A
Black bats flap past stark ramparts at day’s last gasp.
Dark scalds hard hands, parched palms – angry; sharp.
E
Green reeds bend;
deep breezes sweep trees.
Wet seeds sleep – tend the new.
I
Thin winds drift in misty hills.
Birds flit; birds trill.
Mist lifts.
Dimly, hill-tips find light.
Cliffs glint; sing.
Bliss.
O
Folk forgo forks for fowl food –
frown on floppy frog or fox.
No soft or soggy food for lordly folk.
No forks for soft or soggy dross.
U
Blunt thunder hums.
Tugs, curls, pushes, bursts.
Ellen, 1894 (A Univocal Poem on E)
When she sketches her “self”, Ellen Thesleff
remembers the belle she’d been –
delves her depths, sees them empty.
Dwells then.
She severs the esthete’s elegy
(sexed, svelt, slender),
represents embers:
renders her elven cheek,
her sleek dress.
She emerges sexless,
defected –
hence perfect.
Ellen sees her “self” set free.
Pledges “free” the new creed.
Femme sketcher expressed.
Image: Ellen Thesleff, Self-Portrait, 1894