The Cold Harsh Truth of Beauty - Poetry Jam

Frost Feather 3 - photo by Sir Knight Moore

The Cold Harsh Truth of Beauty

What cold remote bitch do you presume to be

Sweeping the catwalk , trailing Valenciennes that

Resembles frost feathers

The North wind that rushes with you

Pulls silver glitter free from your hair

Cold crystals for the masses

Some float free and waft toward the gallery

Riding frigid currents of AC to land

Like so many snow flakes

You look straight ahead toward a star

Cold white light beams pierce blue eyes

Caress that cold brittle shell

No warmth penetrates this arctic blast

Soft ululations like a winter wind

Tap tapping hands like sleet on pane

And you stomp on toward the after party

Waving white arms and trailing lace

Wintery stick branches in the breeze

Cold chemicals can capture blue eyes

White skin, soft lace, hard lips

The cold harsh truth of beauty

What lies beneath the permafrost

Remains a mystery for some man

To unearth when glaciers melt

Inspiration comes from many places. I was looking at a dress ... and the model who wore it.

Poetry Jam is a place for sharing inspiration and its result ... look at what others have gleaned from the challenge to think about crystals ...  

The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier

Running away from life, from embarrassment, from cruelty, from pain, from oppression - these are central themes in Chevalier's latest historical novel. Honor Bright, the central character in this novel needs to leave her home in Britain, after being jilted by her fiance. Rather than facing the constant pity of her staunch Quaker community, Honor opts to emigrate to America with her sister Grace. Grace is going to be married to a Quaker shopkeeper in Ohio and invites Honor to accompany her. Quiet, reserved Honor grabs the chance to get away from her painful situation, but when Grace dies from yellow fever before reaching Ohio, Honor is left to her own devices and the kindness of strangers.

Honor's solitary journey takes a new tack when she discovers that there are people in her new community who aid runaway slaves find their way to freedom in Canada. Honor develops a conflicted relationship with a cocksure slave-catcher who pursues Honor's attentions. When Honor marries a good Quaker farmboy, she hopes that her life will return to normal, but no. She is faced with feeling the interloper in the family by her husband's female family members. She sees the telltale signs of runaways as they pass through the fields, hide behind the sheds, shelter in the woods and she feels compelled to help them along in her own simple way. She leaves water and food hidden behind the barn, leaves a shed door open on a cold afternoon, finds ways to give short messages of directions to the next safe spot she knows. In her own way, she is running away from the constraints put on her by her husband and family and defying their authority as a way of asserting her own moral identity.

Honor Bright is a character I wanted to stand by and nurture, as her hat-making friend does from afar. She is a woman who needs the encouragement to be 'who she is', to kiss off the constraints of her overbearing and petty relatives. Her moment of making a stand forces her husband to take stock of his own situation within the family and step out to claim his wife and child and live with more freedom ... at least that's MY take on the story.

So... who is the runaway in the title she or he?

The Mag 168 - Terminal Talk

Photo credit: Toga Gokbakar

Terminal Talk

I know you, mein Schatz …

You’re thinking of coffee.

Just smoke your cig, dear!

The stuff in the machines

Would rot a hole the size of

Hoboken in your belly.

How ‘bout we sit ?

No? We can’t sit? No?

These new rules are killers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know!

You know, we should quit

But then what would we do?

We could hold hands?

You old billy goat, you!

I know you, Liebling …

Just smoke your cig, dear!

We’ll get coffee later,

If the bus isn’t too late. 

Tess challenges us to write to this old couple's snapshot ... others have posted on The Mag . Check it out ....

Poetry Jam - Bees Theme

untitled

we wish to flit in sunshine

passing from one sweet face

to another, smiling, passing

peace and sharing a nectar

called tea

instead we skitter like roaches

the moment a hum and whir

of drone nears waiting for the

roar and buzz and shudder

called impact

we hope to send little workers

off to swarm o’er field with

kites and string or strap for

wood or baskets for joy

called play

instead we throw down mats

in corners under walls, behind

rough sheds and draw shawls

and children close in silent wait

called prayer

when will the queen bees wake

from silent slumber mindless

propagation endless sacrifice

buzz forth to halt these hornets

called death

I am agog that we condone a swarm of drones to pass over and amongst innocents, creating 'collateral damage' in an area of the world that we would otherwise wish to calm and repair ... the concept of hive collapse might well be looked at when we contemplate our foreign policy, for doesn't this attack from nowhere serve to blacken the hearts and minds of the very people we wish to be moderate, productive, and democratic? How can simple people understand the higher cause of our war on terrorism when it is their villages and fields, houses and neighbors being blasted by these swarms from out of nowhere?  The ethics and politics of war outrage me for I am one of those simple folk - I just want to be a small bee in my little hive - just like those women so far away.

This rambling post is offered to the weekly Poetry Jam  ... see what others have written when contemplating the idea of 'bees'.

Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly

The parallel tragedies of human loss and the spirit's defiance come together in this story of a modern teen's struggle to overcome the tragic loss of her younger brother and her family's disintegration after the boy's death. This modern tragedy is set against the backdrop of a trip to Paris, arranged by her desperate, yet distracted and work-harried father. What happens in Paris becomes a transforming experience for young Andi Alpers - a parental 'putting down of the foot' forces her to attend to a required Senior Thesis that she is required to do prior to graduating from her posh Brooklyn prep school. The thesis, her passion for music, a chance meeting near the Eiffel Tower, her music-loaded iPod, and her immersion in the events of  The Reign of Terror carry her off on a journey of discovery - an inner revolution that changes a forlorn depressed teenager into a more self-aware survivor.

This is a terrific book that is well researched and doesn't dumb down its content or edgy take on modern teen culture for its young adult readers. I have to respect that. It nudges itself a bit more space against the more frivolous teen reads on the library shelf. I can only hope that Donnelly continues to give her young readers more meaty books like this.

Couldn't help making connections to Neil Gaimen's Neverwhere when reading the passages about Andi's tour and adventures in the catacombs ... creepy and reminiscent of Dante's Inferno too.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

What is it about a toxic marriage, strange disappearance, infidelity and police work that is so darn fascinating? I don't have to try too hard to bypass the tabloids,  reality shows, and investigative reports, but a good 'who-done-it' novel will snag me every time. Gillian Flynn has written a real page-turning novel this time around - her newest, called Gone Girl, has been a real bestseller and I understand why.

Nick and Amy Dunne have a storybook relationship ... at first. All the lovey-dovey fades, though, after a few years of marriage, the onset of difficult employment circumstances, and a real come-down in their living situation. Somehow, Missouri just isn't the same as New York City for Nick and Amy. While Nick makes the adjustment by starting a neighborhood bar in his hometown with his twin sister and helps to shoulder the burden of caring for his gravely ill mother and senile father, Amy is at loose ends. She hates small town life, the fact that she's living in suburbia and not cool vibe Brooklyn, and the minutiae of tending house and kowtowing to her in-law's needs grates on her. This does not bode well for the marital relationship and as the 5th anniversary looms, Amy goes missing.

Where did Amy go? Is Nick the hapless and crushed husband of a murdered wife or a conniving low-life murderer? The reader is left to try figuring the angles and coming up with the solution to this thorny situation. Amy's and Nick's point of view is set out in alternating chapters that reveal just how messed up their marriage has become and just what these two will do to push each other's buttons.

I could not put this book down ... and right up to the last few pages, I was shaking my head and wondering how things were going to come out for all concerned. The last book that did this to me was Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent . Flynn's novel can proudly sit next to Turow's on the crimie shelf at the library! Good job, Ms. Flynn!

Now, I hear the movie rights have been bought up by Reese Witherspoon ... THERE'S a perfect role for her! Can't wait to see if she can pull it off!

Benediction - The Mag 167

                                                                                Young Woman Picking the Fruit of Knowledge, 1892 by Mary Cassatt

Benediction

Cast off the virgin cloak to see

The world –

Pull on a bright white talisman

Of truth –

And on it write all your heart

Craves to know –

Hold close the best and cast

The rest to crows.


See what others are sharing with the writing circle over at The Mag - this image should help bring out many interesting poems! Thanks Tess, for another interesting prompt!