Skip to main content

Shirt Tales



Linen on the line is pegged. These trousers have stood under speedy equatorial sunsets. Here, spider-spun cotton: a shirt that has floated in the Bay of Bengal: bought on the streets of Malapuram. It flails now in the heated howl that blasts also through the house and slams a door and all of it evokes a beach under the brew of a tropic storm.
Every piece of washing hung gets an extra peg, and is left to dervish-dance. The wind is a puppeteer: garments, like puppets, have a history, a seeming life.


We calculate it will be July 20th 2015 by the time we've viewed ALL of Boy's India adventure photos :-) 



Comments

Geo. said…
What exuberance! Your post has a cadence I've felt only when dancing with Sufis --like square dancing but with fewer hicks, I like both. Surely these are the shirts of universal peace! I loved this post.
21 July 2013 at 05:33
Lisa Southard said…
All dancing is fine with me! This is a post that I wrote, sighed, thought: oh, that will do- then reread and understood what it was about. Love it when I surprise myself!
21 July 2013 at 23:21
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Pants Conundrum

There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words...
2 comments
Read more

Back From The Future Blog Party

Another joint blog adventure- if you want to see who else said what the list of participants is here . The premise is this: 'You're up before dawn on a Saturday when the doorbell rings. You haven't brewed your coffee so you wonder if you imagined the sound. Plonking the half-filled carafe in the sink, you go to the front door and cautiously swing it open. No one there. As you cast your eyes to the ground, you see a parcel addressed to you ... from you. You scoop it up and haul it inside, sensing something legitimate despite the extreme oddness of the situation. Carefully, you pry it open. Inside is a shoebox -- sent from ten years in the future -- and it's filled with items you have sent yourself. What's in it?' Here's how I imagined it: Before dawn? Shadows outside, first forming. Sleep has gone, I don't know where. Coffee I can find. All the way from Machu Pichu, this fair-traded pack. Scissors are in the drawer, which ...
26 comments
Read more

A Glitch Or Two

My Chromebook has been crumbling. It seems a little like dementia, this inability to upgrade its powers of communication, it makes me sad, even for an object. It's one of the reasons my posts here have been put aside, that and generally being tumbled by tiredness. I have saved up money for a replacement, also I have spent that money on trees and shrubs. I have two novels to sort out however, and this will be the reason I save up again. I don't stop writing, even if I don't tell anyone. In the meantime should you need a calm place to go, I have begun a substack account. Please do drop by. If the kettle crumbles we can make tea (or soup) on the firepit. Me on substack:  Lisa Southard
Post a Comment
Read more