pens in a box

Medium

Digital

Artist Notes

© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved _____________________________________________________________________________________________ I Will Never Write Like Ernest _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Every so often I admonish myself, "No more tapestries thick with adjectives, enough of gilded cages brimming overfull with words." _____________________________________________________________________________________________ And I vow to emulate that rough-hewn chronicler of the masculine world, he who writ so spare, so cleanly of all the passions some men have: war and ruin, drink and blood sport – sharppolished as a fine-forged blade – as well as matters of the heart. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ No sentiment, no heavy lace, but straight and sure as a skillfully-wielded rapier to the bone. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ So I sit with best intentions vigilantly scouring all my trim. Gingerbreading ruthlessly sliced from every line, tossed onto Webster's scrapheap like so much faulty and imperfect scrollwork that rather than adding to the beauty of a structure draws the eye unerringly to its poor proportions, until naked, trembling, my hapless verse stands stark and empty, the words that flow so naturally from my soul espaliered firmly to an alien fence instead of vining freely in their own wild way – my way! – forced to feign a sturdiness their slender graceful limbs were never meant to have. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ And, seeing this unnatural form, I pause, take up my pen, and having freed the stiff green shoots from their shackles, re-adorn my arbor with all the ripe and heady fruit, perfume and sweetly-curling tendrils intended by my nature's own design. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ So Ernest I am not, and never can/shall be, but in my opulence recline and offer my harsh luxury. ~ © 1997, renewed 2012 RC deWinter