Advice From The Fortune Teller
"Look up to jump," the gypsy calls.
"It's how you fly instead of fall.
It's a long way down, that last bump,
so fly your eyes like starlings brawl.
That's how you miss the awkward thump,"
the gypsy calls."Look up to jump."
She's jumped before. I try to trust
my heavy wings of wax and rust,
the sky my boat, the wind my oar,
my feathers eyes above earth's crust
cast floating up and sent to soar.
I try to trust. She's jumped before.
But then I see she smiles and smiles
at birds stitched high on cloudy miles
at knifing rocks that slice the sea,
carving waves like bladed turnstiles.
"Just look up and finally be free."
She smiles and smiles, but then I see.
February 2022
posted for dVerse Poets
(for a complete description of this quirky little form, see above, where Grace is hosting)
Images ; The Fortune Tellar, 1933, © Brassai Fair Use
Floating Woman, photomanipulation © Phillip Igumnov Fair Use
Smiling faces sometimes they don't tell the truth, as the old song says. Most advice is suspect, I find, and has more to do with the giver than the receiver. This increases exponentially with how tangential the advice giver is to a person's heart. Those who truly know us simply remind us about our true selves. Gypsies are in it for the coin, and are all the more to be doubted. they'll have moved on already before the advice turns out to be bogus. Into this same bag I stuff evangelists and self help gurus.
ReplyDelete"wings of wax and rust" is such a fine phrase. I could just see them crumbling as I read. Kudos to you for whipping this confusing (to me) form into shape, Joy. Then again, no magic that you do with words should surprise me--I've been watching your acrobatics for years and if anyone can make language fly, it's you, dear BFF.
Thank you Shay. I love a good, twisty, ridiculously weird form, it's true. And call me bitter and cynical, but I don't believe in happy talk, from fortune tellers or their self-serving kin, as you list them. Everyone is a mystery, especially were motives are concerned.
Delete"I try to trust
ReplyDeletemy heavy wings of wax and rust" really resonates with me. I'm not an unquestioning fan of Freud or any other guru/gypsy I've chosen to follow, but I'm on board with his belief in the vital first stage of development, trust vs. mistrust, and what happens to the house of cards when that bit gets messed up right away. I'm ok with not trusting anyone or anything, even myself. I take more the long view on trust, where percentages will sway one way or another over time. So far I'm probably balanced in the middle for myself and the see-saw varies widely with others.
I admire how you can tell a story within the limits of the form, and keeping the rhyming pattern too. Its really up to us to weigh what others tell us, to jump or not, to fly or fall. I love the second stanza part too:
ReplyDeletemy heavy wings of wax and rust,
the sky my boat, the wind my oar,
Have a good weekend!!!!
We must all grow our own wings in our own ways.
ReplyDeleteEntranced by this, by the way you used the form to narrate the tale, and the tale itself, full of parables, but it is the first/last line in the last stanza, and how you played with it that was particularly masterful, or even more than that..
ReplyDeleteThis weird, twisty form may have been invented just for YOU ... it certainly seems that way, Joy!!!! I had a furious neckache simply attempting it.
ReplyDeleteA beautifully well-crafted poem! Yes, we should always take such advice with a several grains of salt.
ReplyDeleteI also admire, "my heavy wings of wax and rust,"
I read this challenge and thought, who could find wings in a corset like this? And lo, this feather ripe for the falling. 'Tis demonically ripe and ripping. I heard Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" as I read, meticulous with the fretwork in inlay with this ten ton klaxon lying in wait behind. Leave it to the pros to manage stuff like this in cossets of fire. Well done, Hedge.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. Glad you could get into it (though perhaps not the corset--that's not your style. ;) )Your comments are always appreciated. As long as my corsets and/or cossets do not actually catch fire, I'll be happy.
DeleteExcellent composition that met the challenge of the form.
ReplyDeleteThis is so well done on the form, I admire it, and it made me think of Icarus... maybe we should trust just enough to land safely...
ReplyDeleteWow, Joy! So good!
ReplyDelete-David [ben Alexander]
http://skepticskaddish.com/
to me, timeless - effortless, the kind of rhyme that worms its way in and keeps going; the kind of rhyme that makes one re-read and exclaim, a-ha!, because you've used the form instead of letting it use you. ~
ReplyDelete