Thursday, July 15, 2010

Cinquains

More of Evelyn’s cinquains. The last two are dated Nov. 6, 1933.



Fountain

Of life, I am

Beautiful in your eyes,

Like the sylph of your dreams, for you

Are love.


**********


Ragged,

Unkempt, the wind

Is a newsboy today,

screaming and screeching shrilly round

Lamp-posts.



**********



Gray dawn

Awoke and thrust

Her flame-tipped spear into

Night’s side. His red blood spilled, and day

Was born.



**********


Red hair

Is shadow-lit,

Like burnished filament,

Or shreds of copper shimmering

In fire.



Evelyn Coffey

1 comment:

  1. I'm struck by layers and layers in these poems. In Fountain of Life, Evelyn's use of the word "slyph" was one I had to look up. It is a forest fairy, but perhaps from a deeper part of her, the character after which a romantic ballet "La Slyphide" was crafted.

    Like the Haiku, this short form makes me think of the quick sketch the figure artist does - in five minutes, there is only time enough to find and capture the essential lines, sufficient to enable the viewer to imagine the figure in its entirety, but also to entice the viewer to do so, to seek the whole that is invisible but present.

    And these quick sketches give us glimpses of Evelyn's world; her worlds, in fact, inner and outer. How good that she has invited us to visit both. And how good it is indeed that your work here fulfills her deepest wish.

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