Welcome, loves, to Open Mic Friday! Every week we have a featured “reading” in the body of this post. Applause and other feedback go in the comments, where you’re also welcome to share your own work. The comments are threaded, so you can reply directly to each reader by hitting the “reply” button within that comment box.
Read, share, and converse!
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Today’s guest post comes from Ré Harris, whose blog I discovered recently and have been reading with delight ever since. She wrote this prose poem after waking from a dream.
Sparks by Ré Harris
We met in that dream space just after the deep sleep. She said, “I like your ring,” as she took my hand into hers and held it close to her face, her warm breath floating over my trembling fingers, over me, like a moist, intoxicating veil. She kissed my palm tenderly, tasting the salt with her tongue, and smiled. I let her lead me into the rabbit hole. She glided and maneuvered. I fell.
It was awful. We were in her bedroom, on the second floor. I was down to my underwear and I couldn’t think. I could feel the room getting hotter, her hands gliding over the muscles alongside my vertebrae, and her scent — one of those mysterious flower/spice things that works its way into your clothes, into your hair, into your memory. It probably had a name like “Sensation” or “Seduction.” I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t at first. I felt sick. My stomach got butterflies, my tongue itched, and all I wanted to do was to be able to stay and have a clear head, but all I could do was wander from one overheated thought to another, dodging the sparks, searching for a way to get out of there before I was consumed, before I was sucked so far down inside her that I’d lose myself.
The room lit up, and the fear overtook me. I ran down the staircase in my briefs, almost stopping to go back for her, but I knew she’d be all right. She had planned it all. She knew where the exits were.
I saw her escape through the bedroom window, floating down to the grass weightlessly, like an ash. She was wearing a gossamer robe that looked like a shimmering, translucent garden in bloom (she must have thrown it on after I ran out) and she flashed me, smiling wide, something reflecting the evening sun held tight between her teeth — my gold pinky ring, a proud memento for her. I gave it up gladly.
I’m standing before you now, yards ahead of the house smoldering behind me, what’s left of the sun squinting my eyes. Her laughing figure, gilded in the waning sunlight, is running toward the forested feet of the mountain shadows far in the distance. The sky is blue and pink and lavender, like baby’s things, and I’m thinking this story, sending it to you without moving my lips. There’s a crackling sound behind me, some wind rushing over my face in little slaps that make me wince, and it seems that something is at the edges of all this, enclosing it all around, framing it like a picture.
Ask yourself this question: If you run in your dreams, will your heart beat faster?
Everything slows down now. My hair blows over my face in fat horizontal billows like window sheers rising on a lazy breath of summer air, each strand in turn caught for a moment, suspended in time. I rub my chin with my thumb, thinking, then I turn away from you, slower, my shoulders, my chest, my legs. My body leans far into the turn, and it seems I might fall, imperceptible momentum holding me up. Ever slower, I hunch down into a running stance, my fingers curling into fists that pump through the air around me as if it was thicker than molasses, and I run after her toward the mountains, into the future.
Questions — Why? Can I catch her? and, Would she have me if I did? — cross my mind and disappear. My heart is beating fast, faster.
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Ré Harris is a longtime writer, and new crochet pattern designer, who lives in Chicago. She began seriously writing on her young blog late this summer when a chance experience at a free rock concert resurrected her creative spirit. You can find her posts at sparksinshadow.wordpress.com.
Thank you, Ré! And now — it’s your turn. The comments are open!
beat(itude) snaps, re’! a beautiful and haunting prose poem.
my favorite lines:
the forested feet of the mountain shadows
I’m thinking this story, sending it to you without moving my lips
it’s crazy how scary lovely openness can be and “sparks” pictures it so well.
Oh Luba! — thanks for visiting here! I love your response to my poem! It means a lot to me because I’ve enjoyed some of your evocative work, too. Thanks for coming!
Very cool verse. For some strange reason it reminds me of a piece of art I saw used in a text book once. It was part painting, part sculpture. It showed a figure running from a house on fire and some other surreal stuff was happening in the image. (See now I’m gonna have to search the internet for that image so I can see it again.) Oh and on the musical side of things, it makes me think of that Fleetwood Mac song “Rhiannon”. Perhaps you should set “Sparks” to music. Just a suggestion.
Thanks for coming, Sis! I’m glad you thought it was cool. I can always count on you to see the musical side of things! Hmmn…
mmm for me this really captures that hazy yet poignant feeling that dreams so often have…
Thanks for reading! I appreciate your comment.
it is beautiful. and dreamy, so dreamy i uncomfortably found myself in different perspectives than i thought i was, like gabriel garcia marquez.
i picked up the book: ‘a year with rilke’. here’s today’s ‘thought’ that made me think of sparks:
only love can grasp them
works of art belong immeasurably to themselves, and are accessible least of all to criticism. only love can grasp them and hold them and respond to them fairly. always trust your own feeling, rather than others’ discussions, interpretations, and arguments. should you be mistaken, then slowly and with time the natural growth of your inner life will bring you to fuller awareness.
viareggio, april 23, 1903
letters to a young poet
kutgw!
Thanks Mike!
That was beautiful, Re! And it was great to see your beautiful face once again. I’m so glad to know you are using your creativity to express yourself.
Thanks for coming, Irene, and thanks for your kind words! It’s been a while — I hope all is well with you. Take care!
Gripping!!!!