Post by amelie on Feb 3, 2004 23:29:10 GMT -5
Through the smoke and choking fug,
The liquid feel of stale, vapid air,
Sickening and sweet with sweat,
Languid between my breasts;
Bodies pressed too tight in welter,
With no shelter for my naked words.
I Pirouette and dance the dance
Of my art, drowning in the foam
And waves of heat that oppress,
Like The half truths I gape
Through the hole in my face;
A thing that passes for a mouth,
And peel more layers in search
Of some newly raw strip of flesh,
More freshly wounded tissue;
I am naked, split open…do I appeal?
Roll back the eyelid with a cotton bud
To expose what I don’t want seen:
Even I don’t want to see;
Always knowing more is needed.
Under a spotlight of revolving colour,
I fear the red most; I have something
On show that passes for a heart;
Cut glass crystal, transparent
But cold, sparkling in the
Mirror ball circling above;
Refractions of blood washed
In crimson, bouncing off walls;
It may be a bit of my blood
Glinting in your eye but do you care?
My tears trembling in your ears,
Like a captive bird, a dancer
In her music box; shattered
By the sound of silence
And the pause that never ascends
To applause but dies to insipid assent
When the song is over;
But always more is asked
Before they turn off the lights.
Swathed in saffron, in fields
Of yellow rape seed, I sway
And grind hips like the whore
They expect, believing
I cannot be raped but slowly
I find my integrity slipping till
I am what they want me to be;
A striptease of body and mind:
Fortunately the soul is beyond display;
Notes stuffed between my breasts,
While going through the motions,
Or just the emotions, telling my story,
And who cares? Do I entertain?
Watch me die out there,
It will help pass the time
Till the final coda, under
The cobalt glow of despair,
And I quietly drown in the blue.
‘I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call’ (1)
It’s all been heard before;
I unpick my clothes,
The frayed edges of vanity and dreams,
Showing slashed silk with
The razor cuts beneath the veils
As they are shredded from me;
Self betrayal is my poet’s stance,
But as in all things you need
The discipline of years and I have
Always needed to suffer;
I am folk singer, folk devil,
Poet and puppet, a dancer
Frozen in demi-plie of pain,
Pliant to all probing,
Heckling and rejection,
As I extend arabesque;
I survive in between the words,
A sort of moist resistance,
Easily penetrated and ever
Yielding but I cannot be caught
Or pinned down; it is my way out
Do I have your attention yet?
And why is more always needed?
(1) from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
