Who doesn’t love thread? This work reminds me of how I used to line upthe Mr. Sketch scented markers that were handed out in biology. While we were supposed to be diagraming frogs, I was making rainbow patterns. More of her installations can be found at www.devorahsperber.com.

Thread 

Your scent like a street car
rising with warmth
i feel you between these threads.
Spun yarn, twisted yarn,
blue like the dawn.

January wears black to mourn the past year
with a slow flooding of night that swallows our days.
It is because of February that I wish you were here.

You left before the killing frost first appeared,
and soon all my balcony plants died because the sun never obeys.
January wears black to mourn the past year.

In this biting cold the birds will not come near
the house or the trees, they follow sun south .The winter betrays.
It is because of February. I wish you were here.

What can survive until spring makes its premier?
I hate knowing that everything will grow until it decays
in January. I wear black to mourn the past year.

Leaves wiggle free and fade with your ardor. You fear
by the beginning of summer we will melt into old ways.
It is because of February that I know you are not here.

       See the air steam my whispers but you cannot hear

       words from past seasons ripen and rot to wasted plays.
       January wears black to mourn the past year.
       It is because of February that I wish you were here.

* This is a villanelle, one of the harder verse forms I have tried. The repetitive nature adds to its manic and depressing quality I think. From Wikipedia: A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the late 1800s from the imitation of French models. Nineteen lines long, they are poems written in tercets with only two rhymes, the first and third line of the first stanza alternating as the third line in each successive stanza and forming a couplet at the close. The villanelle has no established meter, although most nineteenth-century villanelles had eight or six syllables per line and most twentieth-century villanelles have ten syllables per line. The essence of the form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition, with only two rhyme-sounds (“a” and “b”) and two alternating refrains that resolve into a concluding couplet.

Leave a comment to join.

it feels like the future,
woven into a tale of regret, hope,
and watching you disentegrate.

i vacuumed up your skin with the sweeper yesterday
you wore blue yarn on your head and chest
and we smiled like we owned the joint.

we ache from falling too fast
we ache from forgetfulness
from too much to remember

like how you lost your favorite shirt in the snow
and how I threw my blouse on the roof in a moment
of rage

how loneliness tastes salty like the ocean
and how I once bought bottled salt from the Mediterranean Sea.
it crunched between our teeth in a way the
dentist would not approve.

touch your toes, you say
so I find your neck and take hold
for dear life,
for the past I cannot remember
and the black abyss of tomorrow.

by dacia

These constructions make me feel uncomfortable. I imagine them sitting on surgical tables in a stark, white room that you have to scrub your hands with Comet and metal bristles to enter. Reminiscent of the body, they also have a certain warmth to them. Is it the shadows? The familiar devices used in the works? The pink/sepia hints in the photography? They’re interesting nonetheless.  <a href=”http://www.ellengarvens.com/”>Ellen Garvens</a> teaches at the University of Washington.

Do you ever have days where its as if you are living in a bubble? People talk with you, they chat, ask you about your day. Coworkers talk about work things and give you work papers. And yet you feel totally inaccessible to the world around you, the world is inaccessible to you. Its a feeling of intense separateness. Yesterday was one of those days and finally, in the middle of the afternoon I just had to escape the confines of the office and I practically ran to the Yale library, a refuge. I thought it would feel comfortable and familiar, but I had forgotten that I don’t know the Yale library that well and once inside, I was actually pretty lost. But I finally found the stacks, which are tightly squeezed together and dark. You have to turn on each stack light individually to see the books, it is all so dark. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, I had just finished a book on the train that morning, “I’ll Take You There” by Joyce Carol Oats, which was hard and somewhat emotionally difficult. Finishing the book was like waking up from a dream. Moving through the stacks I realized that the smell of the books was familiar and comforting and I had an intense to desire to take books home with me. Possessions to keep, if only for a little while. The feeling of having no money was intense for me yesterday, so perhaps this desire to possess came from there. I don’t know. But I found myself only looking for books written by women, which was very much in response to this feeling of separateness.

“Perhaps she will understand”
“Perhaps she will speak to me and my life”

….this mysterious female voice who knows all

I finally came to the work of Elizabeth Bowen, whom I know as a writer from the 60s and 70s who has a book on every “Top 100 Novels of All Time” list, called “The Death of the Heart”. I don’t know what what it is about, but it seemed right in the moment. Maybe it would speak to me. Speak to my life in some way. Sort of the age old fantasy of wanting to be understood. And then I thought that maybe you were between books as well and maybe you want to read this book together and then have a “book club”. I have never been part of one, but it could be a fun blogging conversation. If not with this book, then another perhaps? What do you think?

*aja

The first thing he said was, “So, you told her about the coin toss.” And, I said, “No. I forgot about that, you asshole.” Thus, the story of the flip.

It was fall of 2001 and Ryan and I had been dating for about a year. Despite his adamant behavior in the beginning (telling me he thought he loved me after our first kiss, leaving presents on my doorstep, calling me every day), after a year of flushed cheeks, less than a moment apart, he took me to the park in a moment of despair. He had choices before him–settling down or the partying lifestyle to which he was accustomed. We sat there, in the chilly fall air with the heater running. There were a few late lillies blooming on the bush closest to the car, and in a moment of escapism, I left the car to pick one, dying from frostbite. It resided in a notebook of mine for years (the move to New York cleared many things out).

That night, after hours of talking, reminding him of how he said he loved me, he was faced with a decision: choose me, or not. Choose to settle, or choose to go to shows. Choose to love himself, or a family. Do you know what he did? He took a nickel out of his pocket and said, “If it’s heads, we’ll stay together.” Two flips later, two tails later, and many moments of delayed response, he said, “Maybe we should stay together.”

Either a forgiving lover or a sad sap, I forgave him. I loved him. I married him, despite the flip.

I love all things arty and bookish. Su Blackwell combines these two loves. I think I have a new artist crush.

She is from the UK and works predominantly with clothes and books to create these dreamy, melancholy sculptures. Why are children’s books so mysterious to me? They remind me of an old self.

More of Su here.