 'on' -- that I wondered, now how is it that she's not at the Met, or La Scala, or wherever? Although - well, perhaps she is! I have the program tucked in my bag, with her bio, but haven't yet had a chance to read it. Still, you know what I mean -- she and her piano accompanist had taken the train upriver today ("oh that train ride - we were just clawing at the windows to get at the view" the amazingly charming colaratura enthused after her tiny Salon-style recital.

Ah, which brings me to the Szymborska... (I'll post only excerpts here, from pp. 48-49)

COLORATURA

Poised beneath a twig-wigged tree,
she spills her sparkling vocal powder:
slippery sound slivers, silvery
like spider's spittle, only louder.

...

You want to silence her, abduct her
to our chilly life behind the scenes?
To our Siberian steppes of stopped-up sinuses,
frogs in all throats, eternal hems and haws,
where we, poor souls, gape soundlessly
like fish? And this is what you wish?

Oh nay! Oh nay! Though doom be nigh,
she'll keep her chin and pitch up high!
Her fate is hanging by a hair
of voice so thin it sounds like air,
but that's enough for her to take
a breath and soar, without a break,
chandelierward; and while she's there,
her vox human crystal-clears
the whole world up. And we're all ears.

Yes, darling, it was just like that, I wish you could have been there next to me, I would have squeezed your hand as we watched her sing and jiggle her black-lace gowned form jiggle in jolly, voluptuously clad bodily accompaniment, and watched her beautifully made-up face, complexion glowing, eyes shadowed, lips glossed, cheeks expertly rouged, as she trained her voice and used her beautiful face towards the most delightful, expressive, expression.

Ah, sweetheart, Szymborska I'm not. Oh right -- I think of her, because afterward I had a chance to overhear a conversation the young opera star was having at the very small, intimate gathering -- and I asked her, did I hear right? that someone composed music to Szymborska's poems, that you sang? Oh yes! she gladly told me, it was a single poem, Coloratura -- perfect!, I murmured -- [oh please darling, forgive me that bit of purple prose, Fifty Shades must be rubbing off -- hey, at least I didn't 'cock my head' -- which, in my scattershot fashion of reading that book, my eyes fall on that phrase more often than statistically valid). A composer friend of hers had composed music to go with the poem, which she sang. In Polish, I asked - in translation, she replied, saying that she enjoyed the many alliterative sounds in it -- she vocalized a series of ssssss - which were great fun for her to sing.

slipper sound slivers, silvery
like spider's spittle...

It was probably apropos of nothing, and perhaps a symptom of my pretentiousness, but I mentioned to her how I once heard that the Polish language is full of the sounds of falling leaves, full of murmuring, rustling, ch.. zh.. sh.. sounds

and Ty ... and ły...
pronounced, tih [as in tint] and wih [as in wind]...

which now I think of as the sound of sails on a small boat, flapping in the soft breeze, on just such a day as today was...

dearest love, here I am on this small boat at sea with you
all kinds of -- oh I want to say it in Polish -- but is całusy quite the word? perhaps it is -- or perhaps it connotes the sort of smacks bestowed on foreheads by relatives -- or in America, air-kisses, or in France, the double-cheeked busses

no, what I want from you, in the form of kisses, is way way stronger
the kind of kisses one employs like nails
to nail one's ---
well, you know, that amazing guy one for some weird reason has in one's sights
but is forever unattainable
for all kinds of reasons
because I'm not really a sub
and also because whatever you might think of my blog
I tend to stammer, just a bit
though never - oddly - while kissing - I'm certainly not a stammerer while kissing, though I might start slow, tentatively, as I explore, get to know...