What the Mocking Bird Said It's Just a Little
Some time after that season of keening rain
blanched the bleached slats of blue-gray siding,
the gutter's low scrub bloomed shortly once-
just before the blocked and frosted jalousies
shuttered the lime-streaked porch for life.
Inside the nod of flowers drifted away
drowning out pool filter chlorine whines
behind dapples on dry buttery siding
where once the rain had flowed in sheets
over a withering brown oak's low branches
and vibrant figs coaxed from depleted earth.
A table plated with unfinished eggs gives
a circus of coffee aged evidence of lift
in a place where nothing uplifting is left:
no mouth in the greasy skillet entices ears
with a low sizzle that has long since passed
into a torn curtain obscurring cloudy skies,
ripples form on the pocked aluminium shore
of lidless guardian service with steamy
gradients of starch under the striped rose
hanging a shadow over the newsprint news.
Puckered lilies would rather smooch the moon
than greet the apricot rise of morning stalled
long since a quartered acre of silence arose,
arose for a sun that only after stabs next door
and only after an early breeze shakes uneven rain
from other sun-drenched leaves of maple.
8 comments:
"Puckered lilies would rather smooch the moon/than greet the apricot rise of morning stalled"
One piece of beautiful writing inside a beautiful poem.
Well done again.
a really cool poem. thanks a lot for sharing it, Gerry - I really enjoyed it.
Bergman-esque, maybe, the images. Or something similarly complex and Swedish. Perfect for the weather here, too, everything is frozen and rotten and awaiting, while the robins dance fruitlessly and frozenly upon the bare ground. Lots of them, though. A really neat poem. thanks again.
P
(note regarding my previous comment: sewdish complexity is a thing so good as to be regarded with jealousy here in the simple West; please, lord, let no-one take offence!)(sigh)
P
Agh! Swedish, not sewdish. I have so many feet in my mouth at this point I cannot possibly escape. I blame my keyboard for everything (especially for missed caps, but for everything else too).
Goodnight, folks. I retire from the field, having shot myself to pieces.
P
Wonderful piece! Rich and with a variety of colds and warms. Thanks Gerry.
Peter, Swedish complexity. I like that, but sometimes Sweden is just too blond, at least on the surface. To me, North America seems like a cauldron of complexity. I think the novel The Scarlet Letter touches upon the dread and wild beauty of the West. It defined something. I suppose Canada is probably quite like Sweden, but more wild and waste.
@Akeith: Thanks man. We were just in San Antonio heading west. Shoulda joined ya for a cup of joe. I thought about it but didn't want to impose on your time. Maybe on the return, whenever that is.
@old: thanks. don't know much about sweden except for bergman and watching the swedes come over on the ferry to elsinore (Hamlet-ville) to buy cheese and booze in Denmark and, of course, Stieg Larsson novels. Per Jenny's comment, I suppose the unknowns of the 'other' is liable to perceptions of complexity. The Danes find the Swedes too serious, generally, and the Swedes find the Danes too silly. Ha!
@Jenny: The US is complex for me simply because it's so huge and has so much regional variety. The accents alone can throw you for a loop, not to mention the cuisine and culture. I can easily feel like a foreigner in sections of my own country. The Scarlet Letter is a product of New England repressiveness.
Yes, The Scarlet Letter is certainly typical of New England. But I was referring to the wilderness/civilization, romanticism/puritanism conflicts as depcited in the novel, in a wider sense. At least how I perceive the West, as a foreigner. The variety within North America is probably similar to the variety within Europe.
Gerry, you always blow me away with your images!
Post a Comment