To the Bonfire Rhumba (ELECTRIC DELIRIUM 1.9)
by Jamie Grefe
We flatter the rickety road of a better life. Rosemary acknowledges this, but doubts her ability to speak herself into imagined realms. She hears that old bone-chamber in the oily sky.
Rosalind calls out something about the circles of culture. Dear, it's a fire show of lunacy. Rosemary nods on the night of a drunken celebration. They are dancing around a bonfire in the woods at night. Rosalind appears where the black of night meets the teetering orange. She is dressed in fire. Her mind is a jumble of repeated words, the words of other people, their voices remembered or re-membered by her own amateur self. Out of the jumble she says, culture is a performable action, a mental model, a frivolous and flowering performance of lunatics and hopeful beggars. No one listens to her bumbling words. They nod.
The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises. Rosalind dreams fits and poundings of a hammer, a series of nails. She is hitting the nail with the hammer, pounding the hammer with the head of a nail, nailing the hammer to the wall as a piece of art, artistically rendering an image of a hammer and a nail on her computer with a keyboard of rusted nails, fingernails hammering keys, plucking like violins or tubs of champagne. She has a system for creation.
Rosalind calls out something about the circles of culture. Dear, it's a fire show of lunacy. Rosemary nods on the night of a drunken celebration. They are dancing around a bonfire in the woods at night. Rosalind appears where the black of night meets the teetering orange. She is dressed in fire. Her mind is a jumble of repeated words, the words of other people, their voices remembered or re-membered by her own amateur self. Out of the jumble she says, culture is a performable action, a mental model, a frivolous and flowering performance of lunatics and hopeful beggars. No one listens to her bumbling words. They nod.
The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises. Rosalind dreams fits and poundings of a hammer, a series of nails. She is hitting the nail with the hammer, pounding the hammer with the head of a nail, nailing the hammer to the wall as a piece of art, artistically rendering an image of a hammer and a nail on her computer with a keyboard of rusted nails, fingernails hammering keys, plucking like violins or tubs of champagne. She has a system for creation.
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"The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises. Rosalind dreams fits and poundings of a hammer, a series of nails."
Nice music in the phrasing. I like the piece. A good read.
Thank you, Sam! That means a lot to me.
Delicious! I am not sure exactly what is what but the language is so lush I don't really mind. *
Jane, thank you for the kind words. I'm happy you enjoyed the language. As for what's going on in the piece, well, sometimes obscurity gets the best of me:)
Very pleasing. I read it many times, savoring line after line. fave.
Thank you, Tantra. These close reads by fellow Fictionauts make this day much richer.