Complexioned
2009 January 21
A Sly Tropical Breeze of Violet, Aquamarine and Sunshine
Fuchsia, the color of being self-satisfied and over-easy. And gold, like the robe tassels of Nigist MaKeda of Sheba, empress. Sometimes eyes are dark purple like spilled wine and I tremble. Yes, that is you, an olive- drab demeanor, the yellow-plum humor of a lingering bruise. Around your head, concord-grape colored thoughts so loud you wear a hat to hold in the noise. And when you don’t, and the neighbors call the police you simply turn up the green to mute it; fingers, the bronze color of Incan spear tips, caught in the cookie jar. That is you, a sly tropical breeze of violet, aquamarine and sunshine; you, so fuchsia, you seek out birds before they seek you.
6 Responses
Comments are closed.
This piece is marvelous. The connotations through color are well crafted and highly unexpected. A really strong piece!
Great piece, Grace! I’m excited to be following this blog – looking forward to reading more.
Cool..I enjoyed this one as well-
Steph and I had an interesting & lively discussion about this poem. We believe that the shades of purple have the same basic meaning as fuchisa – self satisfaction = confidence, over and/or lack thereof. “concord grapes colored thoughts so loud you wear a hat to hold in the noise.” would translate to when one feels so self-satisfied and they never want to lose that feeling, so they wear a hat to keep the thoughts in.
Gold & bronze symbolize power & strength – Yellow plum humor represents (we guess) a combination of both confidence & power/ strength to the point of over confidence and/or compensation – the mix of yellow and purple shades would leave a lingering bruise because there are consequences to overconfidence mixed with power. The power of the Incan spear tips would be fingers caught in the cookie jar because of the consequence of too much power (violence).
The green hues would stand for a person’s superego. When a person “turns up the green to mute it;” (the concord-grape thoughts), they would snap back to reality with moral values and realize what they should be doing.
The last sentence describes the mix of power(sunshine) confidence (purple) and a mix of morals and we couldn’t really figure out where the blue in aquamarine would be, and the fuchsia would not be the first thing people would turn to but a plague, in a sense, that would fall beyond the people.
We will tune in tomorrow to see if this the meaning you intended. We really enjoyed our discussion and thanks for envoking our thoughts! Good work 🙂
Simply beautiful! I love it!
I loved this poem. The use of the colors for me in this poem is the journey of emotions that we feel within our inner selves. The inner struggle if you will. The gold and fushia when we feel strong and confident, The dark purple when we feel unsure and scared, the olive drap when we have become complaisant, The yellow plum of humility, The concord grape color of the thoughts that ramble in our heads and will not be silenced. The green of defiance, the brown of uncertainity. The mix of colors in the end represents to me all of these emotions and the realization that they are all part of us and then back to fushia strong and confident. I really loved it! Just wonderful!