Posted tagged ‘Silkie Elephant’

“In the Soup” (An Excerpt From Possible Story About Pineapple)

July 31, 2012

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In the Soup (an excerpt from a possible story about pineapple)

She wanted to be Garboesque, but with hair that stuck up at odd angles and a slightly trapezoidal upper lip (not an elegant roof for either cigarettes or demitassed coffee), she knew that cute sad clown was the closest she’d ever come.  She bought yellow rain boots as a result, a raincoat with frog’s eyes for epaulettes, and ended up in children’s books.

She would have liked, she often thought, to curate great art; to analyze conceptual pieces where people buried steel rods and talked about the American way of death, but wrote, instead, of a bunny who ate carrot soup.

She would have liked, she occasionally thought, to eat steak and pour Merlot down her bra. But she had a rather flat chest, which, she was sure, would have made the Merlot look like a stain of spilled Welch’s.

Also to go to Kiev, Prague, better yet, Casablanca where she would bemoan the Casbah, smoking filterless cigarettes over languid coffee, Merlot, maybe even, a Scotch.

But, as the carrot soup book was selling well, she went to the Galapagos, which were in fact quite beautiful. She came out afterwards with a book about an aging tortoise.  He ate grass soup; make that, watercress.

She would have liked to lie down in watercress, even just wet grass, to become a sylph, a silkie, swimming nude among its soft blades, a sharp metal one strapped to her back.

She wrote instead a book about an eagle who ate mouse soup. This one did not do so well, but, since she was now a somewhat successful children’s book writer (what with the carrots and watercress), one mouse soup was allowed.

In Paris, she thought to go to boites, but spent time instead in the Musee de Cluny where the corners of the tapestries held amazing pineapples.  In the cafes nearby, she ate many kinds of soup, thankful that she did not smoke, even inelegantly. At night, however, she increasingly poured Merlot down her bras, but only ones that were already a deep dark red.

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I am posting the above draft I-don’t-know-what for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night, hosted by the wonderful Hedgewitch, Joy Ann Jones. (Verse Escape). To those who are reading a lot and are put off by the sight of lots of words, I’m so sorry it’s not a short poem!

Check out dVerse for great online poetry. AND, if you get a chance, check out my books! Children’s counting book 1 Mississippi -for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms. Or, if you in the mood for something older, check out Going on Somewhere, poetry, or Nose Dive, a very fun novel for those who are somewhat discontent with their appearance but love musicals, cheese and downtown NYC.