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Three
Poems
by
Laura Solomon
The
Dancer
It
looks so pretty to watch, I know,
me
twirling and spinning through space
for
your entertainment.
How
you gasp as I fly through the air.
How
you applaud my immaculate plies.
I
exist for your amusement.
What
you don’t see is this –
when
I take off my shoes,
the
calluses gnarled and hardened
that
blossom upon my feet,
the
years and years of training it took me
to
get to this level.
I
am humble, of course, and modest.
I
do my duty without complaint.
I
was raised for this – almost an acrobat,
a
delicate girl, fragile, even,
if
a flower, then a lily.
Perhaps
I exploited my looks, just a little,
to
get me where I am today.
Big
deal – who didn’t?
There
are nasty rumours in circulation,
about
blow-jobs I gave, palms I crossed with my father’s
silver,
in
order to make it into the Royal Ballet.
False,
all false,
I
am as innocent as snow,
an
empty chalice,
waiting
to be filled with other people’s desires and fears and
longings.
Watch
me spin, my smile like rigor mortis,
a
face set in plaster, like a saint,
or
an angel, only to eager to serve,
to
serve you
the
audience,
who
lap it up and afterwards,
I
sit in the green room,
my
tired feet in a bucket of ice,
silence
ringing in my ears.
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Freda
Kahlo’s Cry
Today
the ghost of me attended
My
own exhibition at the Tate Modern.
All
those paintings on display,
The
ones that I laboured over for so long.
The
sickening part was the merchandise.
Coffee
mugs, calendars, prints, clocks –
all
with either me or one of my paintings thereupon.
Somebody’s
making a pretty packet –
and
during my lifetime, I was as poor as a church mouse,
living
hand to mouth.
At
least I have achieved a form of immortality.
I
hang on many walls.
Nobody
ever seems to bear in mind,
the
price I paid during my lifetime;
my
nerves of steel –
my
shattered spine.
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Lord
Byron Gets the Blues
They
called me all sorts of names. Crippled, lame, weak - a
nancy boy.
Poetry
was my weapon, my revenge, my gleaming sword.
We
made our mark – me and my corrective boot,
heavy
footsteps through the London streets, stomp,
stomp, stomp.
Words
slammed down upon the page – wham
wham wham. One
after another, like gun shots.
They
all died away; it’s me who is immortal, studied on
university courses and what not,
my
words echoing down through the ages.
There
were rumours, of course, there always are –
words
like homosexuality
and
incest
were
bandied about they stuck their shame onto me.
Stomp,
stomp, stomp –here
I come with my club foot, my heavy tread,
hammering
down literature’s main corridor, thumping on the walls and
the doors – let
me in,
and
they did, eventually, but by then it was too late – what I
wanted was to get out, exile.
I
never asked for fame, it just found me.
Fearing
the lynch mob, I hunkered down in Lake Geneva.
It
wasn’t paranoia – they really were
after
me;
but
I, I found a safe place, and continued my writings from there.
They
always hate men like me; eighty years later it was Oscar Wilde
who received the same treatment.
Eventually
we inspire, not fear and hatred, but admiration – what a
joke!
Thank
you, O humans, for all you put me through -
the
making of a genius, the modelling of a man.
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