I dreamed I met a young trans dyke gypsy and her girlfriend
After a reading at Cat Tails.
Conventions fell away from them like dust from the wings of Romany-speaking red-tailed hawks
And as I stepped up into their wagon,
Years vanished from me
Like black beads from a broken rosary.
They renewed my faith
In twenty minutes.
The girlfriend's lips were like light to one nocturnally born--
A glorious surprise,
As the trans dyke soothed the smoke-stained walls
With the flow of her voice
Smooth as the springwork on a trap door into momentary solace.
I found two sisters,
But in the morning they moved on,
And I crawled the scrub weed barbed wire slopes
Back down to job,
Obligations,
And dreary February like a congregation of Baptist corpses singing.
_______
photo by Metin Demiralay
I like how you, Tiger-friend, manage to weave religious imagery with a poem about....hmmm....I was about to say a meeting with a couple of sisters. But then I realized the whole thing is about religious imagery and that these two sisters serve a transcendent function. These *sisters* transport you into: 1) connection that leads to tran-scendence; 2) Renewal of faith; 3) Glorias;4) The hell of obligation.
ReplyDeleteDamn, your good!
xoxo
Weasel-friend
I STILL want to know how in the
ReplyDeleteh--- you do it! Every day (or just about! Always mind-blowing!
I am hoping to find out (via some explosive scandal) that you are not one single person, but instead a community of like-minded poets who take turns writing phenomenal poems and then fling themselves onto the floor, spent, waiting until the rotation is complete and it's their turn again.
I loved the line about the "scrub weed barbed wire slope' along with the simile about the red tail hawk.
the morning after sucks.
ReplyDeleteDear One,
ReplyDeleteYou create characters of such lively trait. I want to meet each one, share good wine and hearty bread; hear their stories. Tell them that they are wondrous and perfect in their evolution.
Pleasure, as always.
Your writing transcends, it is on a whole other plane and I so love to just keep reading and reading. Some especially brilliant lines: "like light to one nocturnally born", "a trap door into momentary solace" (damn!!!!!), and "a congregation of Baptist corpses singing." You are amazing. Truly.
ReplyDeleteI'm not able to be nearly so elegant in my praise as everyone else, simply cuz I haven't had enough coffee yet and my brain isn't functioning at an optimum level. So, I'm just gonna go with,
ReplyDeletegirl, you fuc*ing rock!
Another fantabulous poem!
I really like this image - Conventions fell away from them like dust from the wings of Romany-speaking red-tailed hawks
ReplyDeleteBeautiful
What can I say, Shay? Such clear and beautiful imagery. Is there anything worse than going back to job?
ReplyDeleteDreams of gypsies tramps and resurrectionists transformed into crawling up the barb wire slopes pretty well take us along that whole journey from the sublime to the dismal that is this rollar coaster we ride. The imagery speaks in its own language, a sense a bird might have midflight falling suddenly out of the sky...
ReplyDeleteThe only wagon I've found going away from job is age, but I like yours better.
Love, love, love it! Divine intervention always seems followed by lesser experiences. The Baptist corpses slay me here. And the comparison between the dreary deadness of religion and the lively faith of spiritual mysticism is a burst of genius!
ReplyDeleteThe imagery in this is just glorious.
ReplyDelete