Merciful the shortening days
When leopard hours incline toward black,
Gather my grief in corset and stays
A Plenty against dissembling lack...
Bring tonic of time that forgetting invites,
Let gray go the cat whose claws score the wound;
Just soften my sorrow with poppy-gone nights
When merciful dreams lay me skin-close with you.
_______
for Kerry's challenge at Real Toads.
ooooh i love that phrase "poppy-gone nights." yes!
ReplyDeleteThis is just beautiful, Shay. Simple, elegant lines which overflow with poignant mood and lyrical images. I love the reference to the leopard - I think it adds a particularly African touch in homage to Ingrid Jonker.
ReplyDeleteI love the "poppy-gone nights", too - and the plea to "soften my sorrow". And the leopard hours. Your poem hits the heart with its poignancy.
ReplyDeleteYes ... the tonic of time.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow....and your last two Shay...wow, those are some feel-able lines you've conjured-up and echos the tone and style of Ingrid...very well written indeed.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I wrote a concrete again...it turned out as such by chance and surprised me...made me think of your comment the other day! :)
Reading this over, I actually feel a strong kinship with Dickinson in it, as well as the melancholy and yearning of Jonker. Each simple phrase hits home like an arrow, and I particularly like the second and final stanzas.
ReplyDeleteDo I hear an Emily slant rhyme in there?
ReplyDeleteJonker! A tribute! just read that!
ReplyDeleteyou are layers on layers wrapped in cat fur, dragged in the snowy street, dried on the radiator at Danny's (sp?)
christmasy in my nostalgic depressive gray philly way. I'll be poppy-gone this season . . . as always (craves of the season)
I love the simplicity of this. Lovely words.
ReplyDeleteI feel so inarticulate after reading something of this caliber. All I can think is "wow!"
ReplyDeleteThose is wonderful! The line "gather my grief in corset and stays" really says a lot.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. This brings to mind the poem I posted today . . .
ReplyDeleteYour title is a poem in itself, packed with pain, desperate for sleep and the illusions one creates in dreams. Long days are murderous. Darkness is a reprieve from the prison of daylight.
ReplyDeleteI love this: "When leopard hours incline toward black / Gather my grief in corset and stays"
P.S. Your title also makes me think of baking with shortening, making homemade delectables and eating away your sorrows.
ReplyDeleteWonderful poem - combines lyricism and twinge - I agree with Hedge that especially like second and fourth stanzas - the dissembling lack and the skin-closeness in dreams but the leopard hours - I may not be getting it right is lovely too --all of it. k.
ReplyDeleteWhen merciful dreams lay me skin-close with you
ReplyDeleteOh, I can hear EmmyLou singing this! Just a killer last line and I snorted at "Iambic Pandemonium" ha!
I thought of baking too when I saw your title-- I must be hungry.
ReplyDeleteHope all's well with you.
xo jj
yesterday was another up to my ears in bull pucky office stuff ... so nice to get to come here and cleanse my senses
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite songs! now roams with the leopards and cats and poppies you invoke in the longer nights and skin-close dreams. This poem rocks sorrowfully with the hyphenated adjectives of the hard to express. Thank you.
ReplyDelete