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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Tinies no. 3

Here's another in a series of word doodles made during the months devoted to award reading (June-Sept 15), when I had (and have) little time for myself... Click on the "Tinies" label below if you would like to read from the beginning, or else scroll down.

If you want to see my 2012 publications, please check out the tabs above for the novel, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (Mercer), winner of The Ferrol Sams Award, and the just-out collection of poetry, The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press), with art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins and design by Andrew Wakelin, both of Wales. Limited edition. Forthcoming from Phoenicia Publishing in Montreal is a long poem, Thaliad, also with artwork by Clive.
REKNEL

Reknel is Omin’s other self: that is how they say wife or husband in this country. Where Omin is thin and big-headed like the stripped bones of a fish, Reknel is plump as a pastry wrapped around cream. Where Omin travels endlessly, letting down his lines into the ocean, Reknel stays moored at home.

She goes nowhere, sees nothing. She drifts from the cleaning board outside where she scrapes and guts the fish that Omin brings home to the outdoor pit where she roasts the flesh.

And yet Reknel knows—she lets down her line and catches the shadow of thoughts, lets them harden into silhouettes that she holds to the light. Her thoughts swim around her like black fish. She sits in the midst of a great and complex mobile of visible thought. I see the thinking run across her face like light.

She says that this world is just my world, folded an extra time.

I’m still pondering what that might mean.

3-4 July 2012

9 comments:

  1. Catching "the shadow of thoughts" - love this and all of it. A big story in just a few lines, such is the power of your wordcrafting, Marly. Which is what I was thinking at 3:00 a.m, again, as I near the end of your fab Raven Mockers.

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  2. Insomnia? I just told Beth that winged worry-worms were mining and fluttering in my brain all night. Not much sleep.

    Then I forgot my NBA conference call because I was reading....

    Now going out to lunch with two painter friends, if I can only get ready.

    I liked your shadows as well!

    Glad you liked CRM and the Tiny.

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  3. She says that this world is just my world, folded an extra time.

    Love that.

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  4. There's lot to love about this, Marly. I especially like the black fish, and the pastry wrapped around cream!

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  5. I see a whole book of these "prose poems" emerging, linked to each other. Wonderful!

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  6. phooey--just typed 2 paragraphs and forgot to copy em before trying to decipher the 2 words which apparently I failed to decipher.884 odrafa Again.

    I want to say that this endeavor of your has inspired me to start writing poems again (I used to call these "15-minute poems," although I always spend more than 15 minutes to get the final product. Anyway, I love this poem--and I'm not a bot!

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  7. Can we now have a story about the winged worry worms? Those sound delightfully terrifying.

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  8. Dale,

    John Wilson, who is an editor of wide reading, left me a tweet about that line. Perhaps I will think about it a bit more, later in the series (or whatever this is.)

    Beth,

    Thank you. Had already forgotten the pastry... Typical me.

    Robbi,

    Who knows, who knows... Noodling, doodling.

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  9. Alisa,

    That's an excellent idea. I'll have to toss them in somewhere. They'd fit this realm pretty well. At the moment they fit my head, alas.

    Mary B.,

    I am honored to have started you off again!

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Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.