http://www.crownsandtiaras.co.uk/fan_mask.jpg
Windy little women
Wafts her words
With brittle sticks
She chooses her words carefully
Because he is a martyr of time
And she is a lady of leisure
Her fan disguised
those distinguishable
care assistant eyes
All those white fluffy
curmudgeons knew
nothing about satyr
Applying powder
secretly in the bog
She shared with women
Fans are for women
with builders hands
she had neither
This point she noticed
in the mirror ~ so like an umbrella
She opened it's copper clip
That night she did this repeatedly
Little did her men know
Of her toilet politics
She wasted years on new fans
Going through them
Always breaking brands
The social butterfly
opened her porous
vulva pan and fake wort
There she seen a reflection
Reached for her top pocket
To use her spiritual tissue
The waft of her perfume
Gave every right to complain
But did not explain her flatulence
Author notes
This is a post renaissance piece about the time when washing and what we call hygiene was totally out the question. Powder was like facewash. The builders hands is an exaggeration of this filth. Additionally the aristocracy were known to feast on large strange diets. The fan I've pre-supposed is an extension of this. A face cooler maybe, but this poem sets up the idea that the fan is something more, yet constructed brittlely. Then again it could fit into that genre called toilet poetry. If that's what you feel I apologise but at the time is was totally not intentional. Remember I am a bloke. The only attractive women I know of who used fans are from TV and like the TV the toilet poem is just an illussion, possibly charged with something far more sinister. Street Fighter II for example used fans as weapons, in the theatre women use fans to get attention, what I've constructed here is something quite the opposite. Basically constructed from the title which you suggested. Anyone reading this poem please don't think me a horrible person, I just have fond memories laughing along with the likes of Blackadder comedy and a relatively strong disdain for watching Wuthering Heights. I can see I could be crossing a threshold between many men and women opinions. The irony and darkness additionally is in the care assistant eyes, she cares but but I construct quite harshly this reality that often when you care this is neither attractive nor counterproductive in the relationship realm. But what would I know I been single for a couple of years. I just think fans are for transvestites and masquerade parties for which I never get an invite (Bah Humbug). Too da loo.
A contest entry
- The Language of the Fan by ea.
600 points, ended September 17, 2008, 10 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Is this OTT?
Comments
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Dear Poet, I shall offer perspectives that are not criticism but simply perspectives. The tense varies so that it adds unintentional confusion, at some points this is present tense and others past tense. Woman/she, women/they. The capitalization was sporadic, some sentences it served others it did not, it again, added misplaced focus.
Windy little woman
wafts/wafting her words
with brittle sticks
She chooses her words carefully
because he is a martyr of time
and she is a lady of leisure
Her fan disguises
NB it's/its
She seen / she saw
Indeed be warned, no one welcomes windiness and yet perhaps I have been long winded within the space of your page.
I liked the points you were making, the way you made them,you are very astute as to the little known art of " fan language"
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Thanks for your comment
Yvette, long winded is a highlight here. Thanks for your constructive observations, they are very poetic.
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Yes, it's over the top, for sure. I thought it might have best ended on "its copper clip" - no apostrophe - it just became too nonsensical from that point on, for my taste. I am off to check your link and ponder some more. I do really like the details of the powder in the bog with the other women and how fans are for builder's hands, though I don't take away any clear meaning from it all - just more a strange sense of play.
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Epilogue
This about the time when washing and what we call hygiene was totally out the question. Powder was like facewash. Builders hands is an exaggeration of this filth. Additionally the aristocracy were known to feast on large strange diets. The fan I've pre-supposed is an extension of this. A face cooler maybe, but this poem sets up the idea that the fan is something more, yet constructed brittlely. Then again it could fit into that genre called toilet poetry.
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