Woman on a Brick Wall -- RONE
From in the shadow she calls
And in the shadow she finds a way
And in the shadow she crawls
Clutching her faded photograph
My image under her thumb
Yes, with a message from my heart
- Tori Amos
The day lights up, cold and blue. Cloudless.
Wings unfolding.
The light gives birth to a woman’s face, plastered onto brick,
watching the streets with two narrow eyes like bisected almonds that drip
faint streaks of branching red below. And she has seen
enough.
For this, she is weeping.
The great mystery of the decade:
no one knows where the red comes from,
or who created it. I wonder
if the sky above us sliced and carved up by electric lines
is responsible for the red dripping down
her cheeks; or if the artist imagined her crying blood
against her stark, white paper skin;
or if someone was smashed and plastered against the wall
in a moment of wayward, burning ball bright passion
loud enough to blind and wielding bullet, knife, or fist.
Either way, she is weeping.
The great mystery of the decade.
There is a street with her name,
and a street with my name,
and a street with your name, too. There are countries
where names are blackened and only the i’s show, small dotted,
the whispers of curves and lips and truncated alphabets. There are
places where names are nothing and bodies are everything. There are
places where a face is a broken commandment
and a body is a forgotten joy now regulated to gardens to which no one
holds a map.
But a face on a brick wall is everything.
Not to peddle perfume, or soda, or cigarettes. Not to dangle fine jewels
or barely whispered clothes from. This one
exists for her own sake,
an audience of one where there would be none.
And she is weeping
the great mystery of the decade.
Written 3/21/11 and 3/22/11
© 2011 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem was written for We Write Poems Prompt #46: Street Art. It was a prompt I suggested, using the above photo which is a piece by RONE, a street artist from Melbourne, Australia. After pondering the picture for a while, this is what I came up with. Oh yeah, and thanks to Tori for some inspiration.
-Nicole
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Stumble It!
That last stanza is powerful, full of such wonderful imagery and ideas. My favorite is: “places where a face is a broken commandment”.
“There are places where names are nothing and bodies are everything.” I love that line, Nicole.
A beautifully written piece.
Pamela
Nicole, I must confess, whenever I come here, I am inspired in so many ways. Your last lines here make me think of a possible prompt, but then many of your lines have that affect on me. Your poems are like a garden of small greening sprouts, each a promise of its own well kept secret. Thank you for being exactly who you are,
Elizabeth
a body is a forgotten joy now regulated to gardens to which no one
holds a map.
Love that. Like how you aggrandized her tears with “the great mystery of the decade”, as it speaks to me with the truth of the mystery of other people’s lives or more particularly woman’s tears.
[...] Woman [...]
Nicole, This poem is beautifully constructed. I love the exploration of red dripping down her face. You create layers of images that astound me.
~Brenda
<> This just stops me with the reverberations of the wording and the last line here..she has seen enough. Some times I think the same of myself; of all those that have been hurt.
Lots of mystery here , too. Nothing like it. Kudos!
The light gives birth to a woman’s face, plastered onto brick,
watching the streets with two narrow eyes like bisected almonds that drip
faint streaks of branching red below. And she has seen
enough.
Sorry, I really messed this response up. I didn’t mean to use your words without quotes and certainly didn’t mean to repeat the words at the end. Some days are like this one where I shock myself by what I do. LOL
It’s kind of a random thing to pick out, but I really liked how “the great mystery of the decade” changed from stanza to stanza, until at the end it is something physical trickling down her cheeks. A splendid new mythology… thank you for the prompt!
(And thanks for the Tori Amos, as well. ^_^)
First, thanks for the Tori Amos; that has already given me a poem.
I like the refrain, and the way eyes evolve into “I”s . Maybe it’s me, but it seems more like a song, a ballad, kind of loose-jointed and raconteurish. Especially in the way you address the reader in the streets section. nice