Some days
every breath is gray
nothing holds color
everything cold
and I think
of my grandfather
of stone
and the big oaks
of south Louisiana
an anger rising
vague
desultory
burning sunspots
everywhere
all at once
whole as hunger
consuming
and I think of heaven
a place I don't believe
in
not at all
and I wish I did
wish I could
wish I had my ticket
punched
full paid
ready to go
now
because I do believe in hell
absolutely
I do
why?
because I live it
every
fucking
day
++++++
Maria is skin and bones with a water bottle belly.
She, like her father a few years before,
comes upstairs and lies all day next to my desk.
Mainly, in the sunlight of my window,
looking more like beached whale than dog.
And I'll be damn
if in her stiff tail that still wags
and her glassy eyes that still long
and that weak voice that still barks
that I wonder who is keeping whom alive
++++++
Going rake leaves.
What was golden and red and orange
is now brown.
Gnarled, decrepit
oaken fingers supine
and they appear
to be reaching
toward sky or bough
I can't tell
but I sense not peace
not rest
as if they know
there is still work to be done
that they are still a burden
still to be disposed
++++++
There was talk
words escaping as wind
swings an iron gate,
lots of noise
not much else.
++++++
It comes like waves
how else to explain it
not like gentle shores lapped
not with the warmth of southern waters
but like the North Sea
in winter
against the bow
relentless
this place is no place
yet
every place
all at once
it sucks mercy from the air
bloats the belly with dread
grows like roots
between the ribs
a pregnant stress
alive
kicking
expanding
in me
but not of me
something other
feeding
you don't want this
this demon child
this waif that comes
not on the heels of a gray
day
it prefers the clear sky
and temperate clime
as if to slap the hope
from one's furrowed brow
this is when it comes
on a nice day
a good day
as if to say Look
not even the gifts
of heaven
of God himself
can save you
and as the breeze
plays havoc with the leaves
(one might be trying to rake)
there is the sound
not unlike laughter
or little feet scurrying
across the lawn
++++++
Some days (most days)
every breath is gray (viscid cobweb breath)
nothing holds color (blanched and bled)
everything cold (of life)
and I think (of forest darkling)
of my grandfather (neuronic fires extinguished)
of stone (plumes of withered wicks)
and the big oaks (casting eidolons)
of south Louisiana (consumed in night)
an anger rising (graveyard cold)
vague (and casket black)
11 comments:
If I might ask, please no comments on content. Comment of form, if you like. And no emails either. I won't respond or acknowledge any communication on this post. Thank you.
I am sending you a hug, but as you wish, I'll say no more.
A striking set of verses. This first one is angry and bitter and does a wonderful job of employing that tone. Essentially, a poem's job is to leave behind a vision or a feeling...the stronger the better. This one is raging.
Be aware of words or phrases that detract from the strength: every "and" "of" "because" and "the" should be necessary and should add to the force of the image. They can become unnecessary fillers. Not saying they are here (you'll need to decide that), but choose each word wisely and for a purpose.
Be aware also of qualifiers that can weaken the punch: not at all may do that in this case (it's akin to saying "really, I really mean it, really I do..."). The strength occurs in saying what needs to be said, once -- other conventions could be employed instead if more strength/punch is needed:
As you know
spacing can
pack
more
wallop
The spacing at the end is very strong.
On the other hand, the qualifier absolutely is very strong where it is and how it's used.
As far as imagery, there are two going here: cold and stoic vs. burning, hellacious and angry. There may be more punch in choosing one and fleshing it out for its own verse (be sure to keep all the words of the other -- it's surely worthy of it's own verse...looking back I see the other at the bottom of the set taken from the beginning image).
My takeaway from the first poem: heaven as a place I don't believe in because I live hell every fucking day.
Life sucks right now -- what an image.
OB, thanks for the specific feedback and the very constructive way you delivered it. Very much appreciated.
I felt every word of your first post up there... every freakin' word... and per your request.. nothing to do with your post.. i like your new picture ;-)
Liane, when you have a computer with a camera built into the lid, it gets very hard to resist taking a bazillion silly pictures, especially with a program like Photo Booth that has all kinds of special effects. Glad you liked this one. :-)
The first poem on this post was written as a single breath with no thought as to a whole but just an exhale of the moment, of neurons firing, branching like a mind map. The singular idea goes back to my sales management training which taught to beware of 'absolutes', something sales people in trouble tend to lapse toward. I felt myself lapsing, so to speak and instead of slapping myself out of it, I just started typing the thoughts as quickly as I could and the poem flowed like water, which is to say, it went where it wanted. I still don't know why my grandfather popped into this poem or why it went to heaven and hell at the end. I read it and I'm not ashamed to say, it is as reading what someone else wrote in that the logic of it seems odd and the imagery too, seems odd and I try to work out what was specifically meant and then I wonder if the whole point was not to see the detail but to step back and see the whole from a distance, simply to float on the mood.
On a side note, for the sake of full disclosure, although heaven and hell could both be thought of as absolutes, I mean who ever escapes from either, and as such fit the motif, there was no conscious effort of design. At best, a happy accident. Heaven, I think, entered this poem through the door of despair and hell from the vent of absolute frustration.
Depression seems to me to be a thing. It lives inside, sometimes dormant, sometimes active. When active, the sense is of an entity in the brain, shutting down power, crossing wires, mixing up notes, muddying the water, tripping feet, turning out lights or leaving them on to run down like a bulb losing wattage. To experience something is not necessarily to understand it. I'm trying. These poems are as much in that effort as anything else--to record in the moment, to examine later, from a different perspective. To what effect, I don't know. But it feels better to do something than to do nothing.
I read this in a row, then opened up a second window so that I could read one at a time and say what came to mind. Because I had already decided what I wanted to say to the first part before reading your comment, I shall do so precisely as I had intended for this part anyway and hope that it adheres still to your request.
I may have said it a time or three dozen before, but I could love you for that first part alone, knowing nothing else before or after, not for content but for the manner in which you have communicated thought and emotion. When you write, whatever you write about, though one can seperate the sentences, behold one at a time and appreciate the singular, it is your overall delivery, revelations in timing and imagery and choice of language that leave such an intense impression upon the reader, it is the transference that occurs above and beyond the singular words that have had so many of us describe your writing capabilities and person in general as exceptionally special.
The form of this poem was precisely what I took note of when reading, for the form that I could have fallen, if I hadn't done so years ago, for the writer, for the person.
Wonderful flow in the second part, something that is forever present in your writing but given the shortness of this part, to read it seemed to me like moving ones eyes over the curve of a rainbow, quickly done, mobile yet smoothe.
H
The writing is intense and affecting, and the presentation remarkable, with so natural a beauty, as I so often do having read something of yours, I found myself transported, in every way except physically before something that at best might compare in natural beauty, that at best would evoke a comparable scale of wonder. I thought of cliffs, not from above, not from below, not from a distance, but face to face, of the singular markings in the area a palm might cover, of finger tips running along weathered grooves in appreciation, of time, of change, of before and beyond. I feel like painting cliffs and gifting it to you. Or taking you to their foot and as the surroundings soak both our souls, and the sun rusts the sea, telling you that this is exactly where this post was voiced.
Thanks Autumn. So nice to see you commenting again. :-)
Post a Comment