Between the pages of the book containing numerous corporate
forms and numbers, records and contracts,
I find the onion skin memory, all the colors still vivid and alive,
flashing pieces of the whole.
Words. Pictures. Sounds. Voices.
The hell of the house, Mother screaming, the venom in her declarations,
her vindictiveness, replaced on the frail paper with
my sister and I playing, no one more like me then – what happened?
an inescapable litany of recollections.
Helpless. Sad. Humiliating. Orgastic.
The last dreams of my father, the ones that weren’t dreams at all
Snapping to my son’s father, laughing, the secret utterances,
splashed suddenly to the newborn in my arms, the sweet flush on his face
to the other face, the blond face, the one that haunts me.
Teaching. Listening. Touching. Kissing.
When this face rises from the thin paper, there is no other thought,
only the man who thinks too much and doesn’t feel enough until he
shoots an arrow of himself to somewhere he thinks is beyond this world,
but is really just deep inside of me.
Piercing. Pinning. Professing. Possessing.
The fingers of his hands still clasped together at the small of my back,
His face bursts from the thin, crackly parchment when relationships fail,
when I recall anything else, when I pray, or think, or work or simply breathe.
He makes it known when he returns, but will not speak.
Sad. Silence. Mystery. Memory.
Comments
-
I get the feeling they are all the same men
And they disappoint.
And yet you call us beautiful creatures you will never understand.
I have been toying with an idea;
That the mind and heart,
(Intellect and emotion?)
(Conscious and subconscious?)
Are not fully integrated...
In exactly the same way
That a man cannot really understand a woman; understand a man
Though they are complementary halves of an intended entity
Like the two halves of a scissors held together with a screw
When the screw is missing
Or lost
Either half can stab, slice, do work; credible tools
One an anvil, the other a shear
But return the screw
And magic happens
When the two work together
Dancing through paper
The color and weave of fabric
What things the heart hides from the mind
So it can survive the day...
What help the mind could be
If the heart could trust it...
-
What to say
Each time I read this work I get very different framed black and white images shooting towards me at the speed of light which are all very sharp, urgent but stimulating nonetheless. I have a sense of an empty room that's cold and stark, a wooden table sits close to a curtainless two pane window that looks out towards a disused railway. A note pad sits on the table while an ababdoned pencil waits for inspiration and some one to lead it on a merry dance that may or may not prick a memory to life or even entice a momentary glance out of the window in the hope that something will happen to change how I feel right now.
Wonderful work, I'm impressed at how provoking this is.
Terry
-
-
Wow! Terry, this is such a fine compliment. How good to know the piece evokes such thoughts, pictures and emotions. Thank you so much for telling me this.
Regards,
Camille
-
Adding your comment:
