up, out of the April Michigan ice
in my brown grave of a garden.
This man was never a child.
He never bounced some goddamned ball
or climbed into my lap for a story.
What I'm saying is, this man wasn't natural,
though he grew there
among the astonished screaming jays.
How can I sleep, knowing this shapeless bastard
is leaning upright out there,
moaning like the last lover on earth?
For now, the hard earth is his vice,
he stays half-born, entire,
fucking with my head, expecting some sick future.
Slashing rain and warmth as sudden and wrong
as a stranger in one's kitchen
will free him, he will roar the mud from his throat and tarnish my name on the dead medicine of his lips.
He will call, I will come, terrified and scalded,
to be touched and opened by him,
to weep in his arms, hissing damn you, darling, damn you."
_______
for day 13.
So I'm not the only one with bad dreams in her garden and strangers in the kitchen...vivid, terrifying, and leaves a knot in my stomach with each razoring metaphor creeping closer to the kill shot.This picks up all the wrongness, all the tension that is coated over with a thin layer of acceptance, because looking at it is just too ...destructive? seductive? There is something mythic here, Shay, primal. Stunning writing.
ReplyDeleteI am rendered speechless by this example of just how stunning a poem can be. It brought my mind to a halt. Wow.
ReplyDeleteHorrifying and riveting. I think it may haunt me for a long time.
ReplyDeleteSleep seems like a timid, terrified bird... when one remembers the sort monsters that lurk in the night (and the day and all the time).
ReplyDeleteI hate to say it but I feel kind of jealous.. I'm very taken by this shapeless bastard!
ReplyDeleteOh he is worrisome, terrifying, and, exciting. Woe to we who fall prey❣️A wonderful poem👏❣️🙏
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kerry...What power this man of your garden holds to entice, to spark desire to explore darkness.
ReplyDeleteWhat a thing to have in your garden... like a garden golem playing incubus.
ReplyDeleteThe hauntings of the past are a giant monster indeed! This is gripping and dropped my heart to it's knees! Stunning as others have spoken is the perfect word! You never disappoint my friend!
ReplyDeleteWow,terrific. "leaning upright out there, moaning like the last lover on earth" is utstanding, (OK, this guy is out standing...) "tarnish my name on the dead medicine of his lips." is over-the-top-great.
ReplyDeleteThe opening stanzas are like the beginning of a story about a golem, as Björn said, quite light, like a fairy tale, but then slipping and sliding into darkness. I was drawn into the strange relationship with ‘this shapeless bastard’, the ‘stranger in one’s kitchen’, Shay, and the language in the lines:
ReplyDelete‘…he will roar the mud from his throat and tarnish my name on the dead medicine of his lips.
Stunning!
riveting from start to finish! Still feeling a curious chill down my spine!
ReplyDeletechilling, Shay ~
ReplyDelete