K, what a heartening, enjoyable to read, and generous assessment of the
snap! If it did all the things you said, then I've more than achieved my
aims.
Best, and where's your latest? [Poem, that is...]. <g>
Judy
2008/9/17 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>
> I'm impressed by the tone of the language, and how vivid the milieu is, and
> how effective the sparse punctuation. the choice of words especially is
> effective in such an offhand way, it's enjoyable to read. and see.
> the repetition makes this approach the minorly epic, maybe Ginsberg, but
> the
> effect is nicely muted by the overall minimalism, or 'imagism' maybe.
> thanks
> a lot Judy.
>
> KS
>
> 2008/9/17 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > It's Wednesday, so this is a snap, I suppose. It's actually the only
> Real
> > Snap I've done on petc. The others [early on] were misnamed 'snap', and
> > then I no longer 'snapped' but sent in poems.
> >
> > BEAUTY OF PRIVILEGE
> >
> > this time I belong
> >
> > a tiny home that someone else dreamed
> > in your country
> > someone here modified
> > someone else built just down a bit
> > and across the street from Lafayette River
> >
> > one of those men knew the view I'd see
> > from my 19th c fainting couch
> > a sitting room furnished in charity shop finds
> > loved and passed along, like adopted children,
> > to those who loved and passed them along
> > how did they know what I'd see?
> >
> > my eyes need these 40-foot fuzzy pines
> > and a front garden of Russian olive trees---
> > the off-beat hearts of fuchsia in a green bush---
> > which owner of this home so hid and overgrown
> > knew what I'd see?
> >
> > the same one who planted a tall corn stalk
> > behind the tall flag pole---both so American--
> > the man who bumped out an office wall
> > for a huge mosaic shower room
> > how did he know I no longer
> > straddle a tub like a Degas nude?
> >
> > forty years ago, in Taipei, I lay
> > in a mosquito-netted bed
> > incense-coil on the floor
> > as 11 hammocks of workers
> > slept in the next room
> >
> > I, a wealthy American, it was thought,
> > could take their bedroom for a few days
> > I, the friend of the home owner
> > whose business downstairs they ran
> >
> > I bought a worker's simple cracked rice bowl
> > at noon next day
> > and began to starve
> >
> > found a room in a R&R hotel
> > dodged 8-inch cockroaches at night
> > listened to the gentle query
> > of a blind massage woman led upstairs
> > to the soldier's room next to mine
> >
> > no longer wanted as a tutor to the neighbours'
> > children, I toured the island as a guest of the
> > their grown son
> > days of motorcycle freedom
> > oxen-plowed fields of pineapple
> > fish farms, perilous suspension bridges
> > of rope, hand-woven linen clothing
> > and something he expected from me
> > but never got
> >
> > my paychecks found, boxed china dish tucked underfoot
> > I flew back to America
> > and the privilege of beauty again and again
> >
> > of loss again and again
> >
> > my former gardener says, after heart surgery
> > and now dialysis for life
> > "I am blessed! I'm alive!"
> >
> > he is my Privilege of Beauty
> > and the tiny kindergarteners loaded
> > with backpacks running across the street
> > while I weep
> > at the beauty of privilege
> >
> > all of it, all of them, my home
> >
> > ____________
> >
> > jbprince
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > a scoop of Lafayette River
> > in the cooling rain
> > on this rust-velvet fainting couch
> >
>
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