The Poetic City: “Sugar Shell” by Elise Layel

Mint Cream 100% (Photo by: Elise Layel)

Editor’s Note: We are continuing our “Poetic City” series, and this week we are spotlighting Elise Layel in a three-part series. Growing-up in Northern Virginia, 30 miles west of Washington, DC, Elise spent much of her time studying dance. She went off to college to be a dance major at Florida State University, in Tallahassee, FL, where she developed a love of visual art, especially works involving the written word.

After graduation, Elise returned to Washington, DC and there danced for The Washington National Opera and Tony Powell Music and Movement. She later returned to the south to be around family, but occasionally traveled north to dance.

In 1997, Elise relocated to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which was still effected by Hurricane Katrina, and began to write about New Orleans and it’s surrounding areas, always inspired by the beauty of the oak, the cypress, and the cultural mix that is the south. We are debuting her three-part poetry series with her poem” Sugar Shell.”

Sugar Shell by Elise Layel

so restless, so over explored

on the waves bouncing

searching for a new shore

skies of prophecies

running through norms

between the lines waiting

on rustic, uneven floors

tied to the storm

a weakness for love

a routine in form

reflecting emotions

rays in orange

with over winded imaginations

unlike any sands of before

misaligned doors

amass with sounds drifting

tattered curtain chords

unexpressed changings

3 by 4

everyday waiting

enough for everyone born

eyes of fire forewarn

stuck in the dunes

an oath to be sworn

the treachery of the ages

inside and disjoined

all attempts at salvation

it’s pushing out from my pores