This is a collaboration between George Angel and myself.
A narrative and a study of inspiration.
my image, his words
"It was particularly before a storm that the legend of Jack
Nimble seemed to linger in a small coastal village founded by Dutch immigrants
just north of Davenport along the rocky cliffs. Presumably a tall, lanky youth
with sad sleepless eyes, he would sour milk, tangle little girls’ hair, and
frighten livestock off cliffs; all without ever being seen. He would burn your
house down because a wedge of cheese you had in your cupboard enticed him.
Bells rattled without ringing whenever he passed. He had only ever been
perceived in the shadows, and then more as a kind of flicker than as the
silhouette of a figure. Children could be rid of him by simply opening a window
wherever they were. Jack shared the mirror of every pond and puddle with his
brother Quick, each from his own side, each yearning to drown in the other by
hurling himself at him. Jack made trees bloom wildly and left tobacco stains on
shirt cuffs. Jack Nimble was alleged to help sailors’ sons remember their
fathers, and he was said to enjoy making young women drowsy. The food was
always salty wherever he decided to take up lodging. Some of the children had
wooden dolls in his likeness, always with one leg stretched out horizontally
before him, as if he were about to push off and unlatch from the face of the
world."
his words, my image
Aperture
Stolen for a clapper,
The fence slat left an absence,
A summer’s long shutter.
The first rung of the latter
Was a teeter-totter in a yard.
Tintinnabulation from a sprinkler,
Squeezed pungent of all its green shade
By the leaf prickle of loose-legged drowsing,
Within which a radiant stain pulses darkly behind bone,
Inclines to polish its has to say,
Purpling across night’s brass murmurs.
--George
Angel
George Angel is an author, play-write, artist and musician. For bio and published works of George Angel please visit Poetry International
George's book, The Fifth Season is available at Amazon and I highly recommend it.
Thanks George.