{"id":21102,"date":"2021-04-05T09:21:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T03:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=21102"},"modified":"2022-03-16T15:05:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T09:35:21","slug":"murderously-simple-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/murderously-simple-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderously simple thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

“She rightly read the moment while I stumbled through a second-hand text.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Jeanette Winterson<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But second-hand texts<\/p>\n

lay out<\/p>\n

generations of patterns and internalised mess<\/p>\n

How else<\/p>\n

to mitigate<\/p>\n

effect<\/p>\n

other than<\/p>\n

read, analyse, process<\/p>\n

and beware. Be<\/p>\n

vigilant<\/p>\n

Words<\/p>\n

Words that compress<\/p>\n

Hide, elide, oppress<\/p>\n

But words<\/p>\n

Words that can also be light<\/p>\n

Light, bright, delight<\/p>\n

Lightly<\/p>\n

he wields<\/p>\n

adjectives:<\/p>\n

toxic, cold-hearted<\/p>\n

describing women<\/p>\n

What to take<\/p>\n

Break<\/p>\n

When to leave well-enough alone<\/p>\n

a comment made<\/p>\n

Context<\/p>\n

Jest<\/p>\n

Rest<\/p>\n

Put down the second-hand text<\/p>\n

Look at his face<\/p>\n

Grace<\/p>\n

A moment. A moment<\/p>\n

Reading a moment<\/p>\n

Ideology of the gut, Arundhathi<\/p>\n

said<\/p>\n

But does it go away<\/p>\n

the voice<\/p>\n

Noise<\/p>\n

the second-guess. Mess<\/p>\n

internalised<\/p>\n

Am I not wired to appreciate<\/p>\n

Face<\/p>\n

his face<\/p>\n

Forgive. Forgive and forget<\/p>\n

Of course he didn’t mean it<\/p>\n

Gingerly he walks around the<\/p>\n

word<\/p>\n

obvious<\/p>\n

after I blew a fuse<\/p>\n

refused<\/p>\n

to appreciate<\/p>\n

well-meant<\/p>\n

intent<\/p>\n

That case<\/p>\n

In and out<\/p>\n

In and out<\/p>\n

I move every day<\/p>\n

changing angles on events<\/p>\n

Determined. Determined<\/p>\n

not to partake<\/p>\n

I refuse<\/p>\n

I refuse<\/p>\n

Shall not let the system so huge<\/p>\n

that is always used to getting its way<\/p>\n

Get its way<\/p>\n

No. No. Not<\/p>\n

without a fight. Bloody<\/p>\n

fight\u00a0if it has to be<\/p>\n

Whose blood? Okay, okay<\/p>\n

Pause a moment<\/p>\n

His face<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I look at you and I would rather<\/em><\/p>\n

look at you than all the<\/em><\/p>\n

portraits in the world<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Murderously simple thing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to keep the ideology of the gut but not<\/p>\n

lose<\/p>\n

the passion of the mind on the way<\/p>\n

Love<\/p>\n

Okay, okay but to have<\/p>\n

the self as well?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thanks to Jeanette Winterson, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Frank O’Hara and Marina Tsvetaeva<\/em><\/p>\n

Cover Image: Pixabay<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“She rightly read the moment while I stumbled through a second-hand text.” \u2013 Jeanette Winterson   But second-hand texts lay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":21104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3401,8,2715],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-fiction-poetry","9":"category-voices","10":"category-vulnerability-and-sexuality"},"menu_order":177,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23109,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21102\/revisions\/23109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}