One Fate,
One Muse smoking by the garden gate.
Black bird,
love bird,
one on a perch--
other in the sweet ground, buried in the earth.
Do you ever get the urge to boil up a root?
Brown on the surface--
inside, blue.
Do you ever take a mind to shake a purple gourd?
A kiss for the curious,
lies for the Lord.
One card, two cards, three cards, four--
Aunt Annie likes diamonds,
hearts turn whores.
Five cards, six cards, seven cards, eight--
gone bird and baby
by the garden gate.
_________
for grapeling's word list at Real Toads
I always love your brimstone jumprope chants, and this is no exception. Voodoo gets shit done, they say, and this is pretty much the poetic equivalent. I was going to start picking a favorite stanza, but then I couldn't stop--I'll just say I especially like the rhymes in the last two.
ReplyDeleteFantastic - makes me want to jump rope - and teach all the little girls to sing it. (Is that weird?)
ReplyDeleteIs every thing you spin, magic? :-) Looking forward to rereads so I can discover the nuisances here.
ReplyDeleteAn undercurrent of sadness, yet an undeniably appealing cadence. As someone said earlier, this reminds me of a childhood jump rope chant.
ReplyDeletePat
Critter Alley
Very much like a twisted nursery rhyme children might recite while jumping rope.
ReplyDeleteGreat, now I have that image stuck in my brain...
fReAkIn' Awesome...with a capital A! This reminds me of those clap-songs...I don't know what you call that kids game...you know what I mean though right? :)
ReplyDeleteYou had to much fun with this one.
ReplyDeleteDamn, Shay.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what I mean, that poetry is spoken.
It reminds me of the old style Grimm Tales, before they were sanitized, even though the style is completely different. Those were spoken, pre-literacy, and the subject matter was alternately riveting and terrifying.
You hold the reader on that threshold in each stanza, from the opening garden gate, through perch/in the ground, surface/inside, the twist of curious/lies, diamonds/whores (not saying whores don't wear diamonds, but not going there...), back to the gate, a neat chiasmus.
~ M
Makes me think of jumprope with tarot cards...or something. Very cool...I can imagine hearing this chanted on an otherworldly playground.
ReplyDeleteyou play with the weight and balance of words like juggling bricks and boulders then drop them into perfect place as cathedrals of poetry.
ReplyDeleteAdmiring ALOHA from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
~ > < } } ( ° > <3
I am so jealous. This piece has rhythm and rhyme I could never create. I especially like the ending. Love the White Stripes song...It blares from my ipod at times!
ReplyDeletei do in fact get the urge to boil up a root every so often. nice!
ReplyDeleteI think we would all agree that your content is amazing so I'm going to tell you what else I love about this: the way you handled your line lengths and switched them over at the end.
ReplyDeleteThe opening stanzas snap with the two short and one long line, then you switched it up with the long first line ( I love the one with the purple gourd) and two quick short ones, so the final two lines of the poem sting like an elastic stretched and released again.
I probably am not making much sense, but I loved the movement.
Slippery, wicked! Love this, Shay.
ReplyDeleteI adore your jumprope chants! So glad you're back. As for the White Stripes...yum.
ReplyDeleteI must admit I was particularly clumsy at jumping rope, and anything that reminds me of that, also reminds me how awful I felt.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if poetry is meant to flush out emotions (and it often is, and does) then this succeeded. Well done, my dear Shay, well done.
K