Besmirching Emily.

The Myth

That's what they called her, The Myth. Emily Dickinson's neighbors in Amherst rarely saw her. She stayed in her father's house or on the garden grounds most of her life. She became so bad that in the end, she'd rarely leave her room. In the very end, when dying, she refused to have the doctor come into her bedroom. He'd have to sit outside her open door and she'd walk by it. He had to do a flying diagnosis on the run. Today we'd call her agoraphobic. Back then they called her something else.

The other odd thing about her was her always wearing white dresses. She had quite a few and that was her entire wardrobe. I can imagine her floating through her home late at night, a white wisp glimpsed in the window by someone from the street.

I've read most of her poems back in school and thought, “Ah Ok, she's flowery 'n' dreamy 'n' stuff.” The problem I found with most poetry, back then, were that the references weren't relevant to me. “Persephone? Who the fuck is Persephone? Jesus, another footnote to read.” And when I read it, it didn't help matters any as I had little grasp of ancient Greed Goddesses nor Egyptian crocodile spirits. Or, other poetry I found was too idiosyncratic. The author thinks it's great stuff but they're the only one able to decrypt it.

 

As I reread a few of hers now I realize they were as dense as European chocolate and not idiosyncratic at all, which is odd coming from someone who had little use nor experience with the world at large. I admit she did have a talent. But is more telling were her love poems. For someone as shy as she,  her desire for it was unbelievably deep.

 

Emily never married and perhaps had an interest in a couple of males, and they in her. The information is scant even for that. But chance meetings and liaisons happened then as now. The truth is we'll never know about her love life. To read some of her love poems, she comes off as desperately wanting to be gang-banged and loving every minute of it. Reading her “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!” makes me wonder a bit. Or this:

Come slowly, Eden!

lips unused to thee,

Bashful, sip thy jasmines,

As the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower,

Round her chamber hums,

Counts his nectars --enters,

And is lost in balms

The jist of the poem? As gently written as it is, re-read it as: “Oh God...FUCK ME! FUCK ME!” Why do I have the feeling Emily had an 19^th century French tickler well hidden somewhere in her room?

I'm sure the Emily Dickinson Society would have me strung up now.

**

There's an old, wholly inappropriate joke that has a rape defendant on the witness stand answering the prosecutor's accusation thusly:

'Ah, she wanted it!"  Then looks to the women on the jury and says, "You ALL want it!"

There seems to be nothing I won't say on this blog..huh?

Yep, there are times when I just blurt out what I'm thinking and ever since my childhood, I've shocked people.

So.what.

Yesterday, as I was working, these two workmen come in and affix another panel to the ceiling with glue, screws and bitching the whole time they're doing it.  Chuck-or-Loo are the workmen. The Loo part of that team, who I've known for many years, starts ribbing me on the fact I'm not married.

"Hey Ron, how's your wife? Mary Palm? Haw! Haw! Haw!"

From out of nowhere, I say: "Oh, I don't know Loo, but your daughter seems hot enough!"

Another L, who was standing by me, has her mouth drop wide open at what I said.

"Damn, you're vicious" she says. "How come that doesn't come out more often?"

"Yep, sometimes what I'm thinking just pops out." I say.

I really love the First Amendment!