Daily Archives: June 2, 2008
Wings
When the time comes
for me to ripple off this stage
(tremors
in my hands, eyes fluttering,
my body a mound of organs and tissues
taking their leave
according to their own music),
I fear that all I will recall
is the way the world has sounded
inside me.
I was never a visual man. My eyes
did their job but the sight of things
mattered less to me than their voices.
The stones whistled softly at dawn.
The ocean beat the shore, the trees
howled just below the human ear’s reach
every time the wind called them out
for daring to stand against it.
When I heard these things, they did not sound
the way they were intended to be heard,
I am sure: everything had a song, all the songs
were hymns, God was the subject of every song
and all praise of God was in all songs. Nothing
sang of devil or evil, the lace threads of each tune
were woven into patterns that made the word “beautiful”
a sad attempt at explanation, barely able to hold
a clip of each measure long enough for me
to understand what I was hearing. I only knew
that somewhere under the tide of sound
there was a rush of steel wings. I heard them
in my sleep and when I rose it continued
until every voice, every word from another human,
contained the undertone of the Hymns of the World
and it was a struggle to hear the meaning of the people
who spoke.
When you and I sat at table, or in planes and automobiles,
and I seemed distracted to you, it was because I was
hearing that sweep and thrum that had rolled over any chance I had
of listening to you. Forgive me, I was unhappy
that it became so hard to hear you, and it seemed to me
that nothing had prepared me for the pain of knowing
that human understanding was lost to me as long as I
could only hear the other voices of the world.
You would think it would be easy to hear
those same cathedral echoes in your voices, but
it was all failed song to me: I was so enslaved
to what I could hear in the floors below me
that what walked upon them was mute to me.
So when I roll off my bed at the end of my life,
when I shake myself into the last moments, be kind
to me. Lift my head to let me hear something
as lovely as all I’ve heard before, but something
I never understood: come close and whisper in my ear,
so close that nothing else can pass between us
and deafen me to you:
come close enough for me to hear
the hiss of feathers in your voice.
That way, when I am at last still,
it will be all I have to take with me.
Here’s one for you…
Turning from the death of Bo Diddley, we have:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/pringles.burial.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
I’m not sure what flavor he chose. Original, I trust.
Poem for Bo Diddley
rock river flows
up and over
the rough bed
follow the bumps in the surface
and it’s like seeing
“shave and a haircut” mapped
like seeing bo diddley’s sound
down farther along in its progress
the river has slowed
to
mud and crawl
these days
but up here
it’s still
“shave and a haircut”
driving
the stones ahead of it
carving the earth
you will dance to it
dance to it
shout to it
who do you love?
“bo diddley”
how much you love him?
“two bits”
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just a quick homage…
short poems from writing prompts by scott
scottwoods has been posting poem prompts. Here are a few I’ve done.
PROMPT: Write a poem using the following phrase (or derivation of) somewhere in the poem: The shock alone would have killed him.
Samuel watches Rebecca (that was
her name, right?)
leave in the morning
after six months of sleeping
by himself and as he turns back
toward a hasty breakfast pulled together
from the dregs of the fridge before
having to dress for work he succumbs to relief
that it’s over: the dreamless, powerless
comas he’d strived for all those nights
after his wife left have come to an end.
He leans against the wall numb from the shock.
Alone would have killed him if it had gone on
one night longer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMPT: Write a poem about: A person who owns a collection they love, but that another person hates.
Under the bed in a box designed for Christmas wrap
he keeps the knives he has adored for years:
the ones his father gave him, the ones he’s bought for himself,
the ones whose origins are now lost to him; the switchblades,
the military blades, all the handiwork of those
who wed beauty to death, who love the play
of form fused to function.
Yes, he tells her. He knows how to use them.
Yes, he says. He has used more than one, and some more than once.
No, he says. He will not say more.
They lie there in the company
of all their secrets. (Everyone knows there are secrets
under every bed.) No one speaks of them
because it’s understood that the where and when
of those secrets is not in play anymore,
or at least right now:
still, he pulls them out from time to time
like a snooping child in early December
who can’t leave his presents alone. He pulls them
out of the box, one by one, when she’s not home.
He tests them against his skin, remembering their history,
visualizing their potential.
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PROMPT: Use the following phrase as the basis for a poem, utilizing as much of its inherent or potential imagery as can be culled from it: world of hurt
We’ve come all the way across the universe
to orbit this planet,
imagining that we will at last be safe here.
When we see that from here it’s as beautiful
as our own world was, the sight
begins to terrify us as we suit up for the landing:
unspoken among us all is the knowledge that
there’s no way to explore other globes
without taking our own
with us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROMPT: First line prompt (or variation thereof): She gives him the finger
She gives him the finger.
He takes it gladly. Some days,
any validation that he is not
invisible
is enough.
Dark Matter 