Empale the embalmer's hand. The instrument of my
Voice, or rather, a bird in hand with a doll's eye
Lies bristling besides, the fiber bought for it, and generous
Layers of animal glue applied. After the horn is trimmed
Away, add watch crystal, a tin heart, turquoise... Talk
Away with whatever form the evening might take.
Perhaps the above is the product (a funny, perhaps inappropriate word for the shorthand my mind makes) of an article about an antique hand trepan, a Shannon Wright song I've replayed all evening (play count: 20 and counting) and a box of miscellaneous tiles uncovered and carried back from a hardware resale shop. And yes, I viewed a strangely beautiful film about an obsessive dwarf perfecting taxidermy in gritty Naples: The Embalmer. Watch on Netflix.
To some light-dealing demiurge, or to No..One in particular...A vessel for a minor malady
There’s no cure so why should I care
You have fled into this blackness
In this sling I must contain
You use your force
To comfort my trembling hands
And fold them aside
These hued eyes
They have sent
The longest beatings
The hour bows
To seek some light
With golden strings
You construct this wheel
With your threads of argentine
3 comments:
"Our trip through Mexico had already lasted a week. A few days earlier, in Tepotzotlán, in a restaurant whose tables were set among the orange trees of another convent's cloister, we had savored dishes prepared (at least so we were told) according to traditional recipes of the nuns. We had eaten tamal de elote--a fine semolina of sweet corn, that is, with ground pork and very hot pepper, all steamed in a bit of cornhusk--and then chiles en nogada, which were reddish brown, somewhat wrinkled little peppers, swimming in a walnut sauce whose harshness and bitter aftertaste were drowned in a creamy, sweetish surrender." "The Jaguar Sun" by Italo Calvino from the September 5, 1983 issue of The New Yorker
In recollecting The Embalmer (2003), I have an entirely different insight into the meaning. I am shocked by it, now. The notion of introducing the chaos of a third person into a relationship is anathema to me. That is worse that being alone. I have felt this way since the death of my grandparents, who consumed much of my free time, which is not a bad thing, but I felt that their care in my youth merited this kind of devotion. I want a spouse and family to consume my energy, and not to be adrift in the marketplace. While you are liberal, you are actually a very conservative person in your emotional expression. I knew that about you when I first saw you.
I remember the first thing you said to me, when I eluded you and just showed up to class, was that I had an inverted triangular physique.You mentioned it in a very offhand way, which is to say, not a direct statement. No one had ever pointed that out to me, so I was surprised.
The strategy, then, is to proceed without the assumption that anything is given.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Golden_Thread_How_Fabric_Changed_His/VweLDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Golden+Thread+Kassia+St.+Clair&printsec=frontcover
This album cover from Shannon Wright (2009) imitates this, Forbidden Fruit (1961).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Fruit_(Nina_Simone_album)#/media/File%3ANinasimoneforbiddenfruit.jpg
It has imitators, and I am amused to learn that a copy at the nearest location near me is the Virginia Military Institute's Preston Library:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Bent_Backwards_over_the_Grass#/media/File%3ALana_Del_Rey_-_Violet_Bent_Backwards_Over_the_Grass.png
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