In this Castle of a Sleeping Beauty
The village of Marville in Lorraine, France, once was a Spanish domain, very prosperous, where numerous noble, bourgeois and trading families had settled down. The church of Saint-Hilaire, dating from the 12th century, still is surrounded by a graveyard with beautiful tombstones and a remarkable ossuary (15th century). Most of the ossuaries like this one have now disappeared, but the cemetery of Saint-Hilaire still shelters 40.000 skulls and bones...
The photos were taken by embee and used with permission. The poems were written by Patrick Bernauw, aka the Lost Dutchman, and inspired by the cemetery and the ossuary of Marville, France.
The poem In this Castle of a Sleeping Beauty, starring Lisa Lomé and Hard Boiled Harry, was animated by the LateNight StageFright Company and directed by the Lost Dutchman.
In this Castle of a Sleeping Beauty
Time slips slowly
as in this castle of a Sleeping Beauty
where I am dreaming for a while now
eternally.
Where I am dreaming for a while now
in this house upon a hill
where only clouds are closing by
infinitely.
And time slips slowly
near the river where the water
is everlasting polishing a stone
so lonely
and where we are forgotten
by the little people down under
the willow trees and the birds and the bees
and me.
Yes time slips slowly
in this castle of a Sleeping Beauty
where I am dreaming for a while now
eternally.
The Ossuary of Saint-Hilaire, photos taken by embee:
Click thumbnail to view full-size
A Tombstone Tale
1.
And now this flesh knows no shame
as these words know delusion
nor despair.
And there is no smile on my mouth
as there are no tears
in my eyes.
2.
I am the Virgin, mortified
and turned to stone,
her days of glory
corrupted:
ashes
in the wind.
(Alone and yet side by side
with the sins I've gathered,
I'm lying
under a tombstone,
telling my tale -
endlessly.)
3.
How I bursted in the joints
of time and how I was
erased as a God
of terracotta.
How an acid rain
is gnawing at my bones now,
at my house built with the stones
of the night.
How I am not praying anymore,
but hoping.
4.
It's so quiet here that I
can no longer hear the sounds
of silence in the city
with no name.
Nothing will ever be easy now
there is no longer a home
waiting for me
somewhere.
5.
And all my dreams are here
sleepwalking and all
my memories:
vanished.
And all my words are dust
blowing out of the open wound
that is my mouth.
And when I come to you,
it's like if the sun
freezes.
6.
No, I do not know
death because I did not know
life.
And I do not know justice
because I was not
guilty.
And no one here will hear
my name because I was never
born.
Tombstone Tales, photos taken by embee:
Click thumbnail to view full-size
Thinking of Stonehenge
Our stones know where
the stars are as they determine days
and hours from here
to eternity.
Stylized debris,
passage for a sunrise.
And nothing perishes.
And nothing never returns.
From my own past I am
the archaeologist: out of the foundations
of the present I'm delving
images.
Shards of shame,
a splinter pain
and of my fears
the skeleton.
The Saint-Hilaire Ossuary at Marville, France.
