An Arising Art
Writings
Paul Scott Malone
Lie in Light
1.
Mid-autumn, mid-afternoon in the middle of the week;
he finds her where he knew he would ... yes ...
in the old stone kitchen, the kitchen refurbished by
his own large hands, tools bequeathed to him by his father.
That long gauzy colorless skirt, a simple canvas belt
strapped about her waist; folds of flighty material clinging to
her parted legs, legs moist with the day's warmth and its work,
legs limber as she labors in haste above the deep sink of soapstone.
Her strong arms move, the strong hands hidden in soap suds,
suds like the thin spent foam at the ocean's edge. And the breasts
of her mid-life high still on her feminine frame but hanging
seductively now as nature, only nature, would have it be.
Those feminine hips sway as she works; her breasts tumble with life,
solitary entities, goat-skin botas brimming with last year's wine. They
command the household, mighty engines powering the well-being of all,
a mirage-thought fleeting, perplexing, crucial to her life, and to his as well.
1.
Mid-autumn, mid-afternoon in the middle of the week;
he finds her where he knew he would ... yes ...
in the old stone kitchen, the kitchen refurbished by
his own large hands, tools bequeathed to him by his father.
That long gauzy colorless skirt, a simple canvas belt
strapped about her waist; folds of flighty material clinging to
her parted legs, legs moist with the day's warmth and its work,
legs limber as she labors in haste above the deep sink of soapstone.
Her strong arms move, the strong hands hidden in soap suds,
suds like the thin spent foam at the ocean's edge. And the breasts
of her mid-life high still on her feminine frame but hanging
seductively now as nature, only nature, would have it be.
Those feminine hips sway as she works; her breasts tumble with life,
solitary entities, goat-skin botas brimming with last year's wine. They
command the household, mighty engines powering the well-being of all,
a mirage-thought fleeting, perplexing, crucial to her life, and to his as well.
2.
With stealth playful and eager he appears behind her at the sink. Against her
backside he presses his body, lifts her breasts, breasts she allows
most days now they are so isolated to ride free of any encumbrance.
These he holds as he would hold the fruit of love itself, and he sees her head
turn angle wise against her naked shoulder. Her eyes take in his whiskered
face. She smiles. Bountiful, all her own. An offering. A swift suggestion.
Wanna go upstairs, he whispers. But I'm not finished, she protests. That
same look again on that long angular face. He whispers, Won't these or any
other tasks like them wait till later, tomorrow? So faint, a smirk, a grin,
so removed yet so important that only he knows its meaning. And he knows
she considers it an obligation, another duty, but also a private joy of her
own to pleasure him wherever and whenever and however he seeks it.
This often in the afternoon beneath pencil shadows, stretched and narrow. And
that smile again! Demure now. She nods her head with girlish acceptance,
her black hair jostled in likewise affirmation. He leads her through the
accumulated tangle of table and chair and cupboard, everything in an odd
kilter, a well-tended disarray, past the pantry where they have to duck their
heads beneath the staircase like children ascending. Into the cool hallway.
With stealth playful and eager he appears behind her at the sink. Against her
backside he presses his body, lifts her breasts, breasts she allows
most days now they are so isolated to ride free of any encumbrance.
These he holds as he would hold the fruit of love itself, and he sees her head
turn angle wise against her naked shoulder. Her eyes take in his whiskered
face. She smiles. Bountiful, all her own. An offering. A swift suggestion.
Wanna go upstairs, he whispers. But I'm not finished, she protests. That
same look again on that long angular face. He whispers, Won't these or any
other tasks like them wait till later, tomorrow? So faint, a smirk, a grin,
so removed yet so important that only he knows its meaning. And he knows
she considers it an obligation, another duty, but also a private joy of her
own to pleasure him wherever and whenever and however he seeks it.
This often in the afternoon beneath pencil shadows, stretched and narrow. And
that smile again! Demure now. She nods her head with girlish acceptance,
her black hair jostled in likewise affirmation. He leads her through the
accumulated tangle of table and chair and cupboard, everything in an odd
kilter, a well-tended disarray, past the pantry where they have to duck their
heads beneath the staircase like children ascending. Into the cool hallway.
3.
In the bedroom dim, the windows open to engage the autumn swish and swirl of
leaves, the tingling high notes of a thin cool breeze, they undress on opposite sides
of the bed, he owning much more to remove than she. Her body she slides beneath
the light material and lying on her back awaits his arrival beside her. Once more
those lifted lips, that simple knowledge, a mystery only women sense, and it
deepens the character of her face. In reply he grins his own offering of love and
thanks. ... But something unusual occurs. He moves to her side of the bed and nods
for her to withdraw her legs from beneath the sheets, to lie atop the light bedspread.
She does as he bids. On the bed he kneels beside her as if to speak, or to kiss her
navel, and he rolls her onto her side, facing the window, he behind her like a second
self, resting his head on an elbow, both of them gazing out at the generous forgiving
sky. After a time he lowers his head to the pillow, as she has done before him, and he
clamps an arm across her as if to prevent her flying away. He presses his face into
her hair. Smells nicely of something like wheat and the dust of the house and the
sweat of a day's work. The musky incense of her one life's body holds his head
in its mystic hands, holds it burrowed there against her neck, until he must breathe.
Beneath her waist he slides his other arm so that, together, his arms are hugging her.
Hugging her as if she were his last refuge against the twin tyrannies of stasis
and motion. They are body to body, the light touch of her skin all along
his own a testament to longing, and it is why he sought her out, for it is the electric
jilt of the touch, the scent of unwashed hair, the rhythm of labored breathing,
all one can feel and smell and taste and hear and see of the beloved ... reminders ...
cached deep in our primordial memory ... that even for our brief stay upon this
barren place proffers something to grasp, to offer needful thanks for, to keep close.
4.
That is all. Onto her back she rolls again within his arms' grasp of her.
Her eyes question but only in familiar jest for they beg no answers --
there are no answers, they both know; they've learned that much ...
the two exist, nothing more -- so there is nothing necessary of voice.
Outside the afternoon in its cerulean brilliance with impatience waits their quiet
arrival among the day's dimming light, the anxious sycamore rustling in a dry
rattle its multitude of lightweight mutinous autumn leaves that float to Earth,
tumble and flit and yaw across the dry yellow lawn, the sound of unhurried flight.
(c) 2008 Paul Scott Malone
"Lie in Light" first appeared in ArtWallzine
In the bedroom dim, the windows open to engage the autumn swish and swirl of
leaves, the tingling high notes of a thin cool breeze, they undress on opposite sides
of the bed, he owning much more to remove than she. Her body she slides beneath
the light material and lying on her back awaits his arrival beside her. Once more
those lifted lips, that simple knowledge, a mystery only women sense, and it
deepens the character of her face. In reply he grins his own offering of love and
thanks. ... But something unusual occurs. He moves to her side of the bed and nods
for her to withdraw her legs from beneath the sheets, to lie atop the light bedspread.
She does as he bids. On the bed he kneels beside her as if to speak, or to kiss her
navel, and he rolls her onto her side, facing the window, he behind her like a second
self, resting his head on an elbow, both of them gazing out at the generous forgiving
sky. After a time he lowers his head to the pillow, as she has done before him, and he
clamps an arm across her as if to prevent her flying away. He presses his face into
her hair. Smells nicely of something like wheat and the dust of the house and the
sweat of a day's work. The musky incense of her one life's body holds his head
in its mystic hands, holds it burrowed there against her neck, until he must breathe.
Beneath her waist he slides his other arm so that, together, his arms are hugging her.
Hugging her as if she were his last refuge against the twin tyrannies of stasis
and motion. They are body to body, the light touch of her skin all along
his own a testament to longing, and it is why he sought her out, for it is the electric
jilt of the touch, the scent of unwashed hair, the rhythm of labored breathing,
all one can feel and smell and taste and hear and see of the beloved ... reminders ...
cached deep in our primordial memory ... that even for our brief stay upon this
barren place proffers something to grasp, to offer needful thanks for, to keep close.
4.
That is all. Onto her back she rolls again within his arms' grasp of her.
Her eyes question but only in familiar jest for they beg no answers --
there are no answers, they both know; they've learned that much ...
the two exist, nothing more -- so there is nothing necessary of voice.
Outside the afternoon in its cerulean brilliance with impatience waits their quiet
arrival among the day's dimming light, the anxious sycamore rustling in a dry
rattle its multitude of lightweight mutinous autumn leaves that float to Earth,
tumble and flit and yaw across the dry yellow lawn, the sound of unhurried flight.
(c) 2008 Paul Scott Malone
"Lie in Light" first appeared in ArtWallzine
Bio
From "Prize Rope," which appeared in Malone's first
book, In an Arid Land: Thirteen Stories of Texas.
I tug on the rope, gently, rhythmically, so he won't know it's not the
waves doing the tugging, just enough to draw him off balance and away
from his thoughts, and he seems to come out of the spell. Presently he
lifts his rod and he turns and he heaves his sinker out into the dark
churning waves, and, because this is why I have come, I do the same,
and then we both reel in, quite deliberately, keeping our eyes on some
invisible spot out there, and this goes on and on, on and on for a long
time; we cast out and real in, cast out and reel in, catching nothing, as
the sharks and the stingrays and the jellyfish swim menacingly around us,
as the killer currents conspire against us, as the moon ducks its big white
eye below the dunes behind us, all through the blind mysterious hours,
while the Prize Rope tugs at our waists, keeping us close, until, with the
first pale sheen of sunrise, we can see once again just where we are, see
once again the danger we have passed through together.
(c) 1995 Paul Scott Malone
book, In an Arid Land: Thirteen Stories of Texas.
I tug on the rope, gently, rhythmically, so he won't know it's not the
waves doing the tugging, just enough to draw him off balance and away
from his thoughts, and he seems to come out of the spell. Presently he
lifts his rod and he turns and he heaves his sinker out into the dark
churning waves, and, because this is why I have come, I do the same,
and then we both reel in, quite deliberately, keeping our eyes on some
invisible spot out there, and this goes on and on, on and on for a long
time; we cast out and real in, cast out and reel in, catching nothing, as
the sharks and the stingrays and the jellyfish swim menacingly around us,
as the killer currents conspire against us, as the moon ducks its big white
eye below the dunes behind us, all through the blind mysterious hours,
while the Prize Rope tugs at our waists, keeping us close, until, with the
first pale sheen of sunrise, we can see once again just where we are, see
once again the danger we have passed through together.
(c) 1995 Paul Scott Malone
Sour, bitter, burning, sweet --
Green tendrils reaching up
like adventurous ribbons
in the Earth's new hair --
Fragrant as an exuberant
musk, a womanish scent
of desire and expectancy,
offering and denying its
tearful pleasures, its
ripening essence --
Something elemental,
a youthful innocence yet,
a womanish child with
adventurous ribbons that
flutter as beckoning fingers --
Come and taste me, she says
on the breeze. I offer my hand.
(c) 2009 Southern Humanities
Review
Green tendrils reaching up
like adventurous ribbons
in the Earth's new hair --
Fragrant as an exuberant
musk, a womanish scent
of desire and expectancy,
offering and denying its
tearful pleasures, its
ripening essence --
Something elemental,
a youthful innocence yet,
a womanish child with
adventurous ribbons that
flutter as beckoning fingers --
Come and taste me, she says
on the breeze. I offer my hand.
(c) 2009 Southern Humanities
Review
Wild Onions
The Cone Flower
In darkness you sat upon that enormous
white garden bench and you asked me
which of the new cone flower's perfect
blossoms you should cut for the dinner
table. I said cut nothing in the dark, never
with the moon near full. Later you lay
beside me and whispered to yourself before
sleep stilled your tongue but excited your thrilling
mind, your lost mind, with dreams; you woke in
a bright blinding midnight moaning and damp and
wanting me to tell you of my great and terrible love
of you, to tell you also of my women, my bygone lovers.
Alone, sunrise, I rouse and emerge. I find the crushed cone
flower blossom that you must have cut not long before dawn
lying curled and withered in speckled blood by the threshold.
(c) 1996 Paul Scott Malone
white garden bench and you asked me
which of the new cone flower's perfect
blossoms you should cut for the dinner
table. I said cut nothing in the dark, never
with the moon near full. Later you lay
beside me and whispered to yourself before
sleep stilled your tongue but excited your thrilling
mind, your lost mind, with dreams; you woke in
a bright blinding midnight moaning and damp and
wanting me to tell you of my great and terrible love
of you, to tell you also of my women, my bygone lovers.
Alone, sunrise, I rouse and emerge. I find the crushed cone
flower blossom that you must have cut not long before dawn
lying curled and withered in speckled blood by the threshold.
(c) 1996 Paul Scott Malone
From This House of Women, Malone's first novel
She drove on and after a few minutes she heard one of the little voices in back ask if Aunt Emma would visit them
at this place they were going. "I hope so, someday," she said, but that was only part of it, for she too had just
been thinking of Emma. She had been thinking of how much Emma would have enjoyed their adventure, how she
would have entertained the boys with stories and wisecracks and how she would have made Hannah feel more
secure in what she was doing. And then she realized that since dawn she had been thinking of all of them
without realizing it. Of Emma and Mrs. Kruger and Mr. Kruger and Harley Brown and Andres and Angelita and
Isabel, and of Striker too with his easy smile and gentle ways; even Deputy Keesey had trooped through her mind.
She thought of Karankawa and the farm and the house in town. Of everything and everybody she had known and
loved and hated for almost twenty years. She was wondering just how she was supposed to live her new life
without them. Already she missed them, most of them, but she knew she mustn't think that way.
In years to come, many years in fact, after her life had changed yet again, after she thought she had come to a
place that seemed like what people meant when they called something home, she would remember this day, this
odyssey of revelation, as more of a beginning than an ending. It would be two years before she saw her daughter
Isabel again, six before she rejoiced once more in the warm attention of Emma Kurtzer's friendship and it would be
almost fourteen years before she ventured east one last time to bid farewell to Martha and Abel Kruger, her
long-ago rescuers and guardians. She would never again see Harley Brown alive and because of this, for a brief
season at least, she would know a happiness unlike any she had known before. And she would know too, in her
new life, the greatest of all sorrows.
"Here we are, I guess," she said and the boys craned their necks or hung from the windows for a better look at the
unexplored and therefore somehow unfinished place called Alpine.
(c) 2001 Paul Scott Malone and Texas Tech University Press
She drove on and after a few minutes she heard one of the little voices in back ask if Aunt Emma would visit them
at this place they were going. "I hope so, someday," she said, but that was only part of it, for she too had just
been thinking of Emma. She had been thinking of how much Emma would have enjoyed their adventure, how she
would have entertained the boys with stories and wisecracks and how she would have made Hannah feel more
secure in what she was doing. And then she realized that since dawn she had been thinking of all of them
without realizing it. Of Emma and Mrs. Kruger and Mr. Kruger and Harley Brown and Andres and Angelita and
Isabel, and of Striker too with his easy smile and gentle ways; even Deputy Keesey had trooped through her mind.
She thought of Karankawa and the farm and the house in town. Of everything and everybody she had known and
loved and hated for almost twenty years. She was wondering just how she was supposed to live her new life
without them. Already she missed them, most of them, but she knew she mustn't think that way.
In years to come, many years in fact, after her life had changed yet again, after she thought she had come to a
place that seemed like what people meant when they called something home, she would remember this day, this
odyssey of revelation, as more of a beginning than an ending. It would be two years before she saw her daughter
Isabel again, six before she rejoiced once more in the warm attention of Emma Kurtzer's friendship and it would be
almost fourteen years before she ventured east one last time to bid farewell to Martha and Abel Kruger, her
long-ago rescuers and guardians. She would never again see Harley Brown alive and because of this, for a brief
season at least, she would know a happiness unlike any she had known before. And she would know too, in her
new life, the greatest of all sorrows.
"Here we are, I guess," she said and the boys craned their necks or hung from the windows for a better look at the
unexplored and therefore somehow unfinished place called Alpine.
(c) 2001 Paul Scott Malone and Texas Tech University Press
My Next-to-Last Destiny
We're in the car on our way to the hospital. It's early, no sunshine
yet. In the glow of the headlights I see the little houses we pass by,
and the storefronts, and the gas stations, like cubicle ghosts or demons
marching in formation to some concrete-covered battlefield already
bloody from previous encounters with the enemy.
She says, Are you cold?
A little cold. Not bad.
This old car. The heater's never worked worth a damn.
She reaches over in the darkness, pats my left, takes my hand.
Then we're silent with each other till she stops at the curb in her
usual way, throwing me toward the dashboard. The huge
building's automatic glass doors clatter open as if to let someone
in or out but there is no waiting or approaching whom I can see.
We glance at each other, and snort quick laughs. We sit and
stare through the windows at the dark manicured lawn out front,
the circular drive. It's time. I gather up my bag of personal belongings
but sit there a good while longer with it weighing on my lap.
The cavernous lobby shines with blinding florescent light; those
people have been at work for hours. The place is strangely busy.
That's not what I expected; thought I'd be the only cripple to show
that morn. Other patients waiting to be called. Doctors, nurses, admin.-types --
all of them scurrying about in their scrubs or business suits,
scores of stethoscopes handing around healthy shoulders.
You get out, she says, let me park the car and I'll meet you inside.
With my cane's assistance, I lift myself out of the car, shuffle
across the broad deep sidewalk till the automatic doors fling
themselves open again with startling violence; a tinny little
voice from somewhere says, Welcome.
The place is rattling and confusing at first -- all those people
going about their jobs with rapid efficiency, patients sitting in
clustered chairs, holding they personal belongings in their laps,
loved ones or neighbors gripping their heads and leaning on
their knees beside them, angst on every face I see -- but soon
I espy the registration desk .That's where I was told to report.
So I get my cane to moving again, my legs dragging along on the
smooth soft carpet like wary fellow travelers, my feet saying to me,
No, don't do it, don't risk it, don't take this gamble -- odds like
playing the ponies without even a racing form. I stop, people
walk by, I hear the doors behind me fumble open, close, and I
turn around in slow uncertain stages. I notice how clean and
white are the hospital walls, let my gaze linger on a cheap motel
poster of a wizened child in need of my donation ==
almost take a fateful step.
There she is, though, not five feet from away, smiling
encouragement for the invalid she loves, looking through my
eyes right into my thoughts. She knows. She takes me by the hand,
says, Come on, now in her sweet Alabama accent, turns me around
again, leads me with gentle care toward my latest, toward my
next-to-last destiny.
###
We're in the car on our way to the hospital. It's early, no sunshine
yet. In the glow of the headlights I see the little houses we pass by,
and the storefronts, and the gas stations, like cubicle ghosts or demons
marching in formation to some concrete-covered battlefield already
bloody from previous encounters with the enemy.
She says, Are you cold?
A little cold. Not bad.
This old car. The heater's never worked worth a damn.
She reaches over in the darkness, pats my left, takes my hand.
Then we're silent with each other till she stops at the curb in her
usual way, throwing me toward the dashboard. The huge
building's automatic glass doors clatter open as if to let someone
in or out but there is no waiting or approaching whom I can see.
We glance at each other, and snort quick laughs. We sit and
stare through the windows at the dark manicured lawn out front,
the circular drive. It's time. I gather up my bag of personal belongings
but sit there a good while longer with it weighing on my lap.
The cavernous lobby shines with blinding florescent light; those
people have been at work for hours. The place is strangely busy.
That's not what I expected; thought I'd be the only cripple to show
that morn. Other patients waiting to be called. Doctors, nurses, admin.-types --
all of them scurrying about in their scrubs or business suits,
scores of stethoscopes handing around healthy shoulders.
You get out, she says, let me park the car and I'll meet you inside.
With my cane's assistance, I lift myself out of the car, shuffle
across the broad deep sidewalk till the automatic doors fling
themselves open again with startling violence; a tinny little
voice from somewhere says, Welcome.
The place is rattling and confusing at first -- all those people
going about their jobs with rapid efficiency, patients sitting in
clustered chairs, holding they personal belongings in their laps,
loved ones or neighbors gripping their heads and leaning on
their knees beside them, angst on every face I see -- but soon
I espy the registration desk .That's where I was told to report.
So I get my cane to moving again, my legs dragging along on the
smooth soft carpet like wary fellow travelers, my feet saying to me,
No, don't do it, don't risk it, don't take this gamble -- odds like
playing the ponies without even a racing form. I stop, people
walk by, I hear the doors behind me fumble open, close, and I
turn around in slow uncertain stages. I notice how clean and
white are the hospital walls, let my gaze linger on a cheap motel
poster of a wizened child in need of my donation ==
almost take a fateful step.
There she is, though, not five feet from away, smiling
encouragement for the invalid she loves, looking through my
eyes right into my thoughts. She knows. She takes me by the hand,
says, Come on, now in her sweet Alabama accent, turns me around
again, leads me with gentle care toward my latest, toward my
next-to-last destiny.
###