Tuesday 27 December 2011

Changing room

I was munching on Christmas cookies,  
when the talented Mama Zen handed the personal challenge baton to me.  
Here is my response to her prompt:
if everything was different  




paint the day in lavender black
burnishing hair in purple night
bold as your lacquered nails,
tip tapping along window's edge 

close your dark crow eyes tight
imagining the room bare of clothes,
mirrors changing faces, and 
polished floor reflecting you, just you

for once

instead of spraying the walls all white
creamy and dazzling for other people, 
rearranging furniture, spotless clean
until you are a pale shadow lamp

that once wanted to burn
both ends of the yellow taper candle,
while replaying the short grainy film of
you, wrapped in your lover's rapture

the first

in black and white frames, 
the yearning in your bosom stirs,
churning your belly’s gut sideways,

you rip away maple leafed wallpaper,  
tilt the domed ceiling closer to Pacific sky,
lie on native bamboo bed, unspooled,

if everything was different, 

i want to live


me       



Author's Note:   Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads :  Personal Challenge.
MZ gave me a wide berth to tackle this challenge.  To help me make it more concrete, I used metaphors, colours and contrasts, tools I have learned over the past months.   
Shared with my wonderful friends at D'verse Poets Pub:   OpenLinkNight - every Tuesday at 3pm EST.   


picture credit:  here

38 comments:

  1. Ahh... this is beautiful... rich with such vivid images. Ripping away the wallpaper... I like that.

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  2. Ripping everything away until nothing is left but you. That is so nice to do. Truly a wonderful retort to the challenge you gave. As it will be all the rave.

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  3. This is a tour de force. I came over here to read it again :)
    I love the two opening stanzas so much - such unique imagery to implode upon the imagination.

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  4. Thanks for the kind and encouraging words...I appreciate it ~

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  5. very cool...love all the visuals heaven...and the ripping away to just you...i know it has been pointed out but that is lovely...oh you got the skills...smiles.

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  6. love everything about this - the form, the colours and all the sensuous details that give us this image of change, changing self - wonderful conclusion

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  7. you have reason to the challenge magnificently! this is wonderful!

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  8. Fantastic play on the image, for sure! Like the structure and the play with font as well. Wonderful share! Hope you enjoyed your holidays! Here's to a bigger and better 2012 :)

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  9. very very beautiful
    and yes.I agree :)
    but do go easy.not very good at these

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  10. instead of spraying the walls all white...do things for other people until the self is no longer visible.. i much like the way you go here grace - living you - that's a good thing to do

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  11. As I commented on the Toads site, this poem really has your "signature" all over it. It's wonderfully descriptive, beautiful in its physicality. I think many of us can relate to its theme.

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  12. So beautiful and vividly delightful.

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  13. Really good Write. The isolated lines are both purposeful and integral. I am a sucker for a good isolated line, love it. Lots of really fine lines in here, images are strong. Great Job Heaven. Thanks

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  14. wrapped in your lover's rapture...
    and everything else
    just capturing asnd magically beautiful
    happy New Year my dear Heaven

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  15. this piece is full of texture... great write

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  16. Yes..to be just you & not what anyone else wants you to be...lovely words and metaphors. Happy New Year :)

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  17. FIRST words to grab me...Wrapped in rapture (I like 'words'!)

    But then, reading again, the colors, shapes descriptions "grainy film" movie, 'unspooled' on bamboo bed--WOW!

    Never surprised by your posts, Heaven. Because I anticipate and expect excellence. (And NEVER disappointed--grin!)

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  18. "polished floor reflecting you, just you" I LOVE this!!!!

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  19. We humans do tend to be multi layed beings. Sometimes some people never do show their authentic selves at all.
    This is lovely. You rose to MZ's challenge well.

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  20. Very cool. Wonderful. K .

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  21. Oh my gosh. You completely took my breath away. I could almost cry over this expression of self-yearning, which I'm drowning in these days. We all want to find ourselves and live ourselves, don't we?

    I think this is the best poem I've ever read of yours. You are a phenomenal poet.

    ~Shawna
    (rosemarymint.wordpress.com)

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  22. the yummiest lines:

    "paint the day in lavender black
    burnishing hair in purple night"

    "imagining the room bare of clothes"

    "until you are a pale shadow lamp
    that once wanted to burn"

    "churning your belly’s gut sideways"

    ~Shawna
    (rosemarymint.wordpress.com)

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  23. You definitely rose to the challenge here, heaven--a very striking poem full of ideas with weight and substance, images wispy and light as smoke. The tension and the feeling in the first four stanzas is strong and washes over the reader, and the ending with its sense of a final surrender to self is striking.

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  24. strip everything away that doesn't matter and write and live you...
    the pale shadow lamp that once wanted to burn... such great imagery.

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  25. A truly delightful read!
    Loved this Heaven!


    Happy New Year, wishing you a wonderful New year!

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  26. Its beautiful and vivid and evolving... like a painting you have put your words and form.... lovely...


    Shashi
    ॐ नमः शिवाय
    Om Namah Shivaya
    http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/12/whisper-no-one-is-there-in-living-haiku.html
    At Twitter @VerseEveryDay

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  27. In the end, it's all just an extension of you, i suppose. Excellent write.

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  28. Well, I have to say that the picture held me up for quite a while, but once I got past that I was enthralled in a quite different way.

    Two joys in the one post, Oh joy!

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  29. P.S.
    That Mama Zen does draw the best out of people!

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  30. This is so polished, so perfectly honed. This is one of my very favorite of yours. I think you took the challenge over the top...the effect of each stanza is cumulative. Great work on this one. Happy New Year! Keep up the good work in 2012.

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  31. Love this, Heaven. Beautiful!

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  32. this is magnificent - what a journey through the what ifs of self-discovery and ultimately, coming to truly love who we are.

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  33. Heaven, this is a work of art. One of your best poems yet. How stunning the imagery is! I was there in the room. The message was powerful - I want to live! Yes!

    Have posted linky for Ties That Bind for those who may wish to post early and get on with New Year's celebrations.

    Happy New Year!

    Denise

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  34. Beautifully written... There were several lines that caught my attention, a very vivid write Heaven...

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  35. I also wanted to wish you a Happy New year...

    Peace,
    1ManView ...

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  36. That whole ripping away really stuck with me, too. Fantastic. This whole piece is filled with a lot of wonderful! Very nice indeed! Oh, and happy holidays to you as well :)

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