Yesterday’s look at her surrealist story still has my head
spinning, because it is a far darker piece than anything I’ve read by her, and
makes me wonder if there are other pieces, I don’t have access to that are as
brilliant and dark as that.
I keep going back to look at it because it is so rich in
metaphor.
While I assumed it had to do with her life and condition at
the time she wrote it, the piece is clearly fiction, and it is always a mistake
to read too much into fictional accounts.
But the fiction comes at a time when she is transitioning,
out of one shell and in search of another.
The images are so intense that is it impossible not to relate them to
characters in her life, or to feel that she is expressing her frustration with
the past, disappointment (and betrayal) in the present, with a vague hope for
the future.
The power of the writing, the descriptions of the two men
that are part of this character’s life Past and Present are potent elements in
some psychological drama that has to have some basis in fact, her perception of
the past – as an individual person or a collective, filled with all the disgust
as well as pity as she can provide. It says a lot about her character, someone
who gets trapped in a relationship because she is fundamentally good, and after
some fashion, despite her disgust at the rotting conditions, still maintains a
level of empathy or pity.
This says a lot about her character later, and possibly
explains a lot about how troubled she is by life that keeps waking her up in
the early morning hours.
The fiction, of course, is a kind of American Horror Story,
that presents us with a dream for the past and then creates a character so
utterly normal as to be boring, only to suggest that maybe the dream is coming
true after all.
As with the story she wrote about cheating, she has a
remarkable insight into the male mind, even a decrepit one such as the past.
The once-blonde boy on the motorcycle presents a scenario utterly
sensual without needing to describe the lovemaking, although you can feel the
heat of it, the passion, especially when compared to the heat of decay she
presents with the past.
As pointed out yesterday, there is something very much
Salvador Dali in this work, especially regarding the impact of heat, and the
sudden dream-like shifts, the use of the hummingbird and the green rose, and
the gradual evolution of these images and symbols – the hummingbird that sucks all
the green out of the rose, who later appears as the boy in flight, this almost-salvation
that turns sour when the past stares out at her in the reflection of the boy’s
motorcycle helmet.
Even the helmet is a major symbol, her desperate need for
independence, even from the boy with whom she has shared a powerful passionate moment.
The feeling is that the boy will eventually evolve into a
trap exactly like the past, and she needs to be free of both of them, even if she
takes pleasure from the boy at the moment. He is not the future; he is turning into
the past.
The symbolism implied by the present part of this story
suggests that regardless of how humdrum a life she adopts, the character is destined
to live out the dream – or nightmare, and perhaps adopting a so-called normal
life is not the solution.
Despite being fictional, the story comes at a time when she
is scrambling to find a new path out of a bad situation. She is writing food
reviews for free, possibly inspired by the fact that she got to meet briefly at
a book signing her all time hero. She (meaning the poet) is applying for even
the most medial jobs just to be able to maintain the minimal life style she
enjoys – it is not completely clear where the character in the past sections
lives or sleeps, although from the past’s remarks, it suggests they are
estranged even if living together, and so her need to make love to the boy is
all the more urgent, and for the past, an easy way (he thinks) to manipulate
her. She never anticipates the rage this inspires and how it eventually leads
to his downfall.
The story allows glimpses of the real poet as she slips out
of one shell briefly before adopting another, perhaps less intentionally
revealing that even the poet knows, how reluctant she is to give up what she
has for what she might need or want, and – at least in the past – her willingness
to suffer through a terrible situation, perhaps foolishly hoping it will
somehow get better when it is clearly already hopeless.
She once told me she never cheated on anyone; but many men
have cheated with their significant others with her.
I don’t completely believe this statement; I do believe that
she may have been driven into other men’s (and sometimes women’s arms) because
of the unbearable conditions of an existing relationship – such as depicted in
this fiction.
Also, although married at the time, she was a prominent
figure in a musical act that toured the world, and from my experience in the
music industry, such a position made short time affairs inevitable. This was
brought home hard to me during the end days of our brief encounter, when I saw
an off off Broadway play in New York depicting bored housewives who put
together their own garage band, and ultimately became popular – with one of the
songs they sang as part of this musical called “You can’t fuck them all,”
making it clear just how addictive the life style can become.
She no doubt had the same issues, even though her husband
was a member of the band, and perhaps he like the past in the story allowed her
to engage in these short term affairs in order to keep their marriage in tact –
pure speculation on my part, though as her later poems indicated, she is a very
physical and sensual being, and finds it very difficult to say no to someone
who constantly hits on her, as no doubt many men and women did during her time
with the band.
Again, we harken back to that old lady who gobbled up boys
and girls and helped guide her to a new way of life – perhaps helping her in
the same ways her friends did earlier when she gave up sex for a time after a
breakup from a boyfriend.
The idea of independence runs through this whole story, and
her need to know things – the past complaining about her constantly asking
questions.
While there were at least seven parts to the past portion of
the story, there was only one part to the present or normal portion, even
though she labeled it as part one – after which she may have felt no more need
to continue it since she had already found a new shell to inhabit.
What becomes clear from the story, however, is that she felt
trapped in a life, partly because of guilt over the thought of leaving the helpless
past. But more importantly, that life with the past was a living hell, and
destined to destroy her.
The blonde haired boy on the motorcycle symbolizes that vibrant
part of herself, the sensuality that gets lost in the dust and decay of the past
but must be allowed to thrive if to avoid the green turning to gray as the rose
did.
The past was sucking her dry and condemning her to a life of
misery, and the boy became both a reprieve from that life, as well as a
reminder of who she had been prior to becoming trapped in the past. She needed
to go with the boy, to make love with him, even though she came to realize he would
eventually turn into the past as well, and that the only answer for her was to
go her own way, do things for herself (as symbolized by her putting on the
helmet), although the story also suggests, she was never meant to live “a
normal life,” nor should she – and while she might wind up alone in the end, it
is better than being trapped in decay the way she was in the past.
Looking back at this story from several of her more provocative
poems such as the fair unfair and trickle up, it becomes understandable that
she needs to keep on keeping on, or rot on the vine.
No comments:
Post a Comment