I don't write, I paint myself blind with words...diogenes herded...ignorance...gilded cages...filling up on beauty unleashed...free will's maddening fractures...eyes that need to smell to see...
October 29, 2015
old bellow was a poem(please read aloud)
old bellow was a poem on a tombstone leaning in
met a four
was a three
wanted one more
go around
you see
leather gathers
iron fasteners and
slow gasping in
last exhale almost
build and billow
always having designs
on, one last time
becoming wanted
right now
poem wants to be
a closing couplet birth
in a previous piece
I've written
and immediately
upon me reading this
aloud, poem bellows back
"last stanza needs something...
Edward, what does it lack..."
akin to being immersed
in art as distraction
turned to attraction
to something shiny
poem says, dress the words
like mannequins
for storefronts overnight
while morning light waits
for shoppers and keepers
on the things you do consume
in order to stay human...
cobblers and elves
help us delve
into being gifts
we'd give ourselves
as if we were the magi
coming home to be
a parable ending...
and with the way
the taste of the notes
of my familiar songs
hold me tight
I'd say poem is
mostly right...
nearing Halloween...
gloaming begins the pause
at the seams, sown series
of demarcated stitches
thinned willow switches
tine-d and twined to find
those places where
anything remains possible
by going underground...
praying
preying
prying
paying
attention to
the moments at
or before a soul might
inherit its new bones...
paper bell needs, falling leaves
outside my windows
it is raining furiously
trying to steal into the Sun
on this very odd
warm late October day...
the wind is full of couriers
and Holly King courtesans
they rake remnant time
in fingered patter-pitter down(s)
they sound of clown-wet bags
and broken bottoms
processionals of confessions
waiting to fall through...
it smells of sweet death everywhere
tannin sugary bleed for bones, alms
the wretched ring out the dead
the velvet covered and fire warmed souls
still clinging to their bones
drink to make merry and numb
on the insides of their things
their houses and rituals
their witch-pail-fix-it-quick-would-ya-please(s)...
the ease with which we lease today for futures
depends on how willing we are to feel
the pain of absence and forms
before a storm passes us into pleasure...
and I look at my window
slow lunging the tippled air
and spy beneath the fallen
and matted slick ground
a willing and hungry sort of mud
waiting for the tight slow lattice of water
to crown and throne thy womb
for next Spring will rise
scented with Persephone's return
liking to be covered
in all that has grown
in what we've let go of...
EJR ©
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This is incredible! Is there a name for this style of poetry?
ReplyDeleteThank you and gosh, that's a good question...this piece was written almost entirely this morning...wouldn't know how to describe a style, don't really think about that much...the process felt, over morning coffee, as if there was this old melody on a warm wind, that wanted me to remember to sing sometimes, a bit of fun into the words...
DeleteBeautifully haunting!!
ReplyDeleteThank You...Autumn in the Northeastern U.S., especially in and around old towns...can bring many reminders of the tides that bind us...
DeleteI feel as if words are an inadequate response; I just want to somehow read every one of your poems right this minute, as if they might, in some way, make me whole.
ReplyDeleteGratitude...
DeleteI like these lines:
ReplyDeleteone last time
becoming wanted
right now
poem wants to be
a closing couplet birth
in a previous piece
I so love your style of writing. It kind of reminds me of mine.
Incredible poem my friend. :)
I was thinking the exact same thing ... that his reminded me of yours to a degree.
DeleteThank you and yes ash, I guess, from my perspective, mine mines a similar vein, another gnarled driftwood archetypal foray, with modern parlance of course, code indica soapstone rune stoned somewhere in those lands of nod, macabre and underbelly beauty...
DeleteA wonderful walk into this poem makes.. I love how it seems to dig it's way into soil with the hunger of an earth-worm... :-)
ReplyDeleteThat is beautiful of you to say...earth worm chassis, humanity engine...I like it thank you...
DeleteI was amused by how poem bellows back at you that the poem needs something, Edward! Quite creative...and meandering...
ReplyDeleteGratitude...the first part was a joyful prompt fueled by caffeine and sunlight through bleeding leaves...but it needed something...seemed like it was waiting for me to confess that I rather like to think that old tools or hand made devices begin to take on an emotional intelligence as they weather and age from use and storage to long forgotten, dust covered eureka(s) embedded inside, are you sure the air in this part of the basement is safe to breathe...
DeleteThis was fun, really trippy. I particularly liked the stanza about mannequins
ReplyDeleteI like the word play here quite a bit--and yes-read it aloud--it kind of craves that
ReplyDeleteConsciousness of poetry
ReplyDeleteso small.. only now
reflecting tiny part
of human sung
as rhyme meter
as measure..
oh.. below..
ocean
us..
waiting..
where
poetry
sings
within
and brings
self back whole..
ancestors do this
easy.. work for we..
as illusions..
spoon
feeding
culture
takes within
away.. yes..
waiting
to come
back
again..:)
This is an amazing piece of writing. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThe poem as muse? I found it interesting how you spoke of the poem as a character in your life.
ReplyDeleteVery auditive poem indeed - as an auditive person, I really appreciate that. And I like the way you talk to yourself in the midst of it.
ReplyDelete