The smallest circle
then the next
circling into a ring
of circles
twirling round
upon round
spiraling themselves
dizzy
giving shape to a fractal
kaleidoscope
tracing an arc
along another turn.
Mandala, Step One
Category: Creativity
Smoke Signals: Notes on Phantosmia
Outside, someone was smoking. The stink leaked in around the closed front windows. It stung my eyes as I sat in my partner’s living room in an easy chair, slogging through a work task. This has been my setup for the better part of the past year: balancing on the tightrope between productivity and rest. Pillows, lap trays, things to hold my feet up. Sunlight. Headphones. Pomodoros.
I tried to ignore the smell but it grew stronger. I glanced out but couldn’t see anyone outside. The place is nestled in a cohousing community with a small group of neighbors. Some may light up the occasional joint, but no cigarette smokers.
So it must be someone delivering a package. Or working on a neighbor’s gutters.
The smell persisted. An hour? More? I kept working and the reek kept lingering. No voices, no sound of hammering. Just birds and crickets, and as far as I know, none of them have taken up smoking.
Continue reading “Smoke Signals: Notes on Phantosmia”Fan Dancer
Back in March, we knew it would be a little while. Night clubs shuttered along with gyms, studios, and all the rest of public life. No contra dancing at the Glen Echo Park Spanish Ballroom on Friday nights. No proximity to my absolutely favorite Zumba teacher at the rec center on Saturday mornings. We’d have to figure something out. For this old gal, keeping the spirit intact means movement. Dance is as much a necessity as toilet paper and reliable wifi.
The irony was clear from the beginning: the businesses keeping their doors open were not ones I wanted to support. A few of my more savvy Zumba instructors went virtual, offering Zoom workouts at no cost a couple days a week. It was oddly comforting to catch a glimpse into the kitchens and living rooms of people I’d only seen at the gym. I felt less alone in my own mess, swinging my hips in the tiny rectangle of space carved out in a condo which absorbed schoolroom, office, and the entire universe of entertainment options on two days notice last March.
That little while stretched into weeks. Then months.
I was definitely going to need new ways to dance.
Continue reading “Fan Dancer”given to us by our craft
My craft has a name for me.
Its holy ink
painting the first stroke on the cave wall
now. At this very moment
it is lifting the curtain and watching me sleep.
It is stirring egg and ash
over a flame.
Let the World Spin
The enemy does not live in you.
Your life is not your foe. Not your wounds or mistakes, not even the hurt you caused.
Not your temper. Not your failures. Not the paths you taken or those you’ve passed on, not your reckless love or your absent god.
The enemy does not occupy your mind. The enemy does not govern your chemical imbalance. The enemy never existed inside you. You didn’t let it infiltrate, storm the gates. You are innocent of that, if not of everything.
Hearing Voices
![[no title: p. 304] 1970 by Tom Phillips born 1937](https://shannonewilliams.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/phillips_tom.jpg)
Surely it is not art. She pulls her phone from her pocket and steps to the stage. Her first time. Tapping the screen, she balances it on the ancient music stand. Grips the mic with both hands. Through ums and mumbles, she describes a man who called it love before the girl learned the proper name for abuse.
Surely this is not poetry, nowhere close to art.
Art you know. You saw Gipsy Kings at the Barns and walked Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn. You can recite Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” by heart.
You know art.
Surely this falls short. Yet…
Kill the Babysitter
Here comes the babysitter. You’re pumped. His appearance promises a night of board games, TV, living room dance parties. He’ll make mac & cheese for dinner and skip the broccoli entirely. Turn up the volume on bands you’ve never heard of. Dress up like a Sith Lord and let you annihilate him after a protracted battle that covers every floor of the house.
You may pass several hours draped in sequins and spiked on sugar. Playing, yes. But for show, not for keeps. Playing for this night only. Playing with the door closed.
The babysitter has one job: keeping you safe until your parents get home.
This Holy Round
Until her dying day, Georgia O’Keefe fought against the notion
that her flowers resemble sexy ladyparts. Too silly. Titillating.
Low art.
Diminishing that lovely stroke to the hungry scratchings of a beast in heat.
Vulgar. Raw.
It’s a Game of Give and Take
The instructions said
to lay it deep
six weeks at least
before last frost.
You followed the steps
more or less.
In Defiance of Morning
You catalogue the early shames,
a tattoo on the lining of your lungs.
The mural leaves its stain despite the stretch
and growth you chart first on door frames
then belt notches
then monthly statements,
each unit of measure distorting the fresco
as much as the measurement taken.
Recognizable no matter the eons intervening,
the arcs of those stories.
Petroglyphs,
kaleidoscopes,
crime scenes,
autopsies.
All tales have tongues.
They scour the natal down
from your heart. They leave a taste
like pennies and char.
Shannon E. Williams 