Tag: delicate access

 
        The first appearance was a pair of tall pants that came all the way
from Germany, with two fashionable legs of beige suede standing up a strong and tender woman,
and the balance of beauty was wanted

                                                     instead of Maine teenage
      faces foundationed a false brown, and Imedeened Hong Kong women lightening
      their born color, not to be touched, just looked at, like
                  an advertisement for a certain chosen future

                                                                        not found in the house’s one hundred
and twenty seven shelves of careful literature, some Southern, most modern, and the
contemporary having creamy pages, thick, the edges feathered, pretending
              to be just as natural

                              as a trillion grains of policed sand in Santa Monica and Rio de Janiero,
two open oceans trying to bring answers to people with or without money, homes,
                 minds – no poverty, begging, allowed

                                                              in the anytime clicking of mah jongg on the table,
eight hands moving the batter, wild cards, private line drawings, and following
          the boxy ivory or plastic tiles go where they go

                                                                                                                  like a lover, traveling
along the body, making a home, rich as Indian tea, empty as sunned bamboo.

Poet’s note: Imedeen: a beauty product to lighten skin

Credit note: This poem is from Madeleine M. Slavick’s collection “delicate access”, poems in English with translations into Chinese by Luo Hui, and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Madeleine M. Slavick is a writer and photographer. Madeleine has several books of poetry and non-fiction and has exhibited her photography internationally. She has lived in Germany, Hong Kong, the USA, and New Zealand. She maintains a daily blog: touchingwhatilove.blogspot.com – and Madeleine has a witty visual reference to “Beige Keeps Being Born” on her blog here: http://touchingwhatilove.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/extras.html.

Her books include Something Beautiful Might Happen (Tokyo, 2010), My Favourite Thing (Beijing and Taipei, 2005), Delicate Access (Hong Kong, 2004), Round – Poems and Photographs of Asia (Hong Kong, 1998) and Fifty Stories, Fifty Images, forthcoming. Her photography has been exhibited in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

“Beige Keeps Being Born” image courtesy of Madeleine M. Slavick.

Tim says: This poem took quite a bit of effort to format, but I think it’s well worth it. I love the elegance of the language and the way the poems twists and turns around its central metaphor and its many vivid images.

You can check out all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog – the hub poem in the middle of the page, and all the other poems in the sidebar on the right.

 
Early night hills move
to profile, wear bushy velvet skirts
with some outcrop warts

Coming closer, five feral cows
chew old rice terraces and step
down the series like a lesson in obedience

Crabs, shy in their uneven saddles,
scurry in grass as dry as newspaper,
their hole in one of these sands

Then boat engines chainsaw
at our thin tent, police angle shouts
into shoulder radios, helicopter lights scan our fear:
A man has disappeared

We hear the myths: a spearfisher
from a dark rock corner, diver and shark,
nightsurfer, swimmer in the undertow
of three great things: night and sea and solitude

We become different lumps of sleep
and wake each time we turn over
The dogs at the next tent sigh

One of us leaves to sleepwalk
and arrives at the wet sounds below,
a beach toppled with the unattached

Where is all the light from anyway?
The sky stays grey
and the tides patient,
rinsing everything out twice a day,
like new parents

Credit note:This poem is from Madeleine M. Slavick’s collection “delicate access”, poems in English with translations into Chinese by Luo Hui, and is reproduced by permission of the author.

Madeleine M. Slavick is a writer and photographer. Madeleine has several books of poetry and non-fiction and has exhibited her photography internationally. She has lived in Germany, Hong Kong, and the USA, and was until recently based in New Zealand. She maintains a daily blog: touchingwhatilove.blogspot.com.

Tim says: I suspect this poem wasn’t written about a night in the New Zealand bush, given the mention of old rice terraces, but it reminds me very much of nights spent outside in the rain in a tent, and mysterious lights that pause and move on. I’m a sucker for a great last line or couplet – this one is wonderful!

You can see all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog – the hub poem in the centre, and all the week’s other poems on the right.