Friday, June 21, 2013

(Another) Cut

Daddy, the amateur knife thrower, needs a new pair of shoes

and so blindfolded, rears back his left arm, taking aim at her stripped body rotating crazily between seven to eight revolutions per minute on the life-sized roulette wheel in concert for the contestant playing along at home on the phone.

Their prize if he pins the tail on the proverbial donkey on his first try will be that all time goes backwards wiping out everything she fought for until then, a desperate measure for a lost cause.

Behind him, a cloaked archer curiously in a judo outfit but holding a bow with arrow nevertheless and an eye-patched urban cowboy awkwardly twirling his vintage six-shooters exchange strategic notes, awaiting their turn.

Squinting under the lone spotlight shone directly on cue, she blinks a secret message that the teleprompter pauses and rewinds in slow motion.

It must be folly, probably of youth, to face her accusers so what was she thinking? And how did things get so out of hand?

No one, least of all her, now cares.

To agree so compliantly feels like surrender but what of promises made that now appear only to be bad hindsight.

Luck sometimes be a whore later.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Fashion by design

In the waning hours of haute couture, an empty nest cantilevered above a stony lintel begs for amnesty when she retreats, red-breasted just after night falls.

Shadows pretending to be silhouettes haggle market price in antebellum terms, but all for naught as no sale, not even for the trunkful passing by Joseph Cornell jettisoned and preserved through the looking-glass.

Barefoot, our contessa lays away the straight-laced boots on display, and her long polished fingernails without thinking reposes her floppy Napoleonic bonnet at a jauntier tilt so that the upswept brim, though black, smiles back widely, a harbinger of summertime.

Late June but her gait, ever so relaxed, stirs hope eternal. For Audrey Hepburn is jealous and the neighborhood hipsters lounge about the full blue moon. Robins are rich and their daddies often love sugared iced tea. Now hush, little shopkeeper, no need to bawl. Only a few more weeks before his flight back home.

So thank heavens that the bus stop headed home is only across the noisier-than-usual street, down a long city block.

Nevertheless the price to pay can be too vogue.