For the Rietveld Academy's Studium Generale programme I presented this lecture about the relationship between the garden, celestial (or platonic) love, and sexuality.
68. The Garden
Derek Jarman
Dungeness, Kent
1986-1995
Sunday, June 21, 2009
69. The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen
A Chapel was built in the midst
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves
And tomb-stones where flowers should be
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
79. I walk in this garden
holding the hands of dead friends.
Old age came quickly for my frosted generation,
Cold, cold, cold, they died so silently.
Did the forgotten generations scream
Or go full of resignation,
Quietly protesting innocence?
I have no words,
My shaking hand cannot express my fury.
Cold, cold, cold, they died so silently.
Linked hands at 4 a.m.,
Deep under the city you slept on,
Never heard the sweet flesh song.
Cold, cold, cold, they died so silently.
Matthew fucked Mark fucked Luke fucked John
Who lay on the bed that I lie on,
Touch fingers again as you sing this song.
Cold, cold, cold, we die so silently.
My gilly flowers, roses, violets blue,
Sweet garden of vanished pleasures,
Sunday, June 21, 2009