Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Women Who Write: Sandy Florian

Did a little Google hunt for today's installment, and ended up following Sandy Florian from Action Books (Telescope, The Tree of No) to Tarpaulin Sky (32 Pedals and 47 Stops) to the horse less review, from which this excerpt comes:

19

A slowly shrinking man and a large stuffed condor squat side-by-side on a large cornice. The man, shriveling like a dead nut inside a shell, flaps his arms like wings whenever someone enters the room. The condor, an enormous bird with a featherless neck, remains motionless in the monumental position. Each has wrinkled skin. Each has a knobbly body. Each uses the same hourglass chamberpot. Beyond the pair, large eggs dressed in cotton wool lay shivering in their baskets. Ornithological experiments, the eggs come from Hamberg, Holland, and zoological stations in Africa.

Someone enters the room. It is The Moment. To The Moment, the man and the condor are irresistible twins of a maddened plan. To the man, The Moment is a black cockroach wriggling its tangle of legs. The man still flaps his arms whenever someone enters the room, but now The Moment crawls on the floor of the attic room.

Between the slowly shrinking man and the condor there is bird’s eye view. To each, the other seems a Buddhist sage replete with dignity, honor and grace. Hence, when The Moment flutters its antennas, the man looks at the condor and flies.

You Fall Away From the Fall.
You Become Formless From Form.
You are Fallow.
You are Fallacious.
You are the Topaz of Falsification.

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