Category: colour

White Is Not My Colour

tran nguyen

curating colour requires

knighthood, rescuing a coloured image

restoring it to a coloured name

 

in the woods there is more than colour

the texture of bark, bitter acrylics

the labour beneath

the layers

 

if an idea is painted, a history, a desire

a colour is not just a colour

 

orange is not colour

merely

it is instinct, fang, rupture

awakening

 

a devouring (of roots)

of tigerhood

flesh open skin peeled back

slow and half at ease

 

the bones remain

uttering a different story

the pain is a ghost language

 

*

once upon a time

I came I saw I assimilated

 

trapped in the woods

I use white words, leaving a trail

of crumbs in circular argument

 

I write I grieve I love

in

more than

colour                         

 

but wielding a sword in white space

is easier

than cutting down

bark

these words by Lily Chang were inspired by the colour of Tran Nguyen

sounds from the future

zzz

Jimmy was a prick for bringing me here. I don’t frequent these sorts of places, at least not since the end of the 21st century when jazz made a big comeback with the space-faring folk. Something about trumpets and saxophones helps when you’re staring out into all that black. It ain’t for me though, jazz- cramped venues that reek of cigar. Charlie Parker aside, whose work any semi-intelligent individual should be intimately familiar with, I hate jazz.

Jimmy kept going on and on about this woman, a jazz singer, and I had to see her.

       That’s what they’ve got holographics for, my man, I said. Wear a pin, stream me in.

       No way, he says. It’s gotta be live.

Left me drinking Jameson at the bar, listening to jazz, and it ain’t all that bad. The band’s minimal, a real stripped back affair. Ivory and vocals. The singer’s got this retro style that reminds me of the post-postmodern infusion of underground Japanese disco into the Can-American consciousness. Lollipop chic. Real big circa 2025, before I left the Rock. It’s the hair, I think: styled, but not overly so. It’s got that outside-the-asteroid belt attitude – think glam-rock meets two months on a space freighter. Works for her.

Wearing one hell of a dress too, a swanky number that looks like it’s patterned after those pre-revolution flapper girls you see on OWC (the Old World Channel). It all adds up to a spectacular sort of woman, one who projects this sultry voice right into my whiskey-soaked skull. Real stellar eyes too… all sorts of devastating, like second-hand smoke, purple, and heavy, and deadly to breathe in. Stardust on her eyelids… listening to her sing, maybe space isn’t a wasteland. Don’t make ’em like this back on the Rock, you know?

I’m staring – she notices.

I hear her speak, a voice smouldering like the sun outside the tinted window.

What’re you looking at, Earthling?

word by Josh Elyea

colour by Zutto

From the author: “”When I was writing this piece, I couldn’t move past the eyes. They’re captivating, and I imagine I could’ve spent the entire piece talking about them…what you’re left with is a vignette about a man in space who finds himself head over heels for a jazz singer from Jupiter.”