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The Blog Bog
The Mag Rack
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HAVEN'T YOU EVER WANTED TO USE THE WORD INDIGO?
the way it rolls off your tongue, blue,
mysterious. It's rather old fashioned tho
but when you run out of words for the
blues, doesn't indigo give it a little
class? Then, I think of Millay with her
indigo buntings, curled on the same
velvet couches I have tho they've been
re-covered, not indigo but a chocolate
brown. One visitor stopping at Steepletop
in Edna's last years mentioned how
shabby the sofas were. I think how
Vincent gave up her velvets, lovers, drugs
for the stillness. Except for the buntings.
But I digress. Indigo. I had to listen to
The Indigo girls, found I liked their name
better. I'd like to say I found the metaphor
to cinch this poem, to pull any reader
into Indigo ecstasy when I found some
E Mail about the film Indigo Children
but when I put the name on Google,
what I read lacked all iridescent blue,
that startling hypnotic glistening. Less
there than the marine's startling icy eyes,
indigo jolting as sequins from deep under
ground as my real life pales
lyn lifshin
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HAVEN'T YOU WANTED, SOMETIMES TO
walk into some painting, start a new
life? The quiet blues of Monet would
soothe but I don't know how long I'd
want to stay there. Today I'm in the
mood for something more lively,
say Lautrec's Demimonde. I want
that glitter, heavy sequin nights.
You take the yellow sunshine for
tonight. I want the club scene
that takes you out all night. Come
on, wouldn't you, just for a night or
two? Gaslights and absinthe, even
the queasy night after dawn. Wouldn't
you like to walk into Montmartre
where everything you did or
imagined doing was de rigueur,
pre-Aids with the drinkers and
artists and whores? Don't be so P.C.,
so righteous you'd tell me you haven't
imagined this? Give me the Circus
Fernando, streets where getting stoned
was easy and dancing girls kick high.
It's just the other side of the canvas,
the thug life, a little lust. It was good
enough for Van Gogh and Lautrec,
Picasso. Can't you hear Satie on the
piano? You won't be able to miss
Toulouse, bulbous lips, drool. Could
you turn down a night where glee
and strangeness is wide open? Think
of Bob Dylan leaving Hibbing. A little
decadence can't hurt. I want the swirl
of cloth under changing colored lights,
nothing square, nothing safe, want to
can can thru Paris, parting animal
nights, knees you can't wait
to taste flashing
lyn lifshin
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THOSE APRILS, THOSE SHOWERS
Nothing would be less shall we call it what it is, a cliché
than April in Paris. But this poem got started with some
thing I don't think I could do but it reminded me of
Aprils and then three magazines came with Paris
on the cover. Sometimes I'm amazed at all the places
I'm not, lets say Paris since actually it's only March
but in the magazines they are at outdoor cafes which
must be quite chilly now. And I forgot the cigarette
smoke, until I see many in the photographs are holding
what I'm sure isn't a pen. I wondered how they can
always be eating, biting and licking something sweet
and still have the most gorgeous bodies. I wonder too
how my friend, once an actress, so maybe that's a
clue, could dress up in scanty, naughty, as she puts it
clothes for her husband while I am sitting here in
baggy jeans and torn sweatshirts. I'm wondering if it's
because he's lost his job and she is trying to cheer him up.
I began thinking of Paris when she described the umbrella
she decorated with drops of rain, how she just wore
a garter belt under it. I thought of tear shaped drops of
rain I made for the Junior Prom's April in Paris,
long before I felt the wind thru my hair on Pont Neuf.
It's there in the photograph which I hope is more
original than the idea of the photograph because
I plan to use it on my next book. I wish I could feel
what she must, dolled up, trying to soothe this
man and getting off on it. As for me, only
imagining you, the one with fingers on me,
holding me on the page of a book
could make me as excited
lyn lifshin
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