Musings on Dancers in Blue by Edger Degas
(An Ekphrasis)
Legs bound into pointed satin shoes stretch out lean, pink muscles.
Morning glory skirts are frozen in mid rustle around the dancers’ thighs.
Eyes scan for flaws, fingers fidget with brown curls.
The orchestra’s dissonant cacophony as it tunes itself
Signals for the anticipation to begin.
Lips long to whisper excitedly but
The four dancers are paused in their routine,
Forever immortalized
In a dusky world of pastel brushstrokes.
Something has wrestled you from the Factory
A bite of marzipan between the asscheeks of leatherdaddies
Family tree with no brothers, no sisters
Your spotlight reflects back at my rags
A red cross carved from linens fell to essence, emitted from an angelic visage
Patriarch, Matriarch, Son of a bitch
I’ blind, stumbling backwards like a staggering drunk
Quarantined to leather shared with strangers
It’s campy you know, how your listed
As if anyone had any doubt, who…
I’ve got a little breath now
Tunneled vision leads me back again and again
Now the guards wear dark glasses and speak softly
Your spiked vein trickles vinegar-scented chloroform
Each time I lean forward to try and catch a drop in my mouth
Each time it evaporates
Each time it evaporates just as quickly as it politely sees itself out, hat tipped, coat in arms
We poured out of the same iron snare
I craned my neck to break the embryo just as you did
Siblings by virtue of situation we could have, should have
Been shat out of the doggedly sedated slit of doppelgangers
Twice now I’ve felt this humbling presence
Without hesitation, I’ll promise to never look for another similarity
Putting together the final show at CAVILAM in Vichy.
HELD TOGETHER
WITH COPPER-PLATED UPHOLSTERY NAILS
A FANTASTICAL CREATION
HANGS SUSPENDED
IN MID-FLIGHT.
DESIGNED BY A RAILWAY MAN
ITS DETAIL EXQUISITE
YET THE PHYSICS REMAIN FLAWED.
WHO COULD ARGUE THAT A STEAM ENGINE
COULD NOT LIFT THE WINGS OF A BAT,
WHEN IT HAD YET TO BE TRIED?
A HISTORIC BEAUTY HANGS
AIRBORNE ONLY WITH ITS HEART REMOVED
THIS SLEEK ENGINEERING
SEEMS TO HAVE STUDIED SOLEY THE AESTHETIC.
HOW CURIOUS
THAT WITH THE INTRICACY OF 8 HAND-CARVED FEATHERS
THE IMPORTANCE OF SIGHT WAS FORGOTTEN.
LEAVING THE MAN IN THE STIRRUPS
AS BLIND AS THE BAT SKELETON TO WHICH HE CLINGS.
a day of rain and dark caverns filled with bones.
a bloodless mother and two daughters talk wordlessly,
their hands joining,
agreeing to amble forward.
Their presence is ethereal and familiar.
Each foot stables the others’.
Water begins to seep out of the screen,
pressure blistering as they near,
increasing authenticity.
The mother lets go of her babies’ hands,
advancing into the world of pigment.
She wipes her head of wetness,
so she can see and breath lucidly,
taking her eldest’s hand to join her.
The sister reaches into the blackness for the little one
and she emerges with playfulness in her eyes.
The little one looks relieved.
As she wipes the water from her eyes,
her mother backs into a lifeless form again.
The eldest acquiesces
It pains to see the littlest alone in this world.
As eldest keeps a sternness to her,
she reaches into the incarnate for her sister.
The littlest takes a closing look at the beauty in this realm.
In her summoned world:
Her dreams do not include her,
Her movement does not involve her;
she rushes like the moon in the daylight.
We went to a spectacular small museum in Paris – The Museum of Hunting and Nature, a quirky mix of art, science and human relationships to wild and domesticated animals over time….
vichytrip 