Dominique Hecq # 10 Letter to a bride to be: a provocation

Letter to a bride to be 

Thank you for sharing with me the newest (yet quite retro) issue of Vogue Bridal Patterns. I love that off-white shot silk you brought back from your travels and think it would suit your complexion perfectly. It looks much better than the Nora white organza. It’s also a tribute to your integrity and I hope I’m not reading too much into your choice of colour. But before you start making the dress, I urge you to indulge in a little intertextual journey around your maiden room, if I may say so, for I'm not sure you know on what galère you are embarking. Mark my words. I don't mean gondola, or anything romantic, but galley, a low, flat ship with one or more sails (glad you opted for a visor instead of a veil) and up to three banks of oars worked by slaves. First, as an artist, you must re-read Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott’ against the grain. Then turn to Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Gentleman of Shalott' and Jessica Anderson's Tirra Lirra by the River. I studied both in year twelve (wish I'd paid more attention). Finally, and this may surprise you, especially coming from me, read Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, a work your father drew on to devise our home. Deep down, I now think Ibsen understood the difference between need and desire; desire and love; love and lust. Your father would disagree, of course, but I would maintain that Ibsen was really a proto-feminist writer. Wink. One last thing: beware of identifications. With two (anti)heroines bearing your Christian name, you wouldn’t want to become unduly hystericised. Much love. X 

Kerri Shying R # 3 "no understanding comes to us like rain". responding to Kit Kelen "Elevenses"

Kerri Shying R # 3 responding to Kit Kelen "Elevenses"

first cry of rain dark past midnight   made mud against the walls

of my heart inadequate   to the full tilt of the  fall   scent

of dirt   narrow up the airways   smile   the way the ventolin

makes a thud thud  at the centre of the chest   at the cortex

of the brain   wash me down the river   clean   so strong

no understanding comes to us like rain

as stoppered in the bottle of our childhood

pleasure  as the perfume   of Nan’s hankie

Pop’s hat   the hay smell of clean guinea pigs

the fresh bite of the mulberry leaves  in the box

as you carried them home in the shoebox determined to make silk

Kit Kelen #20 - a provocation (especially for Kerri) - the elevenses

20

a provocation

(especially for Kerri Shying)

instruction piece and example

1

a new form, as follows - begin with no clue

given away - no signpost upfront - you're

in media res - rhyme from here to the second half...

in the real deal there will be content - it's just now

we come to the title, as if we'd followed on a trail

I call this kind of poem an elevenses

or maybe a middling - what do you think?

these are the instructions, follow to letter as delivered

(like ancient opium in poppy jars) - five above and five

below, there's a title holds the centre, around which

fulcrum poem pivots your telling truth today

...

now we come to the example -

2

first of a fire past daylight saving, shake aches,

stretch forth and later trundle - season of webs

spun or up with a kettle call - sit the garden then,

spoiled for choice and later more seats to make

but elevenses! sign up this sun for charioteer

so heaven comes to its great height

at which pinch afternoon gets on, it's leaf first fall

each for a self (trolley brings tiffin too) - sit for

the all-mown pond gold, watch the walkers beak reeds

up for something swamp and tasty - music you could

make yourself, till stars strum up to shine

Dominique Hecq & Béatrice Machet #4 A FIELD (un champ...)

# 4

Collaboration    Dominique Hecq & Béatrice Machet

A field  (un champ) .....

Un champ planté de diminutifs

pour une course d’obstacles labyrinthique

une idée  bizarre ... comme si le minotaure

                                                         enterré vif

en d'autres lieux,  autres temps 

se réveillait 

tout petiot

une façon de se réinventer un corps

(et) & des architectures internes

une aventure capable de faire

         se ranger les mots

                                           sur la ligne de départ

une façon de s’épanouir ici

& en un bout du monde

un slalom sous-terrain 

          créateur de silence

                                            à l'arrivée

& la rosette rouge & la rosette noire réconciliées

un champ planté de résistance

& d’histoires  & de mines & de  spin… 

doctors qui ne visent pas la guér-ison

                                              la guerre-y-sommes

il suffit de regarder en arrière

il suffit d'écouter

              les vocables se rassembler

                                                   avant

le grand déferlement d'ombres

à travers les couloirs du labyrinthe le plus froid

quand écrire pour ne plus penser

                                                 fait durer

quand penser mène à écrire le dur

                                                 depuis

que le fil d’Ariane

                                s’est  bien cassé

A field growing diminutives

ahead of a race of labyrinthine obstacles

a weird idea  … as if the Minotaur

                                          buried alive

in other places & other times

was stirring

                      as little as a tiny tot

a way of reinventing one’s body

& inner architectures

an adventure capable of having

words standing to attention

on  the starting line

a way of blossoming here

& at one end of the world

is an underground slalom

creator of silence

             on the finishing line

& the red  rosette  & the black one reconciled

a field growing resistance

& stories & landmines & spin …

doctors who don’t aim at war-healing

                                              at war-we-are 

Suffice to look back

suffice to listen

to the gathering  sounds

                              before           

the unbridling of shadows

through the corridors of the coldest labyrinth                                                   

when writing so as not to think allows

                                                   endurance

when thinking leads to penning down things under duress

                                                   since

 Ariadne’s thread

                                has indeed broken

Kit Kelen #19 - every moment for itself - after Magdalena Ball

19

every moment for itself

after Magdalena Ball's #14 - 'in which the fractal divinity'

https://conversationinpoetry.blogspot.com.au/2018/04/magdalena-ball-14-in-which-fractal-of.html

every moment for itself

in a heartbeat, all applause

and we, too, each on own recognisance

bailed in the sinking ark dove brings

by way of snow's affinity

to this cloud-capped scone

so lit, and landed

on all fours

Magdalena Ball #14 In which the fractal of divinity after Michele Seminara #2 - ‘Disperse’

In which the fractal of divinity 
after Michele Seminara #2 - ‘Disperse’

It’s not a shame to watch time
move across your pores, fractals

a blemish is not impure
my fingers outlining your skin at the point

where veins begin to show
a detailed pattern, expanding symmetry

revealing what could only be
proof of change

your heartbeat a butterfly effect
beating at increasingly fine magnification

the fluency, transience
every moment progressing towards disorder

I’m redefining my idea of beauty
of divinity as repetition, the familiar, the self-similar

looking at an invisible point ahead: your drishti
as if you were here, and I could reach out and take

your hands, working their way in and out of
the sink, twisting against the inevitable