NORMAN MILLIKEN
Norm Milliken is a poet who'll make you think. his experiments with the Cinderella and the Snow White tales hold all the darker elements of their origins, reminding us that these were more than sweet tales of fantasy to get kiddies off to the land of nod - reminds us that they were, in fact, pretty horendous tales but he breathes such a modern element into them that they are as new and as fresh as they were when they were first presented to the public as stories. But there's more to this writer than that - he has a wonderfully restrained elegance to his writing that belies the vividness of his creativity, and he transports us with as much ease into the rowing seat of a racing canoe as into a contemplation about snails or in amongst the glass display cabinets of an historical display of ancient artefacts.
after the ball
the castle was very large.
room after
drafty room, stone floors,
and windows tall as trees.
dark drapes
of royal crimson cobbled
up the light
in stingy spots,
shallow pools full
of cats.
in summer
the moat sat stagnant,
the smell of mud
and ducks
its real protection.
the drawbridge
rose and fell
to heavy chain-rattle
and thump.
when the prince was abroad,
she stood for hours
in the window,
motionless,
pretending
she was the stroke of midnight.
from the Cinderella poems
Cinderella at bath
the afternoon sun
stretched cat-like
down her face,
sunk eyes in shadow pools,
bejeweled her lips and slipped
on teeth and tongue.
her chin, twinned
and waved by breath and pulse,
pulled ripples
over breasts and belly.
hands and knees
rose like islands,
ivory skin awash and lost
in water gone
from hot to warm.
and hair dream-drifted
around that perfect face,
as lashes swept cheeks clean
of evening’s emptiness.
from the Cinderella poems
moon hue
I want to dip my hands
in moon
and paint you
with winter ivory.
slip slivers of night
along legs
brush eyes
and cheek and chin
with thin, white light.
desire drawn
over shadow soft shade,
fingertips
on lips,
crescent
full
and new.
syntax
her body was a slender sentence
without punctuation
no periods or pauses
commas or clauses
unparsed by the heaviness of death
she lay lighter
than life
words run-on
from hair to hip to heel
diagrammed in satin
glass and wood
from the Snow White poems
crew
pull oars,
carve wet world
up river.
water
parting and closing,
seamless under
slender hull.
red shoes
…a pair of red-hot iron shoes was brought into the room and the queen was forced to
put them on and to dance in them until she could dance no longer, but fell down dead….
the farriers forged
red-hot clogs clamped
on the queen’s feet.
some sizzling spins
at the wedding celebration.
two step, quick step,
while the guests kept
time, cleared the floor,
called for more,
‘black bottom, charleston,
how ‘bout some tap?’
and she improvised
some sweet steps,
a regular DeMille dancing
along the edge of death.
from the Snow White poems
the death of the alchemist
rumors ran riot
when the alchemist died.
some suspected suicide
and murder was muttered more
than once. he had made
enemies, after all.
in his heyday
potions by the pound
poured from his hands.
inventive invitations of
beauty, brains, sleeps and banes,
and though he kerchiefed
his face
against feral fumes,
he surely spent seconds
drifting dizzy on his way
to the window.
the cats found him first,
rubbing the door frame
like the leg
of a milk maid.
fears and dreams,
promises and punishments,
tangled up
on the floor, ashy white,
still.
from the Snow White poems
near Goldendale, WA, Columbia River Gorge
beautiful chess sets, perhaps a hundred of them, were on exhibit at the Maryhill Museum. some classical, some whimsical, some simply strange. an old Chinese woman and her son spent hours looking at the sets, particularly the Eastern ones.
chess exhibit, Maryhill Museum
a shrunken woman
with ancient, ivory skin
stretched across her face,
moved from exhibit
to exhibit examining
chessmen.
her son,
old himself,
stepped in the stream
of Mandarin,
answered questions,
and translated signs that told
of histories and dynasties.
they lingered long
in that place,
patient and slow,
attending to detail
and design.
they studied puzzle-box bishops,
whalebone kings,
and soapstone pawns
polished with years.
behind glass
Indian knights rode elephants
and tiny Thai demons
swung swords.
Fibonacci Sequence
(after a photograph of snails)
their bodies,
more suggestion than shape,
stretch then swell,
trailing slime
on sidewalks,
an eternity
of space to cross
from grass to grass.
one,
then another
and another
undefine themselves,
wet antennae testing
air and sun,
shells slung on backs.
calcium calculations curling
ever inward.
she imagined herself
she imagined herself
with him,
silk-sheeted sounds
with no words or sense,
tangled limbs
and eyes wildened
with wanting,
heat of breath and flank,
fingertips raising flesh
in rows in
gardens of desire.
she imagined herself
with him,
gowned in moon-silk sheen,
no clock-chime time
to interrupt
the dance
of lips and legs
and hissing blood,
of teeth bared to bite
and taste,
of hearts hammering ribs
harsh and hard,
to have him in her,
un-princelike,
wet with sweat
and sex.
from the Cinderella poems
HOME
bravenet.com