Pink Shoe, pen and ink and marker paint on graph paper,
doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
It’s not the first pink shoe I’ve loved.
The first would be a pair I bought for $3 at a garage sale. Nineteen-forties, pointy toe, with a bow. Still in the original shoe box.
“Love” is too strong of a word. That’s what I’ve been ruminating on now for days. It’s embarrassing to admit to love a thing when people are sick, the war rages, buying power drops, gas prices rise, the Pope blesses, spring blows in.
Isn’t this what’s wrong with the world? We love our things too much.
Last night my daughter was searching in her chest of drawers for a shirt and pair of pants to wear to Spirit Day today at school. She was to dress all in white. I half anticipated that she’d come to me in a panic — I don’t have white pants!! — insisting we run to Target to get some.
I rehearsed in my head the talk I’d deliver. You want to spend money on a pair of white pants that you can wear one day while people are dying, families don’t have enough food…and on and on.
She appeared a few minutes later with a white tee and a pair of brown pants from last summer. Turns out she has more depth than I gave her credit for. I’m the one wedded to my things.
I bought this pair of shoes two years ago in a San Francisco boutique, the kind of store where it’s not unusual for the salespeople to talk to eachother, as if you’re not there, during the entire course of a fitting. The shoes were regularly $200, on sale half-off. They were tight, but I knew the leather would stretch eventually.
I don’t buy shoes lightly. The last pair I bought is a European brand, normally expensive, that I found at TJ Maxx for less than $30. That was an exception. My spine doesn’t love poorly-shod feet.
Shoes aren’t the only objects I admire. I love lamps. I own more tables than anyone I know — I just gave away two. Furniture is like art to me. I have an enamel chair that sits unused against a wall. It reminds me of easel and painting rolled into one.
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, with his “Ode to things,” gave me permission to embrace my own love of things. As I read of “shapely shoes” and “the softness of a woman’s hip,” I knew my appreciation for things was different from greed or desire. It is love for beauty.
Inspired by Neruda, I wrote my own ode.
ode to a pink shoe
graceful as a ballerina
slipper
big toe caress
supple cowhide
made in italy
narrow long
aristocratic limbs
it holds me
moves me
carries me
across asphalt ocean
and gravel dreams
stained by travel
to carnival skies
a flamenco
dancer
cotton candy chamois
toe nail polish
fine foot fetish
fine latin lover
cha-cha-cha possibility
swim with me
in lucid night
say it slow
zapa-tera
know not
what i mean
walk slowly now
dream soft scent
and roses
underground
long stride
stretch limosine
mary kay superstar
pink shoe cadillac
redravine.wordpress.com 
never thought I would like or comment on a shoe poem– but nice job
loved this:
it holds me
moves me
carries me
across asphalt ocean
and gravel dreams
stained by travel
to carnival skies
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Thanks Scot.
I’m still editing it, and so your feedback tells me that that stanza is done.
I had (am having) a lot of fun with this.
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ybonesy, this piece came out beautifully. I love the layering of text, doodle, and poetry. Wonderful.
When I read your poem, I picked out the same lines as Scot in Comment #1. I also liked these lines:
swim with me
in lucid night
say it slow
zapa-tera
know not
what i mean
walk slowly now
I hope you keep sharing your poetry! Great the way you posted the photograph and the drawing side by side, too. I keep going back and forth between the two, noticing the details.
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Thanks, QM. I was putting finishing touches on the ode last night, and at that point that stanza was still very awkward. After reading it out loud to myself this morning, I touched it up. It’s stronger now.
I’m learning that I’m definitely a reviser. (Remember our conversation about Donald Hall, I think, and revising poems? I’ll go look up which post it was in which we commented back and forth.)
I liked the layering, too. I actually planned a more ambitious post, covering all manner of things and people who are attracted to things. People like my husband are not. He appreciates function, of course, and enjoys his bikes and now his tractor. But it’s different for him. I’m trying to put a finger on this difference between those who truly appreciate and swoon over beautiful things — a painting in someone’s home, or a table, or a chair, or a pair of shoes — and those who don’t.
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ybonesy, yes, I remember those posts on revising. It was Donald Hall, and I think it was an article I found a link to where he talks about being a revisionist. Sometimes he works on a poem for an entire year! For him, when a poem is done, every single word needs to be able to stand alone within the whole. Yes, if you find those posts, it would be great to see them again.
It’s interesting about loving objects, or what is beautiful to each of us. In the studio yesterday, I realized that I love everyday objects for their artistic contributions. I love looking at them, touching them, writing about them.
It was great to read your Neruda poem yesterday as I was going through all my art objects and art materials. I had not looked at them in over year, as they had been in storage. I realized I had kept many of the ones that really mattered to me, and gotten rid of the others. I had done quite a bit of paring down before the move (YEAH!).
I almost like the art objects more than the art itself. Much of my art, I’m going to photograph and get rid of, make room for the new. Many of the art objects and supplies, I want to keep.
Finding beauty in the ordinary — I am going to give it more thought, too. For me, it’s not about the things themselves, but the energy they carry. Some is also about function. An object can be beautiful in terms of how simply and efficiently it functions. It was created to do just that one thing — and it does it beautifully.
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ybonesy – i totally agree with Scot and QM – those two stanzas are delightful, flow off the tongue in a supple way and are just right. Stanza two’s metaphors are the stuff of great inventiveness.
“cha cha possibility’ seems like a clanger, maybe needs rethinking?
I love Neruda. I too love things in that they carry in them a person’s touch, love of material and function and love of beauty. The fence across the street is derelict, and shows its history and the present care of the occupants with careful mending to help it maintain its purpose for a longer time. It has the beauty of the time-worn but still functional. G
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yb, I too enjoyed the photo & doodle side by side. Looks as though the shoes are quite comfortable. The poem is perfect!
stretch limosine
mary kay superstar
pink shoe cadillac
Charming! D
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I almost like the art objects more than the art itself.
So true. There is something visually appealing about art objects. I wonder if it’s just to our eyes or if, indeed, there is something universally beautiful about them
G., thank you so much. We have a lot of derelict fences around our parts, too. Or ones that were put together with differently sized and shaped poles. I’m glad you brought up fences. They are one of my favorite among ordinary, functional, beautiful objects. And likewise, when they are ugly, they are incredibly so. Jim and I often drive around small, rural neighborhoods with wonderful adobe homes, and now and again someone will have put up a monstrous white palacial fence. Something, too, about how they demarcate property lines that embues them with certain significance.
Also, thanks for the feedback on cha-cha-cha. There is something about it that isn’t sitting well with me either. I’m going to give that one and a couple of other lines more thought, so don’t be surprised if they change.
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Thanks, diddy. I don’t think I’ve written a perfect poem yet. It’s a new form for me, and you know what the weird thing is? The first piece of writing I ever published was a poem. I wrote it in college and one of my teachers asked if she could publish it in an anthology she was editing. I almost can’t bear to look at that poem, but some day I will. Maybe it’s not as bad as I recall.
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asphalt ocean and gravel dreams…what a Woman!
I love how your minds works yb!
Actually I love it all…and would swear we are related
my post from march 07
http://anuvuestudio.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/shoe-art/
🙂 H
Howdy QM
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Ybonesy – isn’t revision fun, almost like writing itself, engrossing and sort of tasty? I really like this entire post, it has an appealing blend of spontaneity and fine-tuning, and the discussion really brought my reading eye into better focus. Also, those yellow flames flying out of the shoes remind me of Virgin Mary art – I have no idea what the name for those is, do you? And last, it all flows beautifully from the Neruda. Great work!
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The wonderful part of poetry is the revising, that is where the inspiration is, for me – letting the words take hold and turn and bubble up new surprises in the imagery. Just writing a poem cold is not much fun, unless a perfect haiku is born in one fell swoop.
Our office is divided into two parts, one side are adjusting rooms and the other is a waiting area where people leave their shoes. I find the diverse array of shoes so curious, as I often have to guess who is on the other side…those scuffed, muddy workboots – snowboots from the mountain folks – glittery sequined flats – chunky Birkies – battered running shoes – pink shoes…hmmm, who has the pink shoes? Looks like Easter sunday….
I have red tevas that are my favorite footwear for most of the year, with or without socks, an excuse to wear red. Red shoes are almost a cliche, reminiscent of the ruby slippers — we’re not in Kansas anymore!
But pink shoes – that is a shoe of a different color. Pink is the color of the satin pointe “on toe” with soft pink satin ribbons, wrapped to make a bound foot feminine and strong as a tree, a foot that can fly.
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Heather, your shoe art is fabulous! The last one — green and white — was especially cool looking. And there was a blue-yellow combo whose colors reminded me of the 50s. Really fun.
And I, of course, noticed that they’re all sandals, and so I’m figuring that you, Queen of Sandals, are the proud owner of all of them, yes? If so, I can see that you are as colorful on the outside as you are on the inside. (BTW, you could write “ode to a sandal.”)
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bosquechica, hey, I was thinking about you recently when I saw our topic for this week, the 7 Deadly Sins (LINK). Brought me right back to your living room and our marvelling over the word “avarice.” I would love to see some of our writing practice pieces from those Deadly Sin days.
Thanks for the comment on this post. I am enjoying revisioning, and that’s a good change for me…engrossing and sort of tasty?…good words for what it’s like when it’s going well. Yet I have some pieces that I have revisioned to heck, not tasty at all. I’ll have to think about what was so difficult in those instances.
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lil, now you know who had the pink shoes 8) . And Jim wears scuffed muddy workboots, so perhaps those are his. In terms of our daily dress, shoes say a lot about us. Those who prioritize health/comfort over looks. Those who work outdoors standing/walking versus sit all day.
A while back we featured “Shoes” as a writing topic — “Writing Topic: These Boots Are Made For Walking” (LINK). A lot of interesting things came out of that, including pieces about Shoeless Joe Jackson, Mary Tyler Moore, and a series of doodles of scenes in which shoes stay on. (All of those are linked back in the comments section of the writing topic post.)
I always notice people’s shoes, not in a summing-them-up-by-their-shoes sort of way, but my eyes do eventually travel there. Whenever I’m in your office, I notice the pairs of shoes at the foot of each chair in the waiting area. Interestingly, I rarely see high heels in your office. I wonder if it’s just the days I come or if it’s always like that. I imagine that people who are getting treatments for body alignment have come to realize that unless a shoe sustains your whole body, it’s hurting your body.
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lil, I did want to also comment on your red shoes. I love the reference to Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Red shoes are a great personal statement, I think. Much more exciting than black or brown. Something liberating about them — no worries about accessorizing. Not that you’d worry anyway ; – ).
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yb, I am thinking about my daughter on Monday night, packing three bags to return to Omaha – holding a gold strap high-heeled sandal in her hands, which she had not worn on this trip of course – saying, ” Look at this isn’t it beautiful? (sigh) I just LOVE shoes. I can’t help it.” She reminds me of her grandmother (my mother-in-law) who once told me while I pondered the purchase of a pair of teal-blue pumps – “Some things you just have to do for your soul.” She moved to Florida a few years back, and they got rid of all the books, but moved 150 pairs of shoes. We called her Imelda Margulis after that, lol. Anyway, when Ana came for this visit she brought me two pairs of shoes for my birthday, both Clarks – brown clogs and black sandals. I love them. On Friday morning I slipped on shoes and ran out the door. Looked down when I got in the car – I had on one of each!
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Ha! See, now if Clarks made red clogs and pink clogs, you wouldn’t have made that mistake 8) .
Imelda Margulis — that is hilarious! I would love to look through her shoe collection. I bet she has some great vintage ones.
I can related to Ana. I mean, shoes — especially a strappy gold high-heel sandal — can have such elegance, and if one has a narrow, beautiful foot, the foot is embued with that same elegance. Not very many other things we don has that capacity to transform us in such an instant way. Certainly not pants.
Most my family have my mom’s “Fred Flintstone feet” — blocky, chub-toed feet. Strappy gold sandals aren’t particularly flattering for us. Fortunately, I got my dad’s feet, and his are narrow, although I’m noticing as I get older that after a long day they can begin to resemble Mom’s side.
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Hey, bosquechica, I don’t know the Spanish word for those flames. These ones I wanted to be a cross between the rays you see in the Virgen de Guadalupe (those I call rayas) and flames. Rayas would be less three-dimensional, though.
BTW, the flames, as used in Hispanic religious iconograpy can symbolize two things: Hell or religious fervor.
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The flames remind me of the Hebrew alphabet, hidden in the Hispanic iconography, no? Shekinah is source of physical life force – we are the broken vessels which go into the world as sparks of fire. Truly every step you take is a firewalk.
I drove to the bosque today, could not drive in for fire danger — listening to “Coyote Tales” – flute fancies…my walk in the bosque today featured stepping into doggie doo-doo deep in the brush – and sitting on coyote scat! – My shoes are not allowed in the house.
the river is HIGH
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I was thinking “rayos” (and of course I meant to say la V de G, not the VM), but I guess those are lightning bolts (I like “relampagos” better for lightning, though, that’s a fantastic word to say). Then I went looking around for something a little juicier than rayas and found that flames is “llama”, which also means passionate, which comes closer to the idea of hell and religious fervor with the coin having two sides, but unfortunately is also a cud-chewing pack animal and that is not so sexy.
I’ll look around in the magic bottomless box of past writing projects and see if I can find something from those weeks of writing about sin. I think we did some group pieces, passing them around, didn’t we?
Meantime, feel free to look at this story about the sins of newly defrocked priest Peter Heffalump on Cuentos, right here (LINK).
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Oops, sorry, my linking skills are unreliable.
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I fixed that link. I’ll read it today. Also looking forward to seeing what you turn up from your magic bottomless box of past writing projects. Hey, didn’t you get that box filed at one point?
I love the word “relampagos,” too. Hmmm, I might need to use it in my poem in one of the edits 8) .
Yeah, I’m perplexed by this particular meaning of “llama.” Something just not quite right with that word having both the pack animal and the flames.
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lil, the ditches were HIGH, too. You should see our fields. They are so flooded that the ducks are having a heyday, and it’s been a few days since the irrigation.
Interesting comment about the flames and the Hebrew alphabet. And yes, every step is a flame. Or every step is light??
I think it was bosquechica’s question about the flames that suddenly made me realize that the shoe would look great with wings (ala Redwing), like the flying heart you see in the Hispano Catholic folk art. Walk in flight, or fly walking… or just flying (I’m flying today, man). 8)
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Your mastery to talk on what you love inspires me – Thank you for the publicity of our silent guards. You helped me welcome my shoes, and my daily walk became more joyful . Thank you once again.
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I really enjoyed this…a nice mix including the art!
I love “things” too…”found things” and as the old timers in my family call them “store bought” things. 🙂
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…found this by chance this morning – Charles Simic is Poet Laureate
My Shoes
by Charles Simic
Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.
My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.
What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?
I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect humility
And the strange church I am building
With you as the altar.
Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men,
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself.
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Wow, lil, this blew me away.
This first stanza:
Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.
…but then it continued on, and it kept drawing me in. It’s a beautiful, profound poem. It makes me look at shoes with even more reverence than before.
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[…] Ode To A Pink Shoe […]
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While I am looking for a shoe strether on the internet google brought me here.
At the begining, I thought I can walk pass this easily but when I start to read the poem I was suddenly captivated.
Thanks for sharing experiences.
Seems like I have to come here more often.
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Monsters, thanks for stopping by this post. It drew me to read ybonesy’s “Ode to a Pink Shoe” poem again and to visit the Neruda post and Heather’s link to shoe photographs. The beauty and art in everyday objects.
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