...a word that rhymes with nothing...and so, called difficult...like anything else that refuses to fit into the formalities of a society’s ever-conventional poetry...unappreciated...reduced to cheap jokes...orange you glad I didn’t say banana?...denied credit endlessly...like those old blues singers dying in poverty after writing the songs that made Elvis, Clapton, Zeppelin, and the Stones famous...waaaaaay down inside...it’s Muddy Waters, dude...and it's orange...and you can see it, even...and yet still you call it red...but orange never complains...
...flames, “red” rocks and cliffs...worlds of orange defining the most inspiring and mystical grottoes of the American southwest...‘red’ foxes...corgis...Mittens the corgi was our first dog...named after her white paws though most of the rest of her was orange...I was terrified of dogs when we got her, having been jumped on at two or three by what I’m told was a yellow lab...apparently, the dog just wanted to play and inadvertently knocked me down...though I took it as an attack...thus, mom and dad deciding to get a puppy to help overcome the resultant phobia...and it worked...it was I who kept poor Mittens alive when she got old and ornery, parents knowing life with teenaged me would become completely unlivable if they dared have her put to sleep just because she snapped at them...repeatedly...then, I was considered a bit of a problem, too, at that point...my good points, it seemed, underappreciated, like orange...
...orange oranges...clementines...peaches...mangoes...mango daiquiris on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean...orange tastes goooood...again, falsely called “red,” like the fire it resembles, a hair color associated with quick temper, with passion...with heat...with Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore, with Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with anonymous wild women of the Australian Outback...red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme sings Richard Thompson, though I have faith he knows in his heart that ‘red’ is really orange...
...with freckles, the visual equivalent of an Irish brogue...(Dogs and Irish Need Not Apply read job postings a century ago)...(making the political associations of orange in Northern Ireland rather strange)...(even Ireland, it seems, saves its love for green)...orange the robes of Buddhist monks and swamis...orange prison jumpsuits...orange birds of paradise...orange the color you wear to keep from getting shot out in the woods during hunting season...orange sunshine...along with black, color of Halloween...pumpkins...makings for pumpkin soup generally dumped in the making of jack-o-lanterns...so much orange wasted...
Tyger, tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy mortal symmetry?
William Blake
...the tiger, yes, also orange...but cares little about being called red...no need at all to be concerned with such things when you’re a tiger...
...flames, “red” rocks and cliffs...worlds of orange defining the most inspiring and mystical grottoes of the American southwest...‘red’ foxes...corgis...Mittens the corgi was our first dog...named after her white paws though most of the rest of her was orange...I was terrified of dogs when we got her, having been jumped on at two or three by what I’m told was a yellow lab...apparently, the dog just wanted to play and inadvertently knocked me down...though I took it as an attack...thus, mom and dad deciding to get a puppy to help overcome the resultant phobia...and it worked...it was I who kept poor Mittens alive when she got old and ornery, parents knowing life with teenaged me would become completely unlivable if they dared have her put to sleep just because she snapped at them...repeatedly...then, I was considered a bit of a problem, too, at that point...my good points, it seemed, underappreciated, like orange...
...orange oranges...clementines...peaches...mangoes...mango daiquiris on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean...orange tastes goooood...again, falsely called “red,” like the fire it resembles, a hair color associated with quick temper, with passion...with heat...with Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore, with Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with anonymous wild women of the Australian Outback...red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme sings Richard Thompson, though I have faith he knows in his heart that ‘red’ is really orange...
...with freckles, the visual equivalent of an Irish brogue...(Dogs and Irish Need Not Apply read job postings a century ago)...(making the political associations of orange in Northern Ireland rather strange)...(even Ireland, it seems, saves its love for green)...orange the robes of Buddhist monks and swamis...orange prison jumpsuits...orange birds of paradise...orange the color you wear to keep from getting shot out in the woods during hunting season...orange sunshine...along with black, color of Halloween...pumpkins...makings for pumpkin soup generally dumped in the making of jack-o-lanterns...so much orange wasted...
Tyger, tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy mortal symmetry?
William Blake
...the tiger, yes, also orange...but cares little about being called red...no need at all to be concerned with such things when you’re a tiger...
7 comments:
A tough colour to wear, and yet wear it I do... despite my orangey-red hair and freckles. ;)
One of my favourite t-shirts is orange, bought in Bangkok last year from North Face (cheaper than I could buy it back home).
I lived on the northern beaches of Sydney for years and besides the wonderful negative ion environment, stunning paradise-like beaches and vistas, my addiction to orangey sandstone was sated - the cliffs of the penninsula being completely made of the stuff. Something about it for me, so earthy and potent.
One day, I'd like to own a sandstone house :)
The earth in northern Australia - the far north east of New South Wales and of course, the Northern Territory is a rich terracotta orange, a reminder of this country's volanic past and full of rich nutrients.
Not a camoflauge colour, in nature orange is for attraction - either come hither or stay away. Whatever you prefer...
Orange. Orange is one of my least favorite colors. I tend to look green when I wear orange and it reminds me of fat ladies at K-mart, wearing orange polyester pantsuits.
I think my negative feelings about orange also stem from a time early in my punk days, when I wanted to dye my hair bright pink, turning to red on the very ends--to look like it was on fire. Well, that didn't work out so well--when I finished rinsing off the crude dye, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw BOZO the clown staring back at me--with freakish orange hair (not hot pink or red at all). Ugh! I ended up shaving my head after that fiasco, which is another story altogether (and one for another time--lol).
However, as much as I dislike orange, I love oranges! I seriously eat an orange every morning with my breakfast--and I love fresh squeezed orange juice.
I kind of like these writing prompts I see you and Jennifer doing--it gets me to think about weird things like colors.
Melinda
It is clear that being orange is a tough road. I was contemplating this very subject the other day in the produce section of the supermarket.
Was it a cruel joke or a simple twist of fate that expelled from the world of rhyme, this lovely fruit, so full of vitamin c and capacity of being squished into delicious juice. Tragedy at it's worst!
Namaste,
Roger
We would circle and we'd circle and we'd circle to stop and consider and centered on the pavement stacked up all the trucks jacked up and our wheels in slush and orange crush in pocket and all this here county, hell, any county, it's just like heaven here
I can see here how Blake influenced Crowley's creepy Tarot deck. Hmmmm.
Perhaps the deeper question here is whether rhyming is really all it's cracked up to be...whether the beautiful zesty juicy globes of you-know-what fruit really NEED something to rhyme with them at all???
I like orange as a colour ... good and true, bright and strong. It is what it is. When I was little I had a doll (as little girls do) and instead of a blonde (yetch) Barbie, I had a bright orange haired equivalent whom I called Fifi. Although I always prefered to call her flame haired, rather than orange.
Orange too often gets a bad rap. Once, in desperation to get rid of it, a 2nd hand store sold me a couch & chair set in perfect condition & delivered it to my house all for $20, because it was orange & no one would take it. I turned that set into the basis for on of the best living rooms ever designed. Even a millionaire friend w/a mansion on Lake Erie preferred my orange & blue wonderland to his luxury digs.
Then again, when you look at my paintings, you can kind of tell I'm not afraid of color!
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