Author: cpgrisold

Bobby, tell the man what he wants to hear. Tell him lies, tell him secrets, tell him stories. Tell him about the time I became Clara Jackson, the maid. Do you remember those stories, Bobby? The ones I told you, when I was getting stronger. The days after I finally escaped that hell on earth. Tell him, Bobby. Don’t spare the truth. This reporter’s not after the garbage of limos and monkeys and orchids. He wants the dirt. Give it to him – if you dare. Spill my life upon the table where you rest your hand, tapping ashes off your cigarette. Share my secrets with the world. Tell him, Bobby, about the time I came face to face with the boy I saved from being killed in the camp. But he was a man when I saw him next. Mistah Cohen. He was my boss, Bobby. Remember? And I never knew who he used to be until that day at Christmastime. He told me his story, Bobby. Now tell him mine. Those words, I saw them in my mind. The memories that I had buried for so long rose up until they were in my throat and I could taste them, Bobby. Tell him. About the story Mistah Cohen told me when I was his maid. When I was Clara Jackson. When I was in hiding. The distance we needed to keep working together for so long kept me from realizing it before. He, my boss, was once the little white boy I saved in the camp. I never told him, Bobby. I never told him that I, Clara Jackson, was really Valaida Snow, performer of black magic. Black dance, black song. Tell him, Bobby, how I regret not giving him the truth he so longed for. But you could give the world my story now. Tell him. Nobody knew about my days as Clara Jackson. Nobody noticed when I left the scene. But you know my secrets, Bobby. Mistah Cohen knew secrets, too. But I couldn’t ask. Oh how I longed to whisper my true name around him. Valaida…Valaida. To see how he would react. But I couldn’t shatter the distance we needed. Bobby, with your smoky veil, sitting in the closed-in room, not even realizing that I haunt you. Just as Mistah Cohen haunts my mind. Tell him, Bobby, tell him all my stories. And when you are done, leave him wanting more. Just keep one secret to yourself, Bobby. Like I have for almost thirty years. I was Clara Jackson before you knew me. And here I am now, dead, Missus Valaida Snow. The legend; the maid. Mistah Cohen, if you hear my story, remember that day in the camp. See my face along side yours. See me, Valaida Snow, shielding you from death. Feel my body against yours once more. And forgive me for hiding the truth for so long. Bobby, tell him what you will, but do not spare this one truth. Let him know who I really was; who I really am. I am Valaida. I am Clara. I am the black angel who fell from the sky to save poor Mistah Cohen. Tell him, Bobby, that I am your black angel now.

~ c.p.grisold

© 1995

Dedicated to the memory of an elderly couple who leapt to their deaths from their 18th storey balcony in Etobicoke in October 2013.

In the fall we fell
We fell we fell we fell

We fell
In love
In love
We fell

We took the leap
We leapt
We fell

We fell in love
In love we fell

18 storeys
18 stories

We were 18
When we fell we fell we fell
When we fell
In love
We leapt
We leap
You weep

We took the leap
When we were 18
We were on 18
When we fell

In the fall
We fell
We fell in the fall

In the fall we fell

In love in love
We fell
We fell in love

It was Hallowe’en
We were 18
When we fell in love
In the fall
We fell

We took the leap
We leapt
We fell

We were 80
When we fell

18
80
Eight eight
Teen
Tee
We

We took the leap
At eight in the morning

The start of a day
The start of a life
The end of a day
The end of a life

We took the leap
At eight
Eight
Teen
Tee

We
We
We

We took
The leap
We leapt we leap
We stood
We stand
I took your hand
You took my hand

We on 18
On Hallowe’en
We took the leap
The leap the leap
We fell
We leap
We leapt in the fall
In the fall
We fell

In the fall we fell
In love we fell
18
80
In love we fell

We fell
In the fall
We fell

We fell
We fell
In love we fell

We took the leap and we fell

~ c.p.grisold

© 2014

She sits at the wooden table
Sipping her tea with cream
Dunking occasional oatmeal cookies
Into the brimming cup.
She smiles
And speaks to company
Beyond my grasp and sight.
Her home, a playhouse
Magic in every jar; lids strewn
Carelessly aside. She creaks

Footprints up ancient steps
To the white bearskin rug
Warming her chamber floor;
Where through rain-washed windows
She awakes every morning
To the same little robin
Singing from burly conker trees below.
She whistles back gleefully
(In sunny light never fearing the ghosts that appear
From night-time wardrobes

And dreams). Outside:
Bumblebees stalk an orchard of pears
Enveloped in dense woods; hedgehogs visit
Tempted by dishes of milk and bread;
Cows moo and roam in the distance.
Beneath the shadows
Beside damp, mossy rocks
Fairies keep her company;
She seeks them down rabbit holes
And in broken windows of long-abandoned furniture shops
Taken over by children and time.

Flint covers the roads and homes.
Thatched roofs close in but never capture
Her quixotic feminine mind.
She skips down lanes
Through fields of soft grass
Over rotting fences, and arrives
With breathtaking abundance
Green hills everywhere
Silence, and a windmill
Weatherworn once white.

She runs,
runs,
runs…
Whimsical breezes flicker through fingers
Held out as she leaps
Past unassuming sheep.

On her own she creeps
Through burned-down schoolhouses
With keys found in secret crevasses
(And finds Sleeping Beauty’s cottage
Grown-over with ivy nearby).

Out of the corner of my eye I see her
Hide amongst the blackberry bushes:
With lips now sticky-purple sweet
She crouches, and remains.

~ c.p.grisold

© 2004

Day bleeds into night
And night
Night bleeds black
I wax and wane
Poetry
Like the waves
Like air under wings
Smooth black feathers
And a subtle cry
Soaring low above the water
Patrolling its currents
Its consciousness, its mind
Is mine
Never tiring
Trying to reach beyond these skies
These darkened lines
Your height, your grey greatness
Intimations: omnipotence, penetration

~ c.p.grisold

© 2002