a stone--
dense as a widow's heart.
The stone
is an un-bird,
cursed nonetheless with a damned restlessness.
Birthed
through the bottom of the nest,
it takes the whole thing down,
spiraling
end over disintegrating end
like the Creation Wheel gone graveyard.
Sister murderer,
brother destroyer,
be born into dirt, burrow and grow blinder.
Mother was stoic
and tossed a rose without a tear,
but went home with a hawk in her hair.
She tore at it,
banging her head and rocking to get rid of it,
sitting alone in the hallway to the kitchen, screeching.
Ah well,
this stone is like all the rest,
inside her, a clutch, cracking, then demanding everything--
bald, sightless
helpless boiling monsters
with their black holes open, perversely alive, impossible to satisfy.
_______
for Play it Again at Real Toads. I used Ella's visualization prompt. I saw a hawk with its wings spread.
this gave me shivers at the end...
ReplyDeletei've never heard Concrete Blonde. really like the song, too.
♥
very dark, very well crafted;
ReplyDeletehave a nice Sunday
much love...
I have only been through this once, so I know I am not fully equipped to comment, but my god, Shay--what a fine fine poem. There is absolutely no one out there who can write this blood-dark poetry of the mind and heart torn and in conflict, of life and loss and damage, like you do. Every image is like a glittering tile in an ancient mosaic, a heart-rune, a work of art, that pieces together a greater(and somewhat terrifying) whole.
ReplyDeleteMy hair is *never* going to grow out at this rate.
cool, Shay. my kids were telling me that dodo birds ate rocks, & somehow this feels as heavy.
ReplyDelete..madness spiraling downward in utter abandon. Quite chilling
ReplyDeleteTo have a hawk entangled in your hair.. What an absolutely scary image of madness...
ReplyDeleteTo have a hawk entangled in your hair.. What an absolutely scary image of madness...
ReplyDeleteso many good bits I could quote them all. Yes, a stone is the anti-bird: sinks, rather than flying
ReplyDeletemight even end a bird. . . . .
Glad you are synthesizing the pain and so processing it.
ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
=^..^= . <3 . >< } } (°>
My spine tingles! A hawk-huh!
ReplyDeleteYour medicine is powerful today~
Your heightened awareness will receive a gift! Hawk flies close to Grandfather Sun-so do you!
The stone as an "un-bird," your line, "dense as a widow's heart," there is so much to love and to be led by in this poem. I was led to a dark place... the mother casually tossing the rose, then coming home with a hawk in her hair! And unraveling from there... haunting music, haunting poem. You did great work here, Shay. Sorry I haven't been around, long story. Amy
ReplyDeleteThis is such a powerful piece - the images seem to lend themselves to archetypal characters and the scenario is quite unsettling in the underlying sense of conflict.
ReplyDeleteThis is wild!
ReplyDeleteLove the spiraling stanza...great one, FB!
ReplyDeleteWhoa! You did it again! Scared the B'jesus out of me. You write so well that I don't now whether to like you or not... just being silly. I do enjoy your work :-)
ReplyDeleteZQ
Is dis Game of the throne ?...tee...heh
ReplyDeleteA very powerful poem, Shay, with an Anne Sexton-like quality, intensity--very strong, nothing arbitrary, vivid, visual. K. (Manicddaily)
ReplyDeleteWow! The visuals you create are frighting and vivid. Amazing
ReplyDeleteYou use such primal images and make us look them in the eye, pay attention and be instructed. Powerful.
ReplyDeletedelicious in all its darkness, the visuals you conjure are stunning.
ReplyDeleteThe hawk in the hair and the headbanging and shrieking is a visual image I cant get out of my head. Fantastic writing, Shay. And the stone as an un-bird - as Amy notes - just brilliant.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, this felt like a written dream and I was caught in the words, but they were scary.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite stanza was this one:
"spiraling
end over disintegrating end
like the Creation Wheel gone graveyard"
I couldn't tell you why this stanza jumped out at me, but it did:~)
Like others, I also loved the
"The stone
is an un-bird..."
Regarding seeing a hawk, I looked it in my animal medicine cards, here's one of the messages: "When the hawk shows up in your life, be receptive to your own intuition." :~)