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ANNA, THE BELLY DANCER
Anna, the belly dancer, went to the Unitarian Church
and belly danced with her instructor and the other
students who were slim and sensuous. Anna was
short and fat and blond. She covered herself with
veils and chanted the coo-lu-lu’s while the teacher
of belly dancing writhed center stage and explained
the origins of the dance. Anna was fifty, and this
winter it was belly dancing, taking her purple cos-
tume back and forth in the rain to the upstairs
apartment-studio with the giant mirror on one wall
where she tried to sink gracefully to her knees like
the others to learn the floor-work. But her knees
were no good and her belly was flab, and she did not
like it when men, who were relatives and friends of
the belly-dancing instructor, would come up the stairs
and sit down to watch.
Anna, the belly dancer, went to the Unitarian Church
and belly danced with her instructor and the other
students who were slim and sensuous. Anna was
short and fat and blond. She covered herself with
veils and chanted the coo-lu-lu’s while the teacher
of belly dancing writhed center stage and explained
the origins of the dance. Anna was fifty, and this
winter it was belly dancing, taking her purple cos-
tume back and forth in the rain to the upstairs
apartment-studio with the giant mirror on one wall
where she tried to sink gracefully to her knees like
the others to learn the floor-work. But her knees
were no good and her belly was flab, and she did not
like it when men, who were relatives and friends of
the belly-dancing instructor, would come up the stairs
and sit down to watch.
Metaphor
TIME SPIN
Unfold your own myth.
–Rumi
This is a day for veils,
one for the dance,
and one for the refusal.
The room is empty
but for the dancer.
There is no music.
The veils impede.
The shyness will not relent.
The dancer must learn the dance.
Time is useless. It drags and flattens.
The room spins and the dancer
falls to the floor.
Someone
applauds.
A discordant music begins.
Unfold your own myth.
–Rumi
This is a day for veils,
one for the dance,
and one for the refusal.
The room is empty
but for the dancer.
There is no music.
The veils impede.
The shyness will not relent.
The dancer must learn the dance.
Time is useless. It drags and flattens.
The room spins and the dancer
falls to the floor.
Someone
applauds.
A discordant music begins.
A Surprise of Shadows
ABSTRACTION
After Yana Yamaya by Carina Clavija
she closes her eyes against the world,
the time of the world,
the guise of the world
she paints her face, her eyes, her lips,
signs her name at the credit edges
of her mind
she borrows a tune to hum,
changes the words,
finds her trance
she does not merge into a wall,
it recedes—recedes—into
a memory of space
she dis-
connects
from the space around her
she is who she will be forever—
forever and now
and the now of forever
_____________________
ALL THE OLD HANGOUTS
where life no longer lives,
in all those happy, peopled days,
it is easy now to forgive,
the follies that live on
in secret rendezvous
and myths of love
as if to squander
all that we believed—
those little dramas of the mind,
the veiled relinquishments
of sad returnings :
eyes caught in brief forever's,
abetting all the drama
we preferred of life—
the old locations,
old dumps and dives
razed, forgotten,
torn down now
like all the years of memories
that merge down avenues of
fabled light that perforates the dark…
Spectre
BETWEEN THE PILLARS OF THE NIGHT
“And then we saw the daughter of the Minotaur”
—Leona Carrington, 1953
The stanzas held the pose, not real, unreal, nor yet
imagined. Time panned by with its swift glimpse
of something barely held—all that was stopped—
would never move, but for repair : two children
who were Me and Me—a black-cloaked boy and
girl—entranced by celestial globes upon a table—
star bubbles that broke across the floor.
The props were set—the speeding days—the nerv-
ous dogs—the dancing shadow ghost. Iconic fairy-
tale-creations stared and simply waited. Night
Blooming Cereus climbed the posts and grew to-
ward the lowering clouds—like new life from the
floor and through the nonexistent ceiling.
And now that I look back to now, the sky flows in
with clouds that lower slowly into the private room
of sleep. The ghost still dances. The shy dogs sleep
and the missing bird that was in the hidden cage
where the nightly spell was cast now sings in sweet
illusion.
And Still
BLUR OF LIGHT THROUGH TREES
this could be a bird swimming in water
this could be the lace-shadow of trees
in pond reflection, leafy branches
thick as camouflage
this could be the whiteness of thought
in its purest meaning—this white blur
could be Art in its deepest
reaching. No depth here,
only the surface of depth,
everything safe as possibility,
the bird passing over through the trees
the sky opening its safe height—
the bird has no thought such as this—
this gasp of prayer is for
the bird of swift light
in its resemblance…
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 8-14-2018 [revised])
this could be a bird swimming in water
this could be the lace-shadow of trees
in pond reflection, leafy branches
thick as camouflage
this could be the whiteness of thought
in its purest meaning—this white blur
could be Art in its deepest
reaching. No depth here,
only the surface of depth,
everything safe as possibility,
the bird passing over through the trees
the sky opening its safe height—
the bird has no thought such as this—
this gasp of prayer is for
the bird of swift light
in its resemblance…
(prev. pub. in Medusa's Kitchen, 8-14-2018 [revised])
Listen
THE CELL OF FORGIVENESS
I enter the pure white square. It is a room. It has
no patterned walls. Its windows are night
with a fluctuating brightness.
========
I enter the pure white square. It is a repetition—
a confusion of memory—a puzzle of mirrors.
It contains many others like itself.
========
I enter the pure white square—veils hang like
partitions—like curtains—like folds of enticement,
long white sleeves that flutter and cling.
========
I enter the pure white square—the dying eye of the sun
still melting all around—sorrow upon haunted sorrow
locked in the ecstasy of surrendered bliss and pain.
____________________
MARATHON IN FOUR MOVEMENTS
Do not take me onto the blurry floor to
walk-dance in the drunkenness—the tired
music, the numbness of arms falling to sides.
Do not lose me through the blurring ceiling light
above the floor—the sallow, mottling bulb
still trying to glitter for the dance.
Do not let some cold unfeeling mouth or probing
eyes close over my eyes—turning me into a mask.
I am a mask already—and this is masquerade—
no partner here but my own illusioned one.
I am a quiet, sane, person on a seashore in an hour of
soft blue light moving toward me—as slowly as it can,
a beautiful weeping bird with wings of whitest white.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BLUE SONNET
—Joyce Odam
How I have rendered thee—
perfect—serene—blue-faced in
mask of blue thought, black lips
that speak—not my cry to you
not my silence that you love with
your eyes, but the tilt of your head
toward what you hear with your
innermost ear. You are not what
I conjured, but what you are.
You have made me silent—
isolated in a mind I dare not
use lest I confuse myself and you,
blue-veiled in mask of blue thought.
_____________________
Joyce Odam is with us again this morning, bringing bouquets of poetry and flowers and telling us some ideas about camouflage, our Seed of the Week. Joyce has been visiting the Kitchen a lot this week: first a poem in Form Fiddlers’ Friday, and then Sunday’s post. Many riches, indeed!
I got a kick (as we used to say) out of Joyce’s “Anna the Belly Dancer”; she and I both had the same teacher of belly dance many years ago, in the “upstairs apartment-studio with the giant mirror on one wall”, though not at the same time. But maybe our coo-lu-lu’s met and even sang a little harmony, bouncing off those old wooden walls in Oak Park… (The girl who was out-of-shape, though, was me, not Joyce.)
Our new Seed of the Week is “Healing”. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.
To see Carina Clavija's Shaman woman painting, Yana Yamaya, go to www.pinterest.com/pin/794815034220876781/.
____________________
—Medusa
I enter the pure white square. It is a room. It has
no patterned walls. Its windows are night
with a fluctuating brightness.
========
I enter the pure white square. It is a repetition—
a confusion of memory—a puzzle of mirrors.
It contains many others like itself.
========
I enter the pure white square—veils hang like
partitions—like curtains—like folds of enticement,
long white sleeves that flutter and cling.
========
I enter the pure white square—the dying eye of the sun
still melting all around—sorrow upon haunted sorrow
locked in the ecstasy of surrendered bliss and pain.
____________________
MARATHON IN FOUR MOVEMENTS
Do not take me onto the blurry floor to
walk-dance in the drunkenness—the tired
music, the numbness of arms falling to sides.
Do not lose me through the blurring ceiling light
above the floor—the sallow, mottling bulb
still trying to glitter for the dance.
Do not let some cold unfeeling mouth or probing
eyes close over my eyes—turning me into a mask.
I am a mask already—and this is masquerade—
no partner here but my own illusioned one.
I am a quiet, sane, person on a seashore in an hour of
soft blue light moving toward me—as slowly as it can,
a beautiful weeping bird with wings of whitest white.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BLUE SONNET
—Joyce Odam
How I have rendered thee—
perfect—serene—blue-faced in
mask of blue thought, black lips
that speak—not my cry to you
not my silence that you love with
your eyes, but the tilt of your head
toward what you hear with your
innermost ear. You are not what
I conjured, but what you are.
You have made me silent—
isolated in a mind I dare not
use lest I confuse myself and you,
blue-veiled in mask of blue thought.
_____________________
Joyce Odam is with us again this morning, bringing bouquets of poetry and flowers and telling us some ideas about camouflage, our Seed of the Week. Joyce has been visiting the Kitchen a lot this week: first a poem in Form Fiddlers’ Friday, and then Sunday’s post. Many riches, indeed!
I got a kick (as we used to say) out of Joyce’s “Anna the Belly Dancer”; she and I both had the same teacher of belly dance many years ago, in the “upstairs apartment-studio with the giant mirror on one wall”, though not at the same time. But maybe our coo-lu-lu’s met and even sang a little harmony, bouncing off those old wooden walls in Oak Park… (The girl who was out-of-shape, though, was me, not Joyce.)
Our new Seed of the Week is “Healing”. Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.
To see Carina Clavija's Shaman woman painting, Yana Yamaya, go to www.pinterest.com/pin/794815034220876781/.
____________________
—Medusa
The cold weather is here!
—Public Domain Photo
—Public Domain Photo
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