Thomas Trofimuk

Every week for the past too many years to say, I have worked on and sent out this thing called a sorbet. It’s a piece of raw writing — meaning, it’s not as polished as it ought to be, sometimes only days old, and occasionally, only created hours before it’s send out. These sorbets, which can be poems, chunks of fiction, or happily nesting in between poetry and fiction, are exercise for me — they force me to look at the world with poet’s eyes at least once a week. Creating them, keeps me grounded in what’s important — writing, making story, reflecting the world through story. Honestly, sometimes the sorbets are brilliant little gems, other times, not so much. I try not to judge, as they are meant to be a curious break between the work-week and the weekend. They started small, with a dozen people (family and friends). Today, the list is hundreds. There have been times in the past few years, when I’ve felt discouraged about the sorbets, and wanted to walk away but I’ve come back to the joy of them and today, they are a delightful thing in my life. This is not really an ad for the sorbets; it’s more an explanation, a restatement (for myself?). Easy to sign up, if you want, on the “contact” page. Anyway, today, I offer up this week’s sorbet (which went out on Thursday) for your reading pleasure:

Carnal knowledge of the Oprah

Last week I dreamed I was intimate with Oprah – curled
inside a timid, fleshy embrace – which is weirder than it seems,
because I have never liked Oprah. I have never understood
her appeal. But then I am not her audience so perhaps this
is fine. But why would my subconscious put me there,
all compromised and vulnerable and carnal? What is it that
Oprah wanted me to know?

So, I woke up and knew Oprah’s body. I knew it well.
Some dreams you can’t un-dream, I know, but this
is not one of those. It was a delightful dream, as Oprah
is beautiful inside and out. Every nook and cranny of her
is beautiful. Every fold. Every curve. If I were still in therapy
I know my therapist – a dyed-in-the-wool Jungian who always wore
black pumps, would have had a field day with this dream.

She might have said something like – “Well, everyone
and everything in your dreams is you.” And I would have smiled
and said – “I’m Oprah?” At this point, she would lean forward
and sigh and I would be tempted to say something like – “I want
to help people? I want to give away cars? I want to be famous and
wealthy?” “Is that what Oprah is to you?” “No. I admire her curiosity
and the way she seeks grace,” I will say. And the therapist might nod.

Maybe the Oprah in my dream was trying to tell me
I need to listen better, because my Oprah was completely silent.
Could it be that simple? Be a better listener? I mean, she just looked at me
with her questioning dark eyes. She didn’t say a thing, not one word,
as if she had dreamed herself into my dream and her subconscious
would not let her do the thing she knows best. As if she was as
baffled by me, as I was by her.

“I want to write novels like Chagall paintings – filled with desire and fleeting naked women, dark whimsy, dreams entertained, violin-eating horses and unexpected birds – and such frail, bold, impossible colour – but mostly, bursting with desire and longing.”

Imagine this: You are sitting in the Bistro P. having a glass of red. You are at one of the wooden tables along the wall. You look around. There are perhaps a dozen people left and they are all sitting at wooden tables. You smile. All the tables are wooden. Perhaps, it is after midnight. You’re not sure what time it is. You’re alone at the Bistro. You are often alone at the Bistro.

Marc Chagall comes in and sits at your table, across from you. Inexplicably, even though you have never seen his picture, you know who he is.

“This is a fine establishment,” he says. “It’s warm, and the light is gentle but bright enough to read. And the sound is a din but it is not obtrusive. It is how a café ought to sound.”

You might introduce yourself.

“Are you Russian?” Chagall says.

“I don’t know,” you say.

“Shouldn’t you know where your people come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find out about you people,” he says.

He orders a bottle of expensive French wine and you wonder who’s going to pay for it since Chagall died in 1985.

“I dreamed a red horse with a crown of thorns on its head was watching my wife and I make love,” he says “We were inside a massive church but there were stars floating in the air. We were standing in a corner, far away from everything, but the horse could see us.”

Outside, it begins to snow, the flakes drifting past the window, playing in the thin street light. Chagall is intrigued. He shifts his chair so he can see better. “To paint snow and get it right is very difficult,” he says. “I have tried and failed, but now I will paint Adam and Eve in the snow. Do you have a pencil – something so that I can sketch?”

You hand him your Waterman fountain pen – the one you can’t seem to lose.

Chagall removes the cap and starts to sketch on a paper napkin. When one napkin is filled, the waiter, who has been watching, brings a small stack of napkins to the table and soon Chagall has covered half the table. He crosses the border between conscious and subconscious as if it does not exist. The last thing he draws is a soaring office tower with wings. He moves the napkin with the naked couple enfolded in each other’s arms to the bottom right-hand corner, as if they are a less-important afterthought. You stand up and look at the sketch of what will be a painting. Chagall, who is ninety, asks you to help him up onto his chair. He stands on the chair and looks down at the table. “Yes,” he says. “Adam and Eve, in the snow. They have already been expelled from the garden and they are cold because they are without their old friend, God. See how Eve hugs herself? And the snow? The snowflakes are like stars.”

You help him down from the chair, he orders another bottle of wine, and you don’t care. The waiter pours the wine and you sit with Chagall and watch the falling snow, which is, of course, filled with starlight. At around 2:30 a.m., a red donkey walks down the middle of the street and you both watch it without flinching, or saying a word.

It’s been fun pulling this site together.

And now, here it is. At the end of the day, it’s about the writing. Now pouring a drink and going to bed. Will begin to write posts here leading up to the launch of “This is All a Lie.” Right now, I’m exhausted and need to stop tinkering with this. There are days and months ahead to tinker. Okay. Talk soon… TT