Tuesday, February 9, 2016

©Patent Leather Shoes

Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up by playwright John Powers is a comedy but it "reflects" the subjugation of young girls and the responsibility they were burdened with regarding the harnessing of a young man's running wild hormones —rather than imposing such responsibility on the young men to control their comportment.

There were other warnings young girls were constantly reminded to take heed of.

“Don’t wear pearls...they reflect down.”

“Don’t go to a restaurant where the tables have white table cloths...the (poor dear uncontrollable) boys will be reminded of bed.”

Powers story was written from the perspective of a child and, while a humorous look at life, it Did Not point a finger of blame the way the Catholics did with the young girls.

It’s true that the Catholics thought this way; maybe they do still. In my own experience, I went to a Catholic school dance with a Catholic friend. While we waited outside the doors, for what seemed like a Biblical age, I squatted down (I was wearing slacks and a nice blouse...all very proper) to rest. A priest walked over to me and said (honest to G-d) these were his words), “Stand up young lady! You look too inviting like that.”

Personally, I never really like patent leather shoes. They squeak — all of the time.



©Patent Leather Shoes
Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

Her gown was like looking at
the birth of winter in a new year,
bits of lace, soft and enchanting,
over the blue of a starry midnight.
They danced; he led her into a spin and
the lace flared the way dawn folds
around the stars; her legs were
like the Milky Way galaxy folded in
the blush of the universe and the
ineffable, unrelenting winter wind.

He saw it all in her patent leather shoes.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Bukowski Filled My Glass But Drank Me Dry

Stop it! Why are you flicking my ear repeatedly? It's irritating. 
Alcohol...it might be a lot like sex— well, I read a statistic once (don't know if it's true) that 90% of the population enjoys it and that those in that bracket are made comfortable by the 10% that does not.
The following is a paraphrase: Oscar Wilde said Drink is the curse of the writing class.
Anais Nin is quoted as saying, "I have a strong sense of creation, of tomorrow, that I cannot get drunk, knowing I will be less alive, less well, less creative the next day."
But, it was Charles Bukowski who is quoted as saying, 
“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”

©Bukowski Filled My Glass But Drank Me Dry
Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

I wince at the gaping wounds in my poem;
Frazzled weft of useless words is frayed
Surrealistically away from the warp of worthless thought.
Tramping on the escalator to nowhere in this
World of poetic profiling, I sat at the
Table of prolific drunks; Buowski
Filled my glass with fermented blank verse,
Praised one page of my hieroglyphic ink,
Featured my brain waves in a quick,
Spirit-rupturing work in response—
He drank me dry and threw kisses of sarcasm
before grabbing himself and shaking it at others.
There’s truth in some of what poets write.

Below is a rare video of Bukowski's last poetry reading -- The Last Straw.