Or Don’t You Ever Offer Yourself As A Main Course
After
Unexpected Visit by Remedios Varo
Wrapped in your
finest muslins, long curls loose, you sit by the table set for two, decorated
with the utmost care, the same care it took to apply blush and eye shadow. The
wind blows rusty leaves through the open door, teases the flame of the
flickering candle, its life half spent. The cat has been in and out, tirelessly
chasing the leaves littering the hardwood floor. You think of the odds of
writing a story in which he’d grow tall, take a seat, share your candlelight
dinner.
Eyes wide open, you stare at the flame, the only source of light, it seems to rise, stretch and remain still at the same time, casting a golden glow over your dreams, dancing shadows all over the walls. Behind you, a hand emerges from the heavy folds of the wavering drapes, a hand, a replica of yours, reaches out, holds on firmly to your wrist. Fingertips singe your skin, warn you of the times you’ve waited in vain, wearing his favorite perfume. You hear your mother’s voice deafened, crossing that liminal space that fades away day by day.
First published by Gargoyle
From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?
(Press 52 2023)
Or What If You Could Overhear Our Hushed Voices?
After Horse, Owl and Chaise by Gertrude Abercrombie
At first glance, you can see that I'm not
lying on the blue sofa,
nor hiding under it. But how about the open
window framing
the white horse's head peeping into the empty
room? Could I be
outside the canvas, listening behind walls?
Some might say that the meditative owl
perched on the shelf
is my alter ego, my mirror image looking
back at you,
or couldn't it rather be the horse? Now, if
you were to enter
my dreams in search of a clue,
you might still not find me but you'll be
able to hear me
talking to my divided selves watching over
me like guardians.
Yet so much is left unsaid like in Chinese
ink brush painting;
you know, those blank areas
similar to pauses in poetry? This is where
the calligrapher's
brushstrokes form verses, beckoning you to
add your own.
Picture me lying down on the aquamarine
sofa, musing over
the space of desire. I sink into the velvet
upholstery as in a tailored cloud, see
myself riding the wind,
a winged stallion oblivious to the monotonous
raison d'être
of the wary owl. Could I be the moderator
of their diatribes?
When my mother's sight was failing,
she would sit silently for hours, then,
open up like a live
notebook enumerating aloud all of the to-do
things while I'd
become part of a Xu Beihong ink-and-wash
galloping horse,
hair flowing in the wind, the featherlike
equine mane caressing my face
till I'd face her absent look
swallowing life with every breath.
First published by Impspired
From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?
(Press 52 2023)
Or How Do You Think We Came To Be
Stranded In That No Man's Land?
when your mother
is dying in a hospital and you can't hold her hand
when you are
pacing from room to room yearning for a friendly voice
when museums'
hallways are haunted by a few masked people
when you die a
thousand times of longing because you can only see
your loved ones
through a screen
when you know
funerals must be solitary affairs and weddings
have become
intimate
when you can't hug
your grandchildren don't you inhabit a no man's
land designating
others as persona non grata?
when you only need
to review old sci-fi movies to realize how
their surrealness
has swept into your own life
when deserted
streets and avenues unfold over our screens
don't we feel
stranded in an absurdist novel or maybe a hybrid painting
conceived by a
collaboration between Kay Sage and her husband Yves
Tanguy within the
setting of Dali's anamorphic landscapes and wouldn't
the ultimate
construct translate into a movie fit for the times?
when Magritte's
veiled lovers seem to be stepping out of the canvas
reeking with
repressed sensuality and Abercrombie’s touchless courtship
seems natural
aren't you then convinced that life imitates art since these
characters learned the notion of physical distancing before it became the norm?
First published by Impspired
From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?
(Press 52 2023)
Hedy Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist. Her latest poetry collection, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?, won the 2024 International Poetry Book Awards and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer and USA Best Book Awards. The Taste of the Earth won the Silver Nautilus Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the Best Book Award, and Under Brushstrokes was a finalist for the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her book of criticism is Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa. A twenty-five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Award, her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies.
No comments:
Post a Comment