Post by Groks on Mar 27, 2008 8:25:44 GMT -6
This poem is about a dance studio and shop I once visited and the studio where I actually took class. Even if you've never been inside a dance studio, I hope this somehow paints a picture of one.
Black Marks
(dedicated to "The Studio" - Seattle, Washington)
"We only use WHITE jazz shoes in the studio," she said,
"so we don't get black marks on our floors."
I meandered through the perfect pink and white dance shop
thickly hung with odors of new carpet, ballet shoe leather, and virgin leotards.
I asked for the tour and passed by military rows of pine-smelling benches
in the dressing room and tried not to trip on the perky
not yet trampled carpet going up the stairs to the new ballet room.
Ceremoniously, reverently, I lifted the brass handle on the heavy,
mirrored door and entered (they made take off my shoes) into
bare vanilla creme walls,
cathedral windows stretching to the ceiling,
polished sandy wood floors,
sound system safely tucked away within french cabinets,
and tried to find a whiff of sweat, or soul anywhere.
Only finding a sign on the shiny white grand piano, "Do not touch."
I paid for my dance shoes and left.
That evening I ambled past grunts and shouts of the Karate studio
on the bottom floor,
skipped up the wooden paint-peeled stairs
and bounded down the trampled teal hallway (under the ever vigilant
posters of Baryshnikov and the Phantom).
I burst through the door heavy with scattered notices
and entered into mounds of sweat bags, tap shoes and slippers
laced around disheveled rows of chairs and eyeful parents.
Records, CD's, and tapes collected passionately on the floor
in front of the stereo,
rainbows of costumes anticipated life hanging on the walls.
Big fat barres of industrial piping supported hands, legs, bodies
ages four to infinity.
Breezes streamed from electric fans
Blew on pulsing dancers - impossibly counteracting sweat.
Lacing my BLACK shoes, I found my place in the throbbing beat
and ground my soul into the music
- letting it shoot out my fingers, torso, shoulders,
in my feet - perfect - and made black marks on the floor.
k.s.
March 1976
Black Marks
(dedicated to "The Studio" - Seattle, Washington)
"We only use WHITE jazz shoes in the studio," she said,
"so we don't get black marks on our floors."
I meandered through the perfect pink and white dance shop
thickly hung with odors of new carpet, ballet shoe leather, and virgin leotards.
I asked for the tour and passed by military rows of pine-smelling benches
in the dressing room and tried not to trip on the perky
not yet trampled carpet going up the stairs to the new ballet room.
Ceremoniously, reverently, I lifted the brass handle on the heavy,
mirrored door and entered (they made take off my shoes) into
bare vanilla creme walls,
cathedral windows stretching to the ceiling,
polished sandy wood floors,
sound system safely tucked away within french cabinets,
and tried to find a whiff of sweat, or soul anywhere.
Only finding a sign on the shiny white grand piano, "Do not touch."
I paid for my dance shoes and left.
That evening I ambled past grunts and shouts of the Karate studio
on the bottom floor,
skipped up the wooden paint-peeled stairs
and bounded down the trampled teal hallway (under the ever vigilant
posters of Baryshnikov and the Phantom).
I burst through the door heavy with scattered notices
and entered into mounds of sweat bags, tap shoes and slippers
laced around disheveled rows of chairs and eyeful parents.
Records, CD's, and tapes collected passionately on the floor
in front of the stereo,
rainbows of costumes anticipated life hanging on the walls.
Big fat barres of industrial piping supported hands, legs, bodies
ages four to infinity.
Breezes streamed from electric fans
Blew on pulsing dancers - impossibly counteracting sweat.
Lacing my BLACK shoes, I found my place in the throbbing beat
and ground my soul into the music
- letting it shoot out my fingers, torso, shoulders,
in my feet - perfect - and made black marks on the floor.
k.s.
March 1976