A poet can only give her heart away once, the rest is observation. Poets are right to assume that love is eternal, and in a world of temporary things love is the immortal human experience. This is the poetry that sleeps between our love. May we always be bruised by beauty and touched by angels, but may we also be aware of our demons and our shadows, for the heart can only love in truth and these are the ingredients of the human condition.
'STRANDED HEARTS' HAS ARRIVED'
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The Shadows Are Birds
The Shadows Are Birds The fates opened our hearts and stained us with fire; when finally they pulled us apart, the ashes of poetry remained. I have often wondered what becomes of love when it leaves us. Not the person. Not the story. But the feeling itself. Where does it go? I think all love leaves something behind. Not always joy. Not always grief. Sometimes only the strange golden residue of having been changed by another human being. A subtle rearrangement of the soul. A room within us that did not exist before. This is why I wrote Stranded Hearts. Because some loves become memories. Some become scars. And some become poetry. The shadows are birds, and the birds are souls. I have always believed that poetry changes us in ways we rarely notice at first. A poem enters through language but leaves behind something larger than words. For a brief moment, something within us shifts. A door opens. A memory awakens. A truth we could not name suddenly recognizes itself. Years later we may forget the poem entirely. We may lose the title, the author, even the lines that once moved us. Yet the transformation remains. The poem has become part of us. Beneath the surface, beyond memory, it continues its quiet work. Is this why art matters? Not because we remember it. But because it changes us. I have seen them before. In dreams. Beyond ruined gates where ivy swallowed stone. Perhaps memory is stranger than we imagine. Sometimes, just before sleep, it feels as though another world opens. A city of towers at dusk. Ancient books resting beneath dust and candlelight. The scent of rain moving through forests older than language. A blood-red rose pressed between forgotten pages. And somewhere within that landscape gather all the loves we once carried. Not lost. Only transformed. In Stranded Hearts, love is not polite, orderly, or obedient. It is fire. It is hunger. It is the raven watching from the edge of the garden. It is the rose opening in darkness. It is every beautiful thing that risks breaking our hearts simply because it exists. We are not here to preserve ourselves. We are here to burn. To love. To create. And maybe that is what all art asks of us. To survive the burning. To gather what remains. To transform sorrow into beauty. To discover that nothing is ever truly lost. Not love. Not memory. Not the soul. The shadows are birds. The birds are souls. And every poem is evidence that something beautiful once flew through us. Stranded Hearts: A Dark Romantic Anthology of Love Poetry by Gesso Cocteau © 2026
Why I Create Dark Feminine Visual Poetry: Artist Journal
An Artist Journal reflection on the daydream places that feel remembered, the spiritual recognition held in a glance, and the dark feminine visual poetry I create from those inner worlds.
Endless Celebration: Gesso Cocteau's 51-Foot Bronze in Bellevue
If you've walked past the corner of Northeast Eighth Street and Bellevue Way in Bellevue, Washington, you've likely stopped in your tracks. Endless Celebration, a soaring 51-foot cast bronze sculpture weighing nearly three tons, commands the plaza in front of Bellevue Place with a quiet, breathtaking audacity. A Commission Born from Community When Kemper Freeman Jr. commissioned California-based sculptor Gesso Cocteau to create a landmark work for Bellevue Place, the brief was as open as the sky the sculpture reaches toward. Cocteau's response was characteristically bold: two dancers, one figure lifting the other skyward, defying gravity with trust and joy. "I wanted to create a subject of dialogue dedicated to bringing the community into the art," Cocteau explained in a 2005 interview. "Without human interaction, sculpture would be void, it would be empty of emotion." Playing with Balance and Gravity Balance is a recurring obsession in Cocteau's practice, not just physical balance, but the emotional equilibrium between hard work and a good life. Endless Celebration embodies this philosophy literally: one figure dares to hold the other aloft, declaring its space in the sky with trust. The name itself draws from poetry. It evokes celebration, romanticism, and joy, the spirit of a community where people can work hard and enjoy the good life. The Challenge of Scale Creating a 51-foot public sculpture presents unique engineering and artistic challenges. Without the ability to stand the piece upright during fabrication, Cocteau had to envision the final work entirely in her mind, and ensure the large-scale execution remained faithful to the approved maquette. The sculpture had to read beautifully from many angles and distances, from a passing car to a pedestrian standing at its base. Monumental Sculpture as Private Conversation For Cocteau, public sculpture is never purely public. "Monumental sculpture should represent emotions beyond words," she says. "It should engage the viewer in a private conversation, each individual finding their own interpretation." Endless Celebration has done exactly that for Bellevue since its installation. It is a landmark, yes, but more than that, it is an invitation. Article from The Bellevue Reporter "Endless Celebration, a 51-foot cast bronze sculpture by Gesso Cocteau, photographed at dusk at Bellevue Place, Washington" Explore the sculpture in tabletop and midsize bronze editions at gessococteau.com #gessococteaubronze #gessococteausculpture
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The constant energetic of love is undeniable and your thoughts dovetail with an intelligence of knowing.
Earthy and sensual, eerie and otherworldly~ Stranded Hearts transports you into many states of consciousness. Through your heart’s portal, these poems enrapture and devastate you; they are enchanting pathways through the human (heart’s) conditon and remind you that LOVE is our very essence.