December 16, 2015

'tis a bright blessing to be someone's pocket coal glow memory...





'tis a bright blessing to be someone's pocket coal glow memory...


this December 
warm billows bellow 
our wassailing 
as seas be a-rising 
and ye port towns 
up river too
are full of drunks 
and gifted dumbly 
ne'er do wells 
like me, wading 
the after midnight(s) 
before Yule, we are
wanting, to watch 
how we navigate 
the precipices 
and the abysses 
and perhaps 
these drunks are 
like you too
willing adherents 
to the dying light...


most of us are reader(s) 
of our underbelly places...
places, we most enjoy 
whether in secret 
ambles into 
scenes stolen 
or accidental expressed
or moments when 
we catch sight 
and scent 
of something 
we already know 
or just discovered 
that we covet 
at our core
some thing shiny 
or dark tidal briny 
things sugary 
or malodorous 
and magnetic...

----------------------

from our cars 
we are becoming 
less migratory symphony 
less leaf and seed 
more automated motion 
this narrows our view
has us leaning 
in slow staggers 
in sped up(s) 
longing mechanical 
truths and rituals 
we fall for 
chasing models  
of blood and bones, 
their journeys 
and by-ways...

----------------------

no one sees me 
on the slate wall 
near the sculpted juniper 
one purposeful drag 
after the other
I ring out my dead 
with smoke rings 
cast to the streetlights 
I am blending in, to
their yellow-ed world 
it is a sodium sorrow 
cloth cut nightshirt 
and it seems to fit perfectly 
around the bare armed 
sentinel-deciduous trees 
lining the street...

this modernity is odd weather 
full of numb tingle tiny knives 
lodged just beneath the skin 
of our moving too fast 
to catch hold 
of what is going on, world...

when the dark becomes 
mantra and hungry need 
you are all to be merry, it howls  
ripening inside, a growing 
humid sky, it says:

"...to want to bud, this badly 
at Winter's solstice
is to stand whispering 
we want spawned almost there(s) 
almost all the time(s), though
we will need a higher angled Sun 
stuffed in our stockings hung 
this Christmas..."



EJR ©

3 comments:

  1. I agree, on all counts.

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  2. For me, the title might as well be the whole poem. It speaks to the elation one feels at knowing he/she lights up another person's life in the most beautiful way possible.

    "before Yule, we are
    wanting, to watch" ... This is another one of those layered sections that embeds multiple meanings. Inside of "Yule" hides "you lay." "We are wanting" means that the group in which you include yourself is left wanting, craving, hungry for ... what/whom is not clear. But I'm picturing it being a woman. Perhaps a woman who can't be touched. Something in the vain of a stripper, that sort of energy/atmosphere, anyway. And if you can't have her, then you at least want to watch her. You and all these other men.

    I love this:
    "most of us are reader(s)
    of our underbelly places"

    "some thing shiny
    or dark tidal briny
    things sugary
    or malodorous
    and magnetic" ... I imagine this theme runs throughout your poetry, but here again, I see the sea goddess you're desperate to have but can't.

    "less leaf and seed" ... This is a reference to Adam, covering his "seed" with a fig leave. Only now you're the ashamed, nearly naked man, hiding out in your car. A present-day Adam, feeling like he's going to get caught being naughty, disobeying God, letting his eyes/mind/hands wander. "Automated motion." Ha.

    The section from "models" down to "by-ways" followed by "no one sees me" makes me think the speaker is experimenting with bisexuality. Maybe he's sneaking around to check out men as well as women.

    "No one sees me on the slate wall." That's what you think. ;) This place is your slate wall. Your chalkboard. The white on black that you think no one reads or understands. That means that you think your poetry is your secret diary because (almost) no one "gets it."

    "I am blending in, to" ... This is the worst feeling in the world. "I am blending into." By blending in, you're being ripped apart.

    I love this line: "this modernity is odd weather"

    And this:
    "when the dark becomes
    mantra and hungry need"

    "we will need a higher angled Sun" ... This makes me think you're being funny, secretly picturing Jesus (the Son) as a "higher" (smoking pot) "angel." That hanging "hung" line break toward the end really highlights the theme of this piece, if you ask me. But you didn't. So I'm sure you're just talking about being joyful at Christmas. :)

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