But today, mon cher, I am not good with words. I say what people already know.
Very dark brown hair, long, pulled back loosely with wisps softening around the face, I think. I've never seen her; shall never gaze upon a photograph. She wears a veil of words.
Perhaps a blackness of cloth, but not without red. Brooch of a poppy. Toss of bead earrings, like Native American dream catchers. Or that ruby rising out of a ring of melted, cast sun, the only one on her hands woven with pale veins and the delicacy of a musician's fingers. Open her closet and you will find on the floor red canvas tennis shoes, red satin Chinese slippers, patent leather ruby red heels, red slick knee-high boots. On the shelf, a vinyl red belt, red silk sashes, red opera gloves, a red felt hat. Dragging down the wall like Barnett Newman's "Lema sabachthani," a funerary dirge of black dresses, a heavy curtain of silk, cotton, corduroy, rayon, wool on cedar-scented hangers.
Her writing, its own fertile garden, overflows with the redness of a sensuality that is both innocent and over-ripe, tended and unweeded, like Oscar Wilde's "Salome," if the woman who holds the platter on which the prophet's head rests could write. Or a mass of cut flowers in varying stages, some dying, some bursting forth; floral, with dark passion.
One doesn't know the true story or if there are any true stories.
Why am I, along with others, silenced? She speaks in the diminutive. Sarcasm of a parrot, words twisted in the ruffle of virid and cinnabar feathers, inside the sharp beak. Have I found someone to blot my laboured writing? It becomes unbearable, the denouncer's voice. Do I imagine a fertile slope for my Sisyphian ball of letters but where I don't belong, and why can't I turn and go elsewhere? Where welcomes wait?
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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Woman with Flowers 7.1
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ReplyDelete"She speaks in the diminutive. Sarcasm of a parrot, words twisted in the ruffle of virid and cinnabar feathers, inside the sharp beak. Have I found someone to blot my laboured writing?" whew
"""Sarcasm of a parrot, words twisted in the ruffle of virid and cinnabar feathers, inside the sharp beak. Have I found someone to blot my laboured writing? It becomes unbearable, the denouncer's voice. """ I am amazed at the depth of your empathy. Cheers, Bill (Vex)
ReplyDeleteNarrator, you managed this beautiful thing... you've come by and written writing that is poetry inspired by my writing, or effort at it, and affirmed me as a writer at the same time! Thank you, you wonderful person.
ReplyDeleteBill, what a lovely surprise! Surely a writer does have to have empathy - as you do with your many poems for people you know who are going through difficulty.
This is a second version, and completely fictionalized from the first one. It was based on something that really happened and when I saw an email from the woman who had unfairly received the criticism against her beautiful and caring words I thought she recognized it, but no, whew. This story is wanting to grow, so I may try to expand it at Faema (the Italian coffee shop, maker of the city's best espresso and 5 minutes from here) this morning. A longer version might not be good to post - if that happens though, should I post it?