Jean Rollin

Visconti, Godard, Truffaut, Clouzot
Millions of women wanted golden locks of our goddess Bardot

Such illustrious names on the covers of big magazines next to
Tarot packs and sandalwood in newly sprung occult bookshops

Sanctus, sanctus
I bow to the new Old Masters and their mauve magics

Yet I don’t want to be Sophia Loren or Michelle Mercier
I don’t have the spirit of the indomitable Angelique or Italian chic

Imagine a tender supple breast cinematographically caressed
The moment a captive pale maiden steps out of a purple coffin

To gaze at the sun by the sea is The White Goddess condensed
Her transparent stola of orange gauze is almost a priestly robe

Black drapes and crimson silks, sweet sapphic delights, old cemeteries
Imagine a world where all reason mercifully sleeps and the ritual reigns

Beautiful images roll which sing a curious lullaby directly to my tired soul
Watch the avenger Brigitte Lahaie wield a scythe like Saturn

I’d rather be a vampire who is a true child of Neptune
Always rising out of or sinking into the sea by the beach near Dieppe

Each celluloid immoral tale has carved this lonely shoreline
And white chalk cliffs deep into my cells ever hungry for beauty

I’d rather be a Rollin vampire on the phantom silver screen
Where the iron rose of imagination always blooms

And foreboding nakedness always fascinates
Paint me a vampire in a surrealist black sabbath or Dadaist dream

Kidnap me into the timelessness of the fantastique at knifepoint
I care little for Vietnam and dizzy rioting pups who could read

Neither Lolita nor Proust
I’d rather be a Rollin vampire on the phantom silver screen

 

 

Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa

Glimmering stars of the Great Bear
Envied the waterfalls of a translucent nightgown
Against his delicious hungry flames

The valley of Emily’s breasts deepened against
The stuffy iconography of myth and faded portrait pallor
On the moors, Branwell’s dilettante darkness

Turned out quite artistic which true evil can never be
Timorous imaginary worlds kept vanishing into
Viscontian shadows and impeccable leopards of ink

Only high-ceilinged rooms, Yorkshire wind-swept
Dragon paths or Roman villas still burn with unholy sigils
Branding violent hearts under the light of the Great Bear

My motherless butterflies bring out deep blue rays
Out of every dark gray labradorite gem
The colors are flashing and I am erased by every hue

And I am still haunted by the cinematography of memory
And terrible Martial swords before the fire turns pale
And the heart is spellbound by the waves and tiger lily mirrors

 

 


Diana currently resides in Palm Cove, Far North Tropical Queensland. Her interest in spirituality was sparked by her mother’s research into psychotronics and torsion physics. Diana also works as a writer/translator for Spintronics Inc, a free energy research and technology development start-up based on early work of John R. Searl.