The city inside my head
keeps its Sweet Face down
like a Japanese fan in the hand
of a dead woman whose ghost
dances in air,
untethered.
I am an ocean on the edge of a nightmare,
a horse gone headlong,
an unseen hand hanging up the cruisers,
mid-air,
sirens sounding like Stratocasters,
wah-wah pedals at patrolmen's feet.
In the after-time, when you had gone,
the tall grass afternoons went on and on.
There was a yellow butterfly and a glass of gin,
and a thorn in the soft place where you had been.
The nights were cool, the stars were cold,
and together we turned slowly old
on a blue and green revolving ball
until love was dust, then nothing at all.
The city inside my head
keeps its Sweet Face down
like a Japanese fan in the hand
of a busker's monkey whose chattering forms
these poems, this after-time,
this image of the sun behind closed eyes
hidden and
glittering.
________
for Sunday Muse #168. Thanks to Hedge for telling me how to ditch the double spacing. Apologies for the varying type size in this. I can't fix it.
I love everything about this poem Shay! It speaks of loss and what is left behind in such a gorgeous way. Every stanza is amazing; soft yet potent and strong, but I especially love the two middle stanzas and the line, "and a thorn in the soft place where you had been."....sigh....this is why I love your poetry so much!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Carrie, but I think YOU won the week.
DeleteI am always (and again) enchanted with your word mastery! (Would you share with me the secret of getting rid of the double-spacing?)
ReplyDeleteUp on the top bar, where the font and stuff are, change "paragraph" to "normal." It took me a couple tries cos it likes to switch itself back.
DeleteYou can also go to the html page before you start writing and backspace away the coding that is preset for some reason.
DeleteOK, wow. That is amazing. The closing stanza, especially this: "...a busker's monkey whose chattering forms / these poems, this after-time..." I am headlong with with like the horse over the cliff, and with the Stratocasters and wah pedals at the feet of policemen. Then the soft pivot to oblivion, where the poem and the world are entropy...
ReplyDelete*I am headlong with you like the horse...
DeleteI was tempted to put "minkey" but held my Pink Panther references in check at the last second.
DeleteAh, but the Panther rocks!
DeleteThe Panther do!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAnother stunner .... this grabbed me hard "there was a yellow butterfly and a glass of gin,
ReplyDeleteand a thorn in the soft place where you had been' ~~~ I know my Mother is a yellow butterfly now, I see her most days and always speak to her. Still beautiful.
That's such a cool thing, Helen.
DeleteDeeply felt as I read this.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Charley.
DeleteShay your poem is mesmerizing. So many good lines to choose from, I have to say the whole poem rocks. I also love that Steve Earle song and cry every time I hear it. It's from the first album he released after doing prison time for a drug charge, so it has such an aching and poignant authenticity to it.
ReplyDeleteSteve Earle is a new interest, for me, via Emmylou Harris. I'm eager to hear more of his music.
DeleteWell, as I read the first stanza I was already gobsmacked.........the Japanese fan, the woman's dead ghost dancing in the air.......gah! The "thorn in the soft place where you had been" is exquisitely painful and I know that feeling too well. Just glorious to read you, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry. I know you know.
DeleteThere's a very Lorca-like quality to the unrhymed stanzas, burning and visionary and sad as a dead sparrow, but my favorites are the two rhymed four-line stanzas which glow in the setting like jewels, and could be a standalone poem in themselves. All the lines are good lines and have been quoted, but I find the images of the horse and fan and the ocean that edges nightmare's beach stay with with me. Strong and razor sharp writing, Shay.
ReplyDeleteThanks my dear BFF. Yeah, those rhymed stanzas came out so unexpectedly strong that I had to reconsider the whole poem, but decided it did work this way. If Rimbaud and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a devil baby....
Delete"and together we turned slowly old
ReplyDeleteon a blue and green revolving ball"
My favourite lines
Happy Sunday
Much💜love
{shaking my head silently in awe}
ReplyDeleteHow long did it take you to write this?
About 90 minutes, as I recall.
DeleteYou’ve so deftly compared the sweet and psychotic sides of the speaker—the after and the after-after. Soft then monstrous. At least in the hidden, protected places, the sweet still exists. This makes me think of a geisha turned inside out.
ReplyDeleteYep, a Gemini over the edge. I've been using that verse/perverse structure a bit lately, and it was a natural for this image. And yeah, the sweet still exists. Thanks as always for the careful reading.
DeleteFrom the word go, I was hooked by each line. Such beautiful expressions. Loved it Shay.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteThe balance between a world that lingers and a world that continues gives me the shivers.
ReplyDeleteSigh, there is so much to love in this. "I am an ocean on the edge of a nightmare." God I feel that line.
ReplyDeleteOh, and thank you for your comment on my blog header. The image is one of my favorites I've created so far. I think I'll have it printed.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding, Shay! Every line had me hooked, especially,
ReplyDelete"The nights were cool, the stars were cold,
and together we turned slowly old
on a blue and green revolving ball
until love was dust, then nothing at all.
wow. loved this, great images, loved these lines in particular:
ReplyDelete"sirens sounding like Stratocasters,
wah-wah pedals at patrolmen's feet. "
but then i'm partial to stratocasters, they have the best sound.
also thank you for sharing that trick to get rid of the double spacing, its been driving me nuts