Growing up with parents who navigated through eight languages made it important to try and master one. The dictionary led to further reading and finally to poetry. How do you tell a story in a few well chosen words? Can those words be music to the ears? How does the structure of a poem lead you to ambivalence and to consider meaning? What messages are embedded in the work? So many questions and so much to play with. Edie has Adv. Dip. MAPS, B.A., M.A. Fine Arts.
Chanel
Why does she think I should move from the heater?
That flick of the hand meant as direction-
Go.
Excuse me!
I parry with a haughty elongation of my neck
The best of Mannerist Art combined with a
Slow reveal of Egyptian profile,
History speaks.
No eye contact, the model of élan.
Ah, that threat again
She’ll make fluffy slippers of me.
Ha!
My coat is much too purr-fect
More Haute Couture than mange.
Short fur of broken charcoal stripes
On a dusky grey background
A high gloss making it,
Suitable for evening wear.
Anyway,
It’s all pretence.
She needs me to keep her hands busy
Her mind in neutral as she strokes my warm body,
Her feeler fingers allow me to send hope to her heart.
It’s not remission – it’s gone.
When You Left
When you left you gave me no gift
to reason out the story of our lives.
When you left
I carried the suitcase of my grief
through the history of my life.
When you left
I carried the weight
of all the Diasporas
through the misery of my life.
When you left you gave me more
than I ever wanted.
Magnolia
Tight buds of white flame
Reaching to the sky,
juvenile.
Youth’s fast march now tempered
Maturity allows the slow unfolding.
Velvet thick with scent,
Seduction now wafts inducement,
lingering.
The halt of memories fine embrace
Captured prisoner in a vial of glass.
Perfume meant to entice
Lies forgotten.
Fallen petals,
Aged and withered.