Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 19:51:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "t.k. smalec" <tks201-AT-is9.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: No subject was specified.



cave box desk full of crayons
eight colors only
eight colors only allowed

"in case you make a mistake."

and so, in a small tartan case 
i carry eight colors: 
red, orange, yellow
green, purple, blue
finally 
the black and the brown

the black and brown ones rarely 
get used 
in the classroom
in class, they are used just in case 

"in case you make a mistake."
 
the black ones, they tell us
our teachers
the black ones are used for erasing:
draw over, draw over
don't see it, can't see it
don't hear her, hear him
anymore

the black ones are used for erasing
the brown ones are used for brown dogs

we learn, for unspecified reasons,
that the other crayons are deemed
more complex
 
for instance, green crayons 
can signify grass
can signify trees, frogs, fish,
life in the picture
can signal snot, cilia, snakes
or slices of rainbow
slow summer days  
spent at home

meanwhile, red crayons 
can signify love
blood, lip-stick, race cars,
strawberry bikinis, fire
shooting stars
passion unlike up above

and what, in the end, is the lesson?

some of us learn to break crayons
some of us learn dogs are brown
some of us learn color-blindness
some of us learn to draw 
caves of white



theresa

On Thu, 25 May 2000, radhika_gajjala wrote:

> 
> Cave box
> desk
> stopped
> not
> for *my* convenience
>                 RAMmed full of inconsequentia
> 
> mesmerized
> re-Absorbed like Narcissus
> 
> staring at Plato's shadow-filled
> staring at Plato's shadow-filled
> staring at Plato's shadow-filled
> 
>                 cut-and-paste
> cut-and-paste
> 
>             eternally
> 
> thinking this is the edge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kurvanas-AT-aol.com wrote:
> 
> > In a message dated 00-05-25 10:58:27 EDT, you write:
> >
> > << Postcolonial ventriloquism >>
> >
> > Ah, the marblemushed mouth
> > that sucks the life outta
> > me, myself, and I
> > Came, saw, conquered
> > the past to discover my own
> > eternal colonization.
> >
> > At the dawn
> > of the new (whose?) millennium
> > of greedneed I find myself
> > staring at Plato's shadow-filled
> > Cave box desktopped for my convenience
> > RAMmed full of inconsequentia
> > Absorbed like Narcissus
> > Playing at the edge
> > of the world's lake.
> >
> > [c 2000 thomas fortenberry]
> 
> --
> ****************************************************
> Radhika Gajjala
> http://www.cyberdiva.org/
> http://www.cyberdiva.org/stuff.html
> http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
> 
>