Re: Heartbeat Road

by Alle Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:13 pm

SNOWGLOBE

 
PART 1 - SHAKE

You walk down a path
swallowed
by white snow.

It seems unfamiliar. Like
a dream where only a few things
have changed, yet it
dizzies you.

The path is marked only
by the ghosts of deer.

You look
at the boy.
He looks ahead.
The boy knows the way

to the center of things.

The statue looms across the street.
He will not hold your hand,
but you follow

to the ring of ice,
the fountain and the wide
steps, and the statue.

In the quiet shadows, there
is only you and the boy.

The rest of the world is lost
when the wind moves the snow.

PART II - SHINE

Streetlight creates diamonds, on the
street and the boy. He glimmers,
chapped and pale.

You follow him to the fountain
where snow piles on the rim.
Conversation is interrupted
by a cold war. Colder
than cold - it seeps through your coat and gloves

into your skin.

Turn them inside out,
advises the boy.

The touch of his smile brings
a kind of tightening,
like an opportunity echoing.

Going, going, gone.

I want to kiss you,
you almost admit to the boy.

His bright eyes make you wonder
how much of the mystery is known
to him.

You mirror him
when he sits at the base of the statue,
close enough that only puffs
of white air keep you apart.

Turn it inside out, you think.

Am I supposed to be brave?

This is your makeshift world.

It will be gone by morning.

PART III - SHATTER

The long moment shatters
as the universe returns to scope.

You look away,
staring at icicles on tree branches,
poised to fall.

Or, if they never fall, never crash,
they will cling to the branch
until they melt when the cold is gone.

If it ever melts.

The boy beckons you
back across the street.
The gesture is wrong, like an
ill-timed returning
towards turbulence.

It is already tomorrow in his head.

Across the street, leaves scatter
like glass across the snow.
In your heart, it will always be night.

Dawn weakens the streetlight,
banishes the ghosts. You follow him
back, watching sideways

until you are home, and he turns to
leave for his..

You watch
with the hindsight of an accident victim
until he is gone, vanishing into the night.

by Alle Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:18 pm

I Have Never Dreamed Of Water

I have never dreamed of water,
only dry things: bricks and schools and waiting.
Hallways with humming lights
and no plants.
There are openings but no gateways,
only windows and
hot glass and bright objects.
Rooms with desks and chairs
but no chalkboards.
I never dream of doors, or dirt, or anything I can dig through to find the water, or the exit.
Something like warmth, instead of brightness. An answer,
or God.

by Rust Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:20 pm

Flump and Simplicity are my favorites.

I'd feedback further but... I've never really been into poetry, apologies ^^;;

by **BSmith** Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:31 pm

I love Snowglobe, how each part has a distinctly different feel, yet tells a single story.

I also like Starry Starry Night, but that might just be because I absolutely can't get enough of that painting.

by Alle Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:40 pm

The Balloon Society

I wish
I could fly like
a red balloon
high above the damp streets;
stark yet determined to make it to the sun.
I wish I could soar like a red balloon,
trailing through the clouds; weightless.
I wish I could scale the skies
and careen across the
currents, with nothing
but a single string
to suggest
I was ever
on earth.

I wish
I could fly
like a
fearless
balloon,
yet
I withhold,
because
towering larger
than the
thrill
of the flight
is the
ineludible
deflation.

by Alle Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:42 pm

Icarus

Inspired by the legend of Icarus

Icarus faced the great blue sea
The waves that roared and crashed
Icarus jumped into the breeze
And flew on wings of wax
His father warned, as fathers do
To be wary of the sun
But the child's curiosity grew
And the giddiness, it won
Icarus swooped, and Icarus swirled
In the breeze that rushed and called
Until his wings began to melt
And then did Icarus fall
Down into the great blue sea
The waves that roared and crashed
Icarus sunk beneath the sea
and down there he was crushed

by The Masked Man Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:59 pm

I love the rhythm here. Oftentimes poets define the beat of their work syllable by syllable, but this is more of a word-by-word approach, and it's just wonderful. It reminds me of the ancient days of storytelling when bards memorized everything they could and sang it back to their audiences.

I had a technical criticism about one of the lines seeming to snag, but the snag has vanished. I'll let you know if it reappears.

by Alle Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:46 pm

I Wrote My Own Eulogy

Read this at my funeral

In the cool unchanging light,
flowers and weeds teem in tandem
against chipped marble. The ground
is softly tread; those who visit
and those who pay respect;
those who know the woman and
those who know the work come together
to bow their heads.

As time passes, the ground
will not harden but grow calluses.
Children, dreamers, delighters
and the curious, legacies of blood
and ink will survive to remember
who lies beneath the ground.

They will know her,
and know that she lived
and loved;
that the art she bore
into the world
was for the world,
and that is what she left behind.

In dappled shadows the stone will stand,
strong in the passage of time;
it bears
the last words.
There will be a day when
blood memory dies,
and those words
will be the
remembered words,
but not the only ones.

There will be the strong words,
and the weak ones;
the ones written and ones said;
words good and words bad,
but as long as artists live
there are always letters.

Flowers and weeds teem in tandem,
at the grave of the word woman.

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