Everyting. I.owns.is.shit!
Really.
Chaiz wobba.
Ceilins fallin in.
Washin machine lurches.
Floors is all off kilta.
Shovel,
da handas broken off.
Was lef in da snowbank all las winta.
Snow plough girthed it an unruly lot
in da snowbank,
'gainst da tree,
down da concrete,
inta da neighbours yar'.
Cheapa dan terapy!
Dat guy who worked for da town
nailed it ova and ova agin
and dragged it tree driveways down.
Ye could easy killa man
wit da unfettered snarl
of da broken handa.
Ita slide in trew da skin
lika knife
trew butta.
Makes excavatin a tricky bidness,
diggin down deep trew
layers ashit.
You gotta get nose down deep and gamy,
all centa agravity low and grunt
and ya can't be no afeard of hurtin yeself.
No, fut no!
You gotta be willin to take it in da belly.
Damn straight!
Can' get no furta down
lessen you take dat chance.
Excavatin,
Is some tricky bidness.
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WHO AM I?
I'm Woman in a Window escaped to the back room. I've just come in from letting the dog out. It's too cold out there for me so I'm sitting by the back door watching the light bulb swing. This is my space to think, to do what I want, to drag mud in on my boots and not worry about the floor. The kids are in bed. They can't bust me. No one gives a rat's ass 'bout clean floors and not many come 'round this way much anyway. Yup, this is my space. Mine. All mine.
I'm Woman in a Window escaped to the back room. I've just come in from letting the dog out. It's too cold out there for me so I'm sitting by the back door watching the light bulb swing. This is my space to think, to do what I want, to drag mud in on my boots and not worry about the floor. The kids are in bed. They can't bust me. No one gives a rat's ass 'bout clean floors and not many come 'round this way much anyway. Yup, this is my space. Mine. All mine.
RULES
Welcome to my back room. Come in. Take your shoes off. Sit awhile. If you're here it's 'cause we're friends. You must know me. You've got low expectations. Your feet stink. My floor's dirty. This is how it goes. It's my place. You're welcome but this is no parlour. There's no pretty furniture. There's no ambiant lighting. It's the bare bulb hanging low on a rope room, not even really a room, just a space. A space between here and there, between me and you and the back door. This is the door I use to bring the groceries in through, the trash out through. You are welcome, just be warned, it might not always be comfortable.
have coffee with me, sit with me, don't mind the mess with me
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23 comments:
Tricky bidness, indeed.
Great character--love that voice. And the metaphor!
I am trying to picture the person who's voice this is...
I see gums.
Overalls
and a really sour cup of coffee in a tin cup.
What a picture this conjures up! The dark brown, gravelly voice stands out so well against the snow...
BRILLIANT!
Yes, see that!
And see me.
I wrote it as myself at first and then I wrote this,
"You gotta get nose down deep and gamy,
all centa agravity low and grunt"
and realized it wasn't just me talkin.
He speaks very, very slowly
and painfully carefully
so as to not make any mistakes in relaying what he means to.
xo
erin
Back when I had a job, the route to the office took me by a neighborhood of multi-million dollar houses, the kind you can only see from a distance because the community has gated itself from non-members. They live under lock and key. Each morning, as I looked at those gorgeous houses I wondered what it would be like to live in one, to have that kind of wealth. And then I pictured myself living there, owning a house there and sitting, looking out one of the windows and feeling exactly the same as I was in my car, which is to say, it seemed clear as day, I could not run from myself, or drown it in alcohol or wealth or sex or any other covering.
This is what your post reminded me of. It is a beautifully rendered poem, the scent of your signature so intoxicating. As SarahA might say: Beautiful write, you.
Down and dirty to the root of the problem. This person is serious. Grunts come up and out, punctuated with a shovel.
erin- me tinks de kee be not in de seein of all dat durt and dem bojanglled tools, but in der few coins and trinkets dat might swim der way to duh surface. layers is good, maybe. The honey the hive could be holdin. Maybe you need sumtin bigger than a hobe shovel. I tink you be more D-10 cat wit no exhaust and dirt packed track and a quarter cigar to keep the skeeters at bay. love ya~rick
Everything I own is shit, too, or glued together (me included!) I had to laugh when I read this because it's so like me. You're such a great writer, Erin. You just slip into personas like a hand into a glove...
As I get older, I become less and less attached to things. I think it's life's way of preparing me for the final letting go. I've never been a big "thing" person, but I'm even less so now. I buy my clothes at Goodwill, cut my own hair, and wear plastic shoes to the store.
Yep, that excavatin' is some hard but necessary work. Love to you, my dear poet-friend...
Marvelous! In the real sense of the word: I marvel at your talent. I marvel at the voice, the language, the metaphor, the story. Good, good, good.
I love him/her/you. Want to sit beside him with a sasparilla in a chipped brown mug and listen to blues with no melody, my own nodding head keeping beat.
Marion, we wouldn't have life any other way, would we?
Rick, love you, too.
Tree, no, there is never another analogy for our lives that would allow us to live differently. And would we really want to? No. Just need the moderation.
Rosaria, this person is very serious! Thanks for knowing him/me.
enchanted oak, you're very kind.
Annie, I'd like to sit at his knee too. Hope he passes the jug.
xo
erin
I traveled through Northern Ontario and don't recall people talking like that. In Kentucky and Tennessee, yes but...
I enjoyed deciphering though, not easy for my mainly francophone ears and eyes.
All the while, I had pictures of blue collar workers leaning on their spades waiting for the truck to come.
I hope your truck comes.
potsoc, heh, heh. No, not Northern Ontario necessarily, although I'd like to see more of a cultural mix up here. We've a lot of backwoods farmers though, and dems apples don't fall far from nowhere's. And although this man speaks as he does, don't let him fool you, he's as wise as they come.
Thanks potsoc.
xo
erin
This brought to mind a poem that I read as a teen. Tried to find it in my books, with no luck. All I remember of it is...
"Oh wad the power, the gif e gie us, to see outselves as others see us."
Now that's gonna drive me nutz.
Ok now I have read such five times now and I may have to read five more times and then five after that! But I am beginning to 'hear' this person in my head and if she does not leave soon, I may start talking like so! Oh Ms Erin you are a very talented one,I am thinking.It all comes naturally to you, doesn't it?
He is a wise one he is.
Reminds me of the book (yes, another book suggestion . ..) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I had to read that and your post very slowly to form the words and then, whamo! there is the character hovering around me!
Ah's sho glad to meet 'im.
{{{Erin}}}
Char, I wrote at your place, Robbie Burns but admitted to the help of Google.
Christopher, hugs back. Hope you're feeling better.
Sherry, yes, anyone like that takes some time to really listen to. Catch their cadence and then there they are. How do you manage to read so much? I got through five pages of a book today.
Thanks all,
xo
erin
i immediately pictured a sun wrinkled old woman, chewing a big mound of tobacco, talking to the new lady in town looking for work on the farm. she escaped from a bad man, she's on her own for the first time, she's young and she stumbled upon this woman's farm close to dusk.
i guess sometimes i let my imagination take over a little too much.
I'm blaming you, and this, for the leak.
All damn Woman, you are.
(Thank you.)
Krista, not too much thinking. Just right, as always. Love that you heard her as a her. He came to me a man. Parts don't matter so much. It's all attitude.
S. I wear blame with honour. I'm so pleased to see you stretch your beauty tall again.
xo
erin
this takes me back home to the heart of the cape malay people of south africa.
gums and half pronounced words and spit flying and the simple life...
the simple life...
xox
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