Lonely Woman
For Nhat Chi Mai, Vietnamese nun
who self-immolated May 16, 1967
I was lonely
Artists mesmerized me
Jackson Pollock / Ornette Coleman
I was lonely, mesmerized
by fiery ideas
my brain burned
My ideas a conflagration
It was 1967
I was a woman, lonely
in a world of Art
a world at war
I had my own ideas
Artists, mostly men
had already painted
the end of music
had already played
the end of painting
burned up all ideas
while I remained mesmerized
focused on sanity, on peace
It was 1967 and their war burned up
the top of my skull
I felt it coming
from the top of my skull
Liquid heat
breath entered my lungs
Flames sucked out oxygen
I was mesmerized by
Jackson and Ornette
Flames mesmerized me
Because of Jackson
Because of Ornette
Because the She-Wolf
Because the Moon Woman
Cut the circle
Cut the circle
Flames cut the circle
I had wanted to paint my own paintings
play my own music
hear / taste
smell the edge
of flames consuming all conventions
I parachuted like Jackson Pollock
out of my skin
like Ornette Coleman while
you burned up
I parachuted
I shed
The Guardian of the Secret
I searched for a symbol
while the heat increased
the line between logic and chaos
lost its meaning
Music, painting split, folded the pavement
Ruby, ruby, flames
A cyclone of blue poles
up up, more up
The key / the gyroscope / the tone
of art split
the pavement
where you self-immolated
You sacrificed
Night dancer / heaven & hell
We were lonely women
at the change of the century
The shape of things to come
I watched the
development of the foetus
my eyes in the heat
ears in the heat
tongue in the heat
Jackson & Ornette split the pavement
Congeniality swallowed
full fathom fire &
the mesmerism of flames
I eventually grew away from
the wooden horse, from 1967
from Jackson & Ornette
from the world
where men
waged their wars
I used my loneliness
used lavender mists
I, too, sat still with
nothing left
But chronology
Nothing on the horizon but emptiness
not even Easter & the totem
It was too late to say no
after a history of saying yes
of being mesmerized by
Jackson & Ornette
who were maybe listening
The world, the war was maybe listening
while you ascended in flames
on the streets in Saigon
All work protected by copyright © 2017 by Brigid Meier