Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Lucy in the grapes (with diamonds)


Monday night: sitting in front
of the electronic box, enraptured
as any kid in front of any video game.
But not a game, an entertainment,
on those Monday nights when
a country knew itself, believed
itself, believed in itself, believed
the legend. And we laughed,

The genius was in the face,
the expressions, a raised eyebrow,
a focused frown, a slight tilt of the head
to indicate a feeling, a reaction,
an emotion, an entire story told
without a word uttered.

And grapes, this one was about grapes,
feet smashing them into juice and pulp,
the juice to be siphoned off into casks
and bottles. It didn’t matter how she
got herself into the vat, not really,
because she was there, in the moment,
and we stomped the black-red grapes
with her, and we laughed as she wrestled
and rolled in the grapes, drenched
in the juice, caked with the pulp, wearing
them like black-red diamonds.

Tweetspeak Poetry has a prompt this week, a celebrity prompt, and this one is about Lucille Ball. If you remember Lucy, take a look, and consider a poem.



Photograph: A grape-stomping scene from an episode of I Love Lucy.

1 comment:

Martha Jane Orlando said...

Your poem and the clip are both wonderful! Lucille Ball was such a physical actress - loved her expressions.
And how I miss those times of innocence . . .
Thank you, Glynn!