Clara! Clara! I hear him screaming my name in the asylum.
But when I visit he is silent.
His mind excludes me.
I stare at eyes that are already long gone.
Eyes that live in a void.
A void that erases love.
A void that idealises self-murder.
He doesn’t let me in.
Should I be thankful?
Could I ever understand him?
As the plagued silhouette of a man I used to love so avidly?
Why would his mind that held me dear reject my image so suddenly?
I didn’t have time to write the notes, to compose the outcome.
I couldn’t follow and yet I heard the void’s melody in my head.
And realised its horrid intentions.
That’s what music does; I could never resist it.
Robert, we lost half of our children.
It tastes like poison indeed.
When I touch your skin, I sense the gallop of non-recovery.
I put your heartbeat in my fingertips, your face in my head.
How could I end up deaf?
How could your melody still reside in my veins? So beatifically played.
Our lives a ballad of efforts.
Robert, I will die hearing your song, mine, ours.
And even if the void put us in two different rooms, so far away from one another,
And you barely recognised me on your deathbed and in your delirium,
We lived side by side, through a medium in both our hearts and spirits,
The uniting melodies, music, that conquers an insane mind.
“Clara Wieck” by Johann Heinrich Schramm (1801-1865)
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My name is Laura Gentile. I’m of German-Italian descent and I speak five languages such as English, German, French, Italian, Luxembourgish and I’m currently learning Romanian.
I hold a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Dissertation: The Decadent in Love with his Psychopomp: Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' and Adrian Lyne's 'Lolita') and a Master of Letters by Research in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Thesis: Romanticising Decadence and Aestheticising Death: Women as Projection Bodies and Mimetic Identities in Zola’s 'Thérèse Raquin', Schnitzler’s 'Dream Story', Süskind’s 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' and Eugenides’ 'The Virgin Suicides').
My poetry and short stories have been published in two anthologies entitled 'Shaking Thoughts' and 'Until Forever Becomes The End', both edited by Joan Barbara Simon PhD PhD, leading to a prose and poetry recital called 'Silence Breakers' at the Libreria Altrimenti in Luxembourg.
My article on 'Biblical Imagery and Apocalyptic Visions in Films' written for the university course 'Film And Popular Culture' was published in a Luxembourgish film magazine named 'Graffiti'.
My work was chosen as obligatory reading for the academic course 'Creative Writing' at the University of Luxembourg and was the focus of the students’ exam portfolio. I was invited by the University of Luxembourg to do a workshop on my short story 'Prophets of the Streetlight' for the 'Creative Writing' course, including a reading and a Q&A.
In 2013, I published my own collection of short stories and poetry entitled 'Seraphic Addiction', which led to an invitation by Ara City Radio to do an interview and a reading on air.
Consequently I was encouraged to create my own radio show called 'Chasse-Sirène' surrounding literature, films, music and art.
Furthermore, I am the official German translator of Joan Barbara Simon’s 'Verses Nature' trilogy.
My debut novel, 'Within Paravent Walls', will be published by WiDo Publishing / E. L. Marker.
I am the creator of "Croque-Melpomene: Femalecentric Poetry" and I have a YouTube channel carrying the same name.
I am a weekly blogger for RTL Today, a major European media platform.
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Love this !!
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Thank you so much. 🙂
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