ArtLog: "What the Oracle Didn't Tell You"
Jan. 25th, 2014 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elisemRemember when we had such a fine time with "Nine Things About Oracles"?
A little while ago, several people all forwarded me the same call for submissions to an exhibition. (Pretty much every email said "Did they write this call for entries with you specifically in mind, or what?") Well, you know how I get. I went up to the workshop and talked to some wire and a piece of druzy and a whole bunch of aquamarines, and this happened:
"What the Oracle Didn't Tell You"
I'm going to submit it to them, but I wanted to give you guys a chance to play with it first. Getting picked to be in an exhibition would be great, but playing catch back and forth with art in wire and words is where I live and I live there with all of you, and we do it together.
Whether "What the Oracle Didn't Tell You" gets into that exhibition or not, making this piece turned out to be a love letter to all of you and to what we do collectively.
Thank you. You make my life better than I can say.
A little while ago, several people all forwarded me the same call for submissions to an exhibition. (Pretty much every email said "Did they write this call for entries with you specifically in mind, or what?") Well, you know how I get. I went up to the workshop and talked to some wire and a piece of druzy and a whole bunch of aquamarines, and this happened:
"What the Oracle Didn't Tell You"
I'm going to submit it to them, but I wanted to give you guys a chance to play with it first. Getting picked to be in an exhibition would be great, but playing catch back and forth with art in wire and words is where I live and I live there with all of you, and we do it together.
Whether "What the Oracle Didn't Tell You" gets into that exhibition or not, making this piece turned out to be a love letter to all of you and to what we do collectively.
Thank you. You make my life better than I can say.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 12:14 pm (UTC)Watch where you're going
Be careful
Treat everyone kindly
(even if that old woman isn't a witch
she still deserves politeness)
Phrase your questions carefully
because you were supposed to know all that already.
Oracles tell the truth slant
and if you don't want adventure
you should probably stay away from books.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 12:54 pm (UTC)She told me about you,
That I'd already found the one who'd stay,
Who wouldn't mind how I am.
She got the kids mostly right too,
(Got the hair color wrong)
But the joy, the fear, the pride--
(Of course, I could have figured most of that out for myself.)
She didn't tell me about the one I never kissed,
Who died far too young, before I could get to the hospital,
Whose wife's "oh girl, he loved you" nearly brought me to my knees.
Maybe, like me,
She just didn't know what to do with that knowledge.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 12:58 pm (UTC)you thought she meant something else
you imagined bridges, shipwrecks, exploding mountains,
poised moments of monumental change,
not the slow shift of root
changing the form of landscape in increments,
the things you make,
your tiny kindness, small attempts to help,
most tossed on stony ground but some
bringing returns beyond prediction,
the wonderful thing
growing whole from what you're doing
emerging from who you are, your choices,
the ways you build the world better,
the hidden gifts the future holds
seeding already in your soul
to flower into time.
Time blurs, when you have enough of it,
patterns show when you look through it,
actions, consequences, most barren
some that shape you and all the world.
What the oracle didn't tell you is how to tell which
swirl in the wire is the one the matters
so on you go, twisting them all because
that's who you are, it's what you do,
it's how you make
the next thing, the next moment, the future,
yourself,
come on: get on with it.
What the Oracle Didn't Tell You
Date: 2014-01-26 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 01:16 pm (UTC)That the long journey would be in your heart
Or nonsense like that.
Instead it was to Costa Rica.
The oracle didn't mention the parrots
Or the peppers that would make you break out
in hives. The ship's doctor was not oracular
but kind, gentle-handed, someone you could see again.
The oracle didn't tell you that you'd get a taste for it,
That it would not be one long voyage but many.
That you would make this shape for yourself:
The pause to prepare, the string of observations,
Stars from the ship's deck, flowers in the jungle.
Coming home to a slightly-stale apartment,
Ready to go around again when you could.
The oracle didn't say this would become you.
You didn't want to hear about your mother,
But the oracle didn't tell you that everyone,
Even ship's doctors, even returning adventurers,
Bears the unbearable at least once in their lives.
Everyone stares down the long road.
The oracle didn't tell you you'd be strong enough.
But you were.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-28 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 08:47 pm (UTC)She told you central metaphors, events
Behind them, told you words as clear as glass
With darkness after it, and as you pass
And stare into them, they return the sense
Of knowledge, and whatever you put in.
And you do pass, you turn and hold what you
Remember, waiting for the tiny true
Remainder you recall of her beginning. Did she know, or was she holding back the swirls of life around it, context made from all the things you did not tell her? Trading revelation for your privacy, did you abort full meaning, or did she? Who placed your feet on this uncertain track?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-26 10:33 pm (UTC)"What the Oracle Didn't Tell You"
The fruit
that is never plucked
rots on the vine.
Note: I deleted a second poem, down below, because the indentations weren't formatting correctly. It's here (http://dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com/230660.html) on my journal.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 12:08 am (UTC)Your father slain your mother ravaged
These your hands these your swollen heels
Festering plaguesource infecting Thebes
Dead flesh to cut out of the body politic
But it told you nothing of the brooches
Long pins, too thick, not sharp enough
It takes more than one try, more than two
Till you weep with broken eyes
And this one deed in all your life of pride
Was not foretold, may be called your own
no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-30 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-31 06:30 pm (UTC)Poem: Questions
Date: 2014-01-27 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 06:44 am (UTC)The oracle didn’t tell you
Which empire.
If you had known you would never have gone out,
Because you loved your empire,
The tribute and the power.
The oracle didn’t tell you
That your empire needed to fall,
That what you built after would be richer
Without the tribute.
The oracle didn’t tell you
What you would never have believed;
What is only visible from this side.
(With thanks to Victoria, for being my Pythia when she could so easily have been my Cassandra.)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-27 02:26 pm (UTC)for all that we learn is that we are due
the concrete and painful, never the new
since all is uncertain, given to fear.
The measures we take, whether many or few,
what oracles tell us we never quite hear.
No price we pay could ever be too dear
for all the good that we know would ensue
once we have passed the moment of review,
what oracles tell us we never quite hear.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-28 02:05 am (UTC)What the Oracle Didn't Tell You
It gets worse,
Breathe, hold on
And/or let go.
It gets better,
Time passes,
The world changes
Or you do.
Yes, he'll leave you.
Yes, she'll break your heart.
They're people.
We're all like that.
Yes, you've lost your way.
That's what living is,
This constant striving to pick our way
Through wild woods, through teeming streets,
Through our own worst instincts.
We find each other in the clearings,
Gather firewood, tell our stories,
Share campfires and go on.
Eventually you'll leave them too.
We're all frightened of that dark-
And yet somehow we find the grace
To light each other's paths
Over unexpected rocks
And to string promises like ropes
Over wild river crossings.
You'll have to be your own hero,
That's inescapable.
But you're allowed to be someone else's
Knight no matter the state of your armor.
Buy the damn ticket
Or there'll be
No long journey over water.
Turn the light off as you go, please.
The door will lock itself.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-28 06:27 pm (UTC)who honor the letter of their promises
and play fast and loose with the spirit.
When the oracle told me my future
she didn’t mention
that she was the love-child
of a goddess and a leprechaun.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-02 01:11 pm (UTC)She had been beautiful once. The man who sent me
would see her as such no longer, with the deep lines in her skin
and her wispy hair twisted up from her face. I saw
my future in her. I saw her face in the mirror above
her couch as I walked in when I should have been reflected there.
She told me all the meaningless platitudes
(of course; that is her role, as Oracle).
She told me the things I already knew:
All men have beasts inside them, fighting to get out;
Sunrise is not always the end of the darkness;
Sometimes it's the smallest sacrifices that trail you like smoke for years and kill you from the inside out;
Even if you mean it and it's like dragging a garland of broken glass up from your gut to get it out, an apology can never be enough.
Here is what she didn't say:
When you think to yourself I will write it down this time and not let my words swirl away, mean it;
Every promise breaks, and if you're lucky it just outlives you;
Bleed. Scream. Live the life you have, not the polite one other people should see;
You will choose right more often than you choose wrong and remember only the wrong choices;
Never forget who profits when you're silent;
The world needs more monsters hidden in the skins of girls;
Forge your heart in fire and leave the center molten;
Grow scales. Grow bark. Grow spines. Grow plates of cursed iron. You will need every bit of armor;
Your blue-eyed cat will love you with her whole heart but can never understand you;
A lover will never understand you either, but with luck and wisdom they will come closer than you can imagine;
The desire to be heard is not mad, merely impossible to fulfill;
Even as you consider oblivion you will marvel at how very little of your history you would change.
Still, she said everything that was necessary.
All those things she didn't say are carved into my bones.
I hope she finds them when I die -- for she is an Oracle and I
may spit the occasional prophecy while ducking the eyes of the sun
but it is certain I will die before she looks
even a day older. Perhaps she will read my bones
for the woman that needs to hear all those things
and whatever clouds my eyes and stills my breath will find
regret in that moment.
Perhaps not. I will not know, either way.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 10:35 am (UTC)The difference between
what you should have asked
and what you did
is sea and air
though both are salt.
Nine is a fine
number, thirteen is
better
but counting waves is not
riding them.
Stars are elusive and
given to riddles.
Approach them
with the caution
of dragons.
The flight of ravens,
the sun through stone,
these things direct
only those who have
direction.
Learning how to ask
the question
is one answer.
Wanting to
is another.
Ice and love
have this in common:
there is always more
beneath the surface.