Thursday, August 16, 2012

Brought to you by the Finest in Dentistry

Futility is just an excuse for people who can't admit they want to give up.

She said "I don't mean to burst your bubble", pausing a moment to re-apply her lipstick to the tumbler siphoning gin down her throat. "But isn't it a bit unrealistic to want to be a career artist?"

"I mean, it's nice as a hobby, but you need to face facts and get a real job."

I feel a twitch at the back of my neck. It's the physical reaction I get when my mind stores something for an upcoming poem.

And in most cases...I would let it slide. I'd semi-seclude myself in a happy place and nod away the moments of this person reciting an empirical grocery list of failed artistry. I would confine myself in the bubble that she so convincingly assured me she did not mean to burst.

But this time...this time there's something about her. Something about the certainty in her voice clashing with the uncertainty in her eyes. Something about the wretched-dagger stilettos that look as though they were designed for nothing -but- bubble-bursting. Something about how her teeth are just too...fucking...perfect...

I ask her name.
She tells me.
I then ask the name of the actress portraying her.

"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. What is the name of the actress portraying Shelley?"

She looks at me like my third head has just grown a fourth head.
Clearly she doesn't understand.

"Because, Shelley. This. All this. This is a facade. It is a farce, a fractured figmentation of SOMEONE's concept of reality. See, I know your secret, Shelley. I know that you are an artist as well. You are a damn good actress portraying this caricature of life, and your practiced motions are so subtle, that we would pass them off as ideosyncracies. Notice, how you clear your throat each time you cross your legs. Notice that you swirl that G&T twice, counter-clockwise before sipping, so the ice hitting the side of the glass will be as sharp and loud as it can be. Every part of you is practiced, primped and prepared for the world around you to see and accept.

"The amount of falsehood you exhale out of that prize-winning smile, that is the culmination of what you would deem a 'real' job. And you're right. No amount of blood and spit on a stage can match that level of reality. I just can't say that I want to be a part of it."

"But the best part, Shelley, is that you spit these foundationless concerns, verbal bullets of envy in compassion's clothing, because it's easier than accepting that I have the courage to chase dreams around blind corners, while you, in your arrow-path hallway can see all of the nowhere you're going. You're losing touch with the character you're playing, because you're handing me this advice like you're my mother, and you just want what's best for me. But my mother KNOWS what's best for me. That's why she says "Daniel, I am so proud of you.""

Hopping off my stool, I pay the bartender for Shelley's next round.

I felt I owed her. Being an artist is thirsty work, and here she had just written my next poem for me.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Orpheus in Decline

It was the kind of music that painted the image of eyes running with blood, having dried up the tear ducts long ago.
His was a home of dust and non-life, built with perfect acoustic resonance in a time when the world clambered to hear each note he struck. Cursed melodies now poisoning the air, making willows of the forest surrounding.

Folk would say "Follow the forest until you find the gray leaves. That's where Orpheus lives."

And there he sits, and plays. Growing his melancholy patch. Lyre fused to his hands by mud and grit, strings caked in filth, seeping and infecting stale, slashed fingertips.

Songs soar out like carrion birds, like life-seeking missiles, tongue twitch, flex, spit, and bitter lyrics sharpen the teeth of this now fanged minstrel.

Though keen his voice, his image is a reflection of the Hell he traversed. Face lost in matted hair, fingernails obscene in their hues, cracked and jagged from striking strings - his skeletal body occasionally visible through holes in the rags we would once have called finery.

"Eurydice"

Her name escapes his lips at last, the inevitable destination of his daily ritual.

He no longer weeps or shivers at the sound of those syllables, though he manages with one voice to deliver them with a polyphonic weight

He plays now, forgoing sustenance or any idea of care. He plays as punishment.

He failed her.

When asp's venom took her on their wedding day, he sang sorrow, played truth from his lyre
And the underworld wept for having claimed her
Hades, in unprecedented sympathy granted Orpheus his opportunity to bring her back
"Play your song, little Orpheus. She will follow you above."
The sadistic stipulation stated that were Orpheus to look back and see her before emerging
She would be lost forever.

And when his patience broke, and his head turned back, he gazed upon the last image of her face he would see

And he read disappointment. In his mind, her lips spoke "You have failed me" Before her visage evaporated, and he was left alone.

Orpheus descended into hell to retrieve his love. Only his body made it back out.

She was the dance that made his music necessary
The harmonizing beauty that paired so correctly to his melody

And her absence has left rust on his strings, locked notes out of key

But he plays for her, and will continue to do so until they are reunited

Until then, he simply, slowly crumbles.