THE INTELLECTUAL VOID/OCTOBER                                                                                                                                                        2000

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
AS A YOUNG WOMAN


She calls herself Silver.  Her Daddy calls her BeeBee.  Her mother is never sure what to call her.   Like all teenagers, she has struggled with herself, her feelings, and the world that she lives in but does not understand. 

She expresses herself through visual art in a variety of media.  Shown here are what she thinks of as her two best pencil sketches.
 
 


 
 

           She expresses herself in writing and she loves poetry and fiction.  In hope of providing the reader with a brief insight, I offer these two poems.  The first is, in Silver’s view, the best poem anyone ever wrote.  The second is, in Silver’s view, the best poem she ever wrote. 

Enjoy.

~Ima Mansson



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said:  “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

                                  Percy Bysshe Shelley


 
Ode to the Parents

She threw her torn and tattered ragdoll in the corner.
She watched it hit the wall, then fall to a heap on the floor.
( Mommy said children shouldn’t think the things I do. )
She took the place of the ragdoll, her bright, empty eyes
Staring, staring at the ceiling with no feeling, no soul.
(She said that little children shouldn’t think about hate the way I do.)
Her mouth opened as if to speak, the fabric ripping, tearing . . . 
Instead of words came billows of her head, white clouds of vomit.
(I asked her if that made me different from my playmates.)
A little worn ragdoll thrown carelessly into a trash pile
Stained and beaten.
(She said yes, it did. )
Her lips, pretty and delicate, handpainted in blood,
Catch the hearts of all who see her meaningless face.
( I asked her if that meant I was not a child. )
The cute lips with the false smile begin to melt
Dripping small crimson red spots on her dainty frock.
( She said nothing. )
Small fabric hands reach up to a painted face
Fabric claws tear out aching eyes.
( I asked her how children felt. )
Empty sockets stare at you
Fabric palms offering you her eyes.
( She did not answer. )
( She just walked away believing that she knew why I never cried. )

“Mommy, mommy, my sawdust hurts so bad . . . ”
“Your sawdust is nothing, child.  Go find your soul.”
She digs through the sawdust desperately.  “I can’t find it, Mommy . . .” 

~Silvereve

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