Word For/Word: #3
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Catherine Daly

 

 

Dress


no more than three garments: sandals count, which accounts for barefoot women


Aubade       stands in gold sandals
                  a white dress
                  linen
                                                  diaphanous     transparent
                                                                                    to shine
                                                            to show Phantasus
                  to disperse fantasy =
                  beauty in light
                                                  but I thought fantasy was opposite
Auroura gold sandaled
                  to gleam and shine
                  to be manifested "briefly"
                                                  gold     glass     glow
                              glitter
                                        glisten
                              reflected light, as wet
god des
           flower-head necklaces
           leis                 lances
                     girls about to marry
                                        join the people
                                                  sing this song
                                                  Lay, Lady, Lay
                                                  Doo Dah
           tatter your dresses
                     double consonants
                     Cytherea from near Cytherea

                     Aphrodite               rose     myrtle apple     dice
           Adonis, who is he to me?
           I suppose I should care more
                     (he is a bore
                     this chanting's a chore
                     I like my dress
                     or prefer
                     it in tatters
                                 Adonai
                     it is not about the dress
                     it is not about Adonis
                                                  dress of blood
                                                  old florid story
                                                             of the blood, repeated wet
                                                             vow & lament

Eros wore a soldier's cloak dyed purple
purple mantle
no man in a grey flannel suit
           fedora
soldier not salaryman
           salaryman
           before
ornate, obscene, I have covered          Eros with my tongue
                     I have always regarded my language women who wear purple
                                                                          with suspicion with the exception
                                                                          of my friend.
                                                        of all shellfish, why oysters?
Eros descended
           coming from heaven                (like a testicle)
dressed in a purple cape
cloaked         mantle

                     If we are chosen
dill to cap your curls
wears grace
           hair moves, stirs
                     as if by a voice

the folds of a purple kerchief
knot at chin
           girl gang sign in 50's Chicago

ten shoe / makers / five / ox/hides
to cobble / sandals
           hyperbole
                     how strong is the guardian of
                     the bride and bridegroom

                     the contract

you wear livery shining with gold
(her livery)
(you)
Hecate
Aphrodite
           the trousseau
           to protect or prepare

           how does the uniform
           deliver freedom?

           I have been handed
           placed in the hands
           of my new owner
                               lover
           belonging to the people
characterized by a distinctive ceremonial dress
the bride
           negligee
                     to grow sheer
                     she is shining
                     you are shining
                               (not the clothes)

armored / tread of mainland infantry
                     in glittering / bronze
all the violet tiaras
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined
           twinned

           if only in nature there were peace
           is it only ritual
           tradition
           that counters cruelty
           with beauty
           made?

           Maid, is there beauty
           peace
           without woman's service?

           No
           some vines
           weave
           themselves
           I learn tender
           but they're tendrils

           and design.

your Chian nightdress (off with)
(put on) purple frock and yellow tunic
color opposites
           crocus           your nightgown your servants' too
                                and you clothed in nothing
                                not beauty's
                                not the best
a cloak thrown           a saffron blouse and violet
flowers crowning your hair
           a clean mantle on you, and crown
your hair with flowers

she was dressed well:

her feet were hidden
under embroidered
sandal straps -- fine
handwork from Asia
                     ultimately to gleam
                     I say bright and gleaming like the moon
                     gold-crowned
                     Aphrodite
                                                      also glowing
                                                      a garland, wreath
                                                      a turning
                                                      trope

                                                      she says light dresses us
                                                                                        beauty
                                                      I say also the dark, velvet
                                                                I have known, even in daylight
                                                                                    especially
pretty
          ring (pride)
                    yes!

hayseed finery        country        pastoral        provincial
spun of straw          to wear her rags above her ankles
gold                                  draw her dress about
          Redneck Riviera              without sense
                    his grandmother borrowed
                    dress and veil and...
an art to skirt lifting
         part is the ankle
                             put on your milk-white gown
I have no embroidered
headband               a bright
                                       strap    cover    feet
                    a purple ribbon
looped in the hair
         dark hair
                    yellow hair               her many gold bracelets
                              flowers          fragrant purple robes
                                                  exquisite adornments
purple ribbon in dark hair = youth
flowers only last a day                  violets on her breasts
         white has other connotations
                    point
to braid the ribbon in
         perhaps a sparkling, a dark light
to gleam and flash again, person      spark
to eyes                                           tear your dresses
         they have burned their images by now
does war kill love, or winter?

wear the cream-white dress desire embroiders
         points and flashes circling
crown

you, too: crown
         cream white dress                  her robed limbs are violets
                     I say cream
                                 white
                                            milk
                     "to the top"
                                 rising

in gold sandals           golden-sandaled
         end of light night
trim garments
beauty of your garments
         hyperbole
the shoemakers used
hides
         his giant sandals

perfumed kerchief
porphyry
         the stone lithos        imagery

purple ribbon
         rib                 you took garlands of violets
people                    crocuses and roses
looped in her hair     not porphyry
                              periphery

whose hair is yellower
than torchlight
need wear no colored ribbons

a garland of fresh flowers                you tied them around you in soft bands
                                         you took many flowers
and flung them in ropes
about your sapling throat
                              there was a line by Yeats
                              that was wrong

around her, the soft linen robes,
dill, loop                  ropes of pearls, I say
tender                     roses, myrtle, Aphrodite's attributes
hands about your lovely hair            grace
           tender garlands tender
the blessed graces loves her who wears flowers
                       they look
                                             garlands


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