WHO WAS
FANNY the FLYING
HOUSEWIFE ?
*
A sample can be found in an earlier post about Josephine Baker, & here are another couple to tempt you ... but that's all, now you'll just have to borrow a copy from a Brisbane Library or request your own for the paltry sum of $AUD20 by posting a suitably grovelling message!
'Kiss me, My Fool'
Theda Bara, silent film actress, 1885 — 1955
she spoke not one word
in a dozen years on the screen
this all-new 1914 model
for a Hollywood tired
of sweet innocence
the original vamp
woman as bloodsucker
eyes like smudgepots
let her studio bosses
promote a Cincinnati girl
as a Middle Eastern Beauty
and hint that her name was
an anagram of 'arab death'
instead of short for
Theodosia (God's gift)
this clever girl
knew just what to reveal
and what to veil
always let the text
do the talking
Persistence of vision
Olive Cotton, Photographer, 1911 — 2003
no snapshot for the life
of a woman who never stopped
framing images in her mind's eye
in twenty years away from the darkroom
a tent her first chosen home
with laughing children playing
in a dry creek bed
deep in the backlit bush
a woman with suitcases
filled with negatives
watching for the moment
when the sky was just right
who never thought to see the day
she'd step out of the shadow
set galleries aglow
indirect light still eloquent under her hands
and focus deep enough
to illuminate a soul
No comments:
Post a Comment