I am here by mistake.
I must certainly be a shadow of a more substantial me--
wearing ten pounds of clothing in the summer time,
out walking where these houses will be.
All you noisy fuckers on your riding mowers,
you are not yet here;
you are not yet born.
Other Me watches her language,
buries her babies,
scorches the muffins, drops a stitch.
For her it is not so long ago that locusts crawled these stalks of grass.
Out on the fields where this burb will rise,
the wildflowers, the pumpkin vines, the snows will pass.
A devil with a leaf blower crosses himself near the property line.
He has heard about the spirit next door--
that misplaced ghost haunting a restless future--mine.
________
The fourth and fifth stanzas are so good, so flawless, I'm just breaking pencils. I love this, Shay.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm glad they never knew what was coming. They would have been heartbroken. This is a beautiful, thoughtful piece.
ReplyDeleteooh, very cool time warp!
ReplyDeleteThe history of past struggles so well contrasted to the noise of the burb.. That's why I prefer to move with a scythe.. maybe I can hear those voices of past, and thread gently on the graves of the past.
ReplyDeleteBeguiling and inventive--a touch of playful black humor (if you can have such a thing, I guess) mixed with more than a little undercurrent of the sinister. Beguiling and inventive stuff.
ReplyDeleteVery cool. Especially, as MZ notes, the fourth and fifth stanzas. Wowzers!
ReplyDeleteThere is not as fixed a divide between past and present and future as we would suppose. Your poem certainly makes the reader reassess one's own relationship to the past.
ReplyDeleteThis ends beautifully and hauntingly Shay--how easy and even comforting it is to feel like a ghost, lost on the plains of the past, but at least feeling at home.
ReplyDeleteyou go so easily to places that for my mind are terra incognita
ReplyDeletereading your work is always a strange adventure
and you show the grit of it
namaste
jzb
in case it's not glaringly obvious, that was high praise
ReplyDeletejzb
I like this very much. I read the title as "The Land's Capers."
ReplyDeleteThese are my favorites:
"I must certainly be a shadow of a more substantial me"
Stanza 4
"For her it is not so long ago that locusts crawled"
"the wildflowers, the pumpkin vines"
"that misplaced ghost haunting"
you have so well shown your super sensory awareness of realities beyond this here now thing happening. Really wonderful telling of you. Hope it helped you to define yourself to yourself even more beautifully.
ReplyDeleteI remain, Your pet Hawaiian on a cartoon island (dancing with Katy Perry's blue sharks)
ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
<3
Awesome... gonna keep this in my pocket so I have it available as my zen time-travel place next time the neighborhood snowblowers fire up. And leaf blowers and mowers (those seem far off now, but soon enough)
ReplyDeleteVery cool juxtaposition of the times.
ReplyDeleteI am all for haunting anyone with lawn equipment--this has a beautiful mix of past/present/the real and the crazy faked--succinct and sharp. Thanks. k. (http://Manicddaily.wordpress.com)
ReplyDeleteI loved this, Shay ~
ReplyDeleteI live in a house with history. Most of those who've slept in one particular room have experienced the presence of earlier residents who raised 6 kids here. A pleasant presence. Glad we have the positive!
ReplyDeleteno peace in suburbia. no quiet, no wildflowers, no where to bury the babies.
ReplyDeleteLove where you went, where you took me ....
ReplyDeleteThrough the eyes of the ghost...this is captivating Shay!
ReplyDeleteWhoa Nelly...I like this one...spooky but very cool. The idea of the ghost from the past watching the lawnmower people was spooky enough, but the twist at the end made it double-cool-spooky:~)
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong I enjoy the smell of freshly mowed grass, but that racket in the morning would drive me crazy. I'm a night bird not a morning bird. Definitely wouldn't expect to see my coming either.
ReplyDeleteI love this and long some days to be in the past with less noise.
ReplyDeleteThis gave me something to think about, which is awesome. The voice of this poem is pretty great, too.
ReplyDeleteonly you could take "Landscapers" and riding mowers and leaf blowers and noisy fuckers and turn them into such a haunting piece, SP! love it! (aren't you glad we don't have to wear all those clothes?)
ReplyDelete♥