The shoe
Eyes straight she wades
through a thicket of stares.
Under a drab frock
her spine’s a bony squiggle.
Her limbs’ imperfect rhyme
drags scores of prying eyes
to a brown boot
with a high-raised sole.
Those looks roll down her
like dribble. Her shoe’s a piggy bank
where she stores stares, a clogged
register of tags and snags.
Whispers hang in every air,
brush her skin: ‘The poor girl.’
‘If only she’d.’ ‘Who will ever?’
She sways on thin stalks.
Night-time she’s a pink flamingo,
stands poised on one leg
in shallow waters. In the sky
the moon turns a blind eye.
3 comments:
Its good to see that you continue to write and to make artwork ....I have not visited you in quite a while and it's just good to see what you have been doing. You know you make beautiful art and you also have a gift with writing so be glad of it.
I truly do understand how hard it is to carry on with doing all the mundane everyday things as well as always pushing oneself into ones own creativity when you have pain tiredness and struggle all the live long days.
I try to tell myself that if I were even more ill than I am now (which I certainly have been) then I would be utterly miserable, because then I would not even be able to push myself into my studio. I think seeing my late mother go from being mobile and housebound, to bedridden and then in more and more crushingly lonely pain has made me aware of how we have to cherish the tissue like, health that we do have. We need to play and play experiment, fiddle and also from time to time - as you say - look out the window (internet - its actually a lovely word when you think about it - INTERNET !.
Better go now and try to get organized for going to the print workshop tomorrow. It is one of the days I can go there and count on getting 'physical support'. Trying to negotiate my way around the workshop with a crutch on an uneven floor makes fulfilling tasks troublesome but at least I have this possibility on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
take care of yourself
Aine
man reading this gave me goosebumps. came back again to read it and it's just so heartbreaking. i see, feel her so clearly. deformities, perfections and all. i love how you are able to convey all this in such a way that isn't manipulative of the reader. it just is and you simply presented her to us. her, and perhaps even more a piece of reality that we fear, feel uncomfortable with, and/or can relate to...
oh Marjojo, did i tell you how tremendously much i am enjoying this series of works you have going here??
I should comment more, but the last stanza has taken my breath away. it is perfect. it reads like a haiku. I am hypnotised.
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