Rough Draft - Fixated Impulse Malady of Hues

Fixated Impulse Malady of Hues

     It is the small widow at the top of the wall that begins my journey every evening.  The wall always look the same.  A painting muddled in the taupe wall color on which it hangs. It is the wrong wall. It doesn’t belong there and it protest.   I stare at it in the evening.

 Sitting in my creaky steel chair my feet resting comfortably on the edge of the bed.  I lift my arms and pull the stiff muscles.  Met with mild resistance, I decided to stand, if for no other reason but to establish sovereignty over of my body. I bend slowly at the waist and demand that my muscles obey.  I touch my toes.  Lifting myself again and repeating the process. The light is dancing down the wall. My eyes follow it.  As I come to a defiant mountain pose, my heart flutters. The light has almost found my nemesis.  It creeps along slowly until they meet.  

 The clock clicks as the numbers fall. One minute later they met today.  The light and the one spot on this painting and its unique fleck. I wish I could give the color a name.  It is trapped somewhere between Emerald and as best I can describe it, malachite.  This speck is unique, it was placed there by the artist I am sure to drive me mad.  No other hue like it on the canvas.  No other type in all this world have I seen that matches its mocking stare.  I try to not look, I force my eyes to turn away.  Yet somehow they seek it out, my sovereignty is being challenged.  I search for distraction, but there is none. 

I turn to the comfort of my bed.  I use the term “comfort” loosely.  It too squeaks and protest my weight.  The mammoth stone that resides within its coils forces me to lay my head where my feet would rest, and my feet where my head belongs.  It requires me to see that damned fleck.  I pull the blanket over my head and feel the scratch of the course fibers on my face.  I whisper “Don’t look, keep your head about you girl.” 

Suffocating.  I can’t breathe the carbon dioxide molecules are too thick.  My arms throw the gray blanket from my face.  I turn on my side.  I cannot look.  I know it wants to take my sanity.  That indescribable fleck. “I can’t give you a name.” I shout.   Your color is known only to God.  When I am released from this room I will run far and fast from that damned flake of paint.

I examine again, no it is only in that one place.  The canvas is surely a foot in length and I suppose an arm’s length in height.  I have searched every Planck length and that color, it is only there, in that fleck.  I wonder what I have done to deserve this fleck.  It pecks at my heart.  It reminds me of my failure.  Just name the color.  The books have hundreds of names of colors, pick one.  When I first came to this room I would settle on calling it Emerald, then Sea Green and so many more. Then in the wee hours the fleck would seek me out. I knew I must find its name.  I am trapped in this hell until I find the designation.  I can’t seek the creator out and find my reprieve. I know not his name.

I have sought to leave this place.  I have stood, turned off the light, then on then off and found that it does no good.  I can’t walk through the threshold.  Funny, threshold, it holds me.  I cannot leave. If I do surely death awaits me.  All because that painting on its bland taupe wall.  If only that fleck did not glare, and demand I name it. 

People come and in an attempt and settle my turmoil tell me it’s simply green.  If only it were that easy.  This speck is not just green, emerald, sea, kelly, hunter, pine or any of her sisters.  It is unique.  It is like you, and me.  There is only one speck like it in all the world.  I cannot name it. I cannot define it. I cannot say its name. 

The burning in my eyes makes me drowsy, but I know sleep will elude me.  Always beckoning me to find its name.  Nowhere can it be found if only the maker would whisper in my ear the cursed name of this thing that holds me so tightly oft I cannot breathe. 

My bed squeaks again and I turn, the light has left the speck darkening its hue. Leaving me to my task. If only I could find its maker.  If only I could be released from that which hold me.  I wonder if I found him would I finally be free?

Poe - a tree! Or a Worm will do!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178359

I chose to write on this piece because it was the door used to re-introduce me to the classics. I spent many hours as a young person lamenting the reading of Poe and other classic literature, having only read enough to reply to the questions posed by my educators. When this piece was handed out in my first English Class in twenty years, I was dreading the work.  I learned very quickly that I love the language, the rhythms the art that once was writing.  The word choices now entice me and allow me to grow.  I love to look at the words and try to decide WHY did the author chose such a word.  Was it for the rhythm or the deeper meaning?  Did he/she sit with pen to chin tapping as they sought a perfect word? Are we one in the same?  Yes I often conclude we are!

The Conqueror Worm

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Lo! ’t is a gala night

   Within the lonesome latter years!   

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

   In veils, and drowned in tears,   

Sit in a theatre, to see

   A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully   

   The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,   

   Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

   Mere puppets they, who come and go   

At bidding of vast formless things

   That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

   Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure   

   It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore   

   By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in   

   To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   

   And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

   A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out   

   The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

   In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!   

   And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

   Comes down with the rush of a storm,   

While the angels, all pallid and wan,   

   Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”   

   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Why Wyland

A picture collage of Wyland's work.

For many years, I longed for peace in the craziness that was my life.  When I stumbled upon Robert Wyland's work I found a way to escape.  I stood for hours in his gallery in Hawaii gazing upon the most beautiful creatures he would paint.  He brought them into my life and gave me the peace I needed.  Still after all these years I can find the peace and the tranquility Mr. Wyland gave to me from the first time I found his work.