BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 02:46 PM
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The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 7/24/08 |
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"Ideographs" (a photograph of China, 1905)
The small scaffolds, boards in the form of ideographs, the size of a person, lean against a steep wall of dressed stone. One is the simple shape of a man. The man on it is asleep, his arms nailed to the wood. No timber is wasted; his fingertips curl in at the very end of the plank as a child's hands open in sleep. The other man is awake—he looks directly at us. He is fixed to a more complex scaffold, a diagonal cross-piece pointing one arm up, one down, and his legs are bent, the spikes through his ankles holding them up off the ground, his knees cocked, the folds of his robe flowing sideways as if he were suspended in the air in flight, his naked leg bared. They are awaiting execution, tilted against the wall as you'd prop up a tool until you needed it. They'll be shouldered up against the crowd and carried through the screaming. The sleeper will wake. The twisted one will fly above the faces, his garment rippling. Here there is still the backstage quiet, the dark at the bottom of the wall, the props leaning in the grainy half-dusk. He looks at us in the silence. He says Save me, there is still time.
—Sharon Olds
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BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 03:21 PM
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CaliforniaPeggy
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Thu Jul-24-08 04:06 PM
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Wow, this is a tough one...
Very reality-based!
Scary and daring us to get involved...
Thank you!
:hi:
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BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 05:54 PM
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3. The last two lines really bring it home for people. And this is the essence of who Sharon Olds is, |
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IMO. Pacifist, humanitarian, mother. One who overlooks no form of oppression, even if it is 100 years past.
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BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 06:20 PM
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BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 08:39 PM
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RetroLounge
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Thu Jul-24-08 08:41 PM
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BlueIris
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Thu Jul-24-08 08:44 PM
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Sometimes you just need a little intensity.
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BlueIris
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Fri Jul-25-08 12:31 AM
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Wed May 01st 2024, 02:23 PM
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