"Here I am back home again
I'm here to rest
All they ask is where I've been
knowing I've been west " --Tim Hardin
One wrong move away from a coffin, I came back
glissading hell-for-breakfast down a ribbon road called Interstice 95.
I am become a Gypsy, I said.
I am become a radio, broadcasting myself at some higher frequency.
I am a skull singing starlings out into the Void.
This is our tree, stay the fuck off it we say
with our
pugnacious
puny
little
beaks.
Sometimes dead is better, someone said.
All I want is my Hudson Bay blanket.
All I want is a mother, not my mother, but one like the ones in storybooks,
and not Grimm's.
All I want is some chocolate, and a Secret Garden to sit in.
There should be a glider.
I could cry there and let the salt make me a sailor.
I want to be kissed in a way I have not been kissed in years.
I want to be anesthetized.
I want to feel good, reconfigured without the anchors and anvils.
I want to ask Jesus some things.
Pah.
I would like to thank the cosmic shillelagh that thumped me here.
I would like to be stitched up and sent home with a note explaining
me to myself.
None of that is in the works, and a carny appears and loads me into a clock
as if I were boarding the Kingda Ka at Six Flags back in Texas, USA.
"You little feral Pick-Me Girl," says the carny,
serving up big happy helpings of easy scorn.
"Enjoy the ride!" he says, showing his teeth in a billboard grin.
FWOOMP!
My dog is glad to see me.
There is lazy winter light in the window
and someone has left a casserole on the doorstep.
I am tempted to call someone but who? God?
She's a right canny doozy,
but my monkey body remembers warm flesh like rolls from the oven
and I don't think I can get up.
My heart is smashed
and the junk drawer offers no Gorilla Glue,
no note that can penetrate when hope goes deaf.
I sit and stutter and start to tell the dog
all about this strange accident, this whole misadventure escapade
and, as it gets dark,
what I think it means.
__________
This is epic, Shay, and not just in a slangy way. How many times in our writing do we try to tell the Big Story, only to have it fizzle into something about moonlight or a one night stand(speaking for myself.) There's no fizzle here, just startlingly bright Catherine Wheels of ideas, images, sensations and knife stabs, all about everything at once, which should be overwhelming, but because of the way it is presented, isn't; is nothing but relatable and real even as the jaw drops. I especially like "..I could cry there and let the salt make me a sailor...",the cosmic shillelagh, the carny--always one in the crowd, isn't there?--and the final stanza where you skillfully stitch it all up. It could be a belly laugh, a shot in the dark, a crying jag, but instead it is pure poetry,and profoundly satisfying to read. The bar zooms off past the International Space Station, never to be seen again.
ReplyDeleteOK, "startling bright Catherine Wheels of ideas" is, on its own, glorious.
DeletePrize winning, like from another realm ... a must for inclusion in your next poetry book! I am frustrated that thousands of folks won't see this.
ReplyDeleteHelen I agree with you. If you do a poetry book, make sure this one is in it.
DeleteYou knock me out, poem after poem, Shay and, even so, this one especially leaves me in awe. I would have to quote most of the poem, so I wont. But wow.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I just rode the best roller coaster ever!! You have such an amazing way of giving us a glimpse of years of heartache and all the things and struggles that many of us can relate to and maybe others cannot and we all feel it and see it from your poetry. You make it look easy, but we all know it is not! Absolutely brilliant Shay!! Sigh.................
ReplyDeleteShay, this is an absolutely stunning write. You have such a filmic style of writing sometimes, it has me in mind of Sin City or gives me the Bladerunner feels. You also speak in cool edgy dialogue that I like to see in films. And despite the hard exterior of the character who's speaking, their vulnerability is also evident and it makes me care about them. I love all of it, each stanza has its own standalone strength and develops and grows just as it should, carrying you along. Wonderful to read, truly <3
ReplyDeletewow! ok one more time... wow! this is epic shay, i love this, this is the stuff i love to read, so thick with loose treads that it becomes a fabric, a "shay-print blanket" what seems random is really all the right details in no linear order. this one of your best, i love this
ReplyDeleteand oh, i nearly forgot, love that title
ReplyDeleteThanks! I was bummed that no one had mentioned that title!
DeleteJust when I couldn't imagine another all-time greatest opening line from you, we get: "One wrong move away from a coffin" And "I could cry there and let the salt make me a sailor." Goddamn. This whole poem is the cosmic shillelagh.
ReplyDeleteThis is very deep, chock full of goodies that made it a fun read for me.
ReplyDeleteAs I read, at first, I "saw" a bird but then I realized it was your 'writer' fantasizing about things he/she could not have, or at least probably would not have. For sure wanted "not Grimm's" in the wished-for mother as she would be teaching fable lesson. I also first read "a Secret Garden to sit in" as 'a Secret Garden to "sin" in.'
..
"Sit' in, Jim. "Sit' in.
DeleteYou have a knack of streaming thought provoking narrations. The narrative is delicious. Each line is layered with a playful bite. I can linger on the taste, absorbing meaning. To misquote your line, to compliment - if I may… ; you have become a radio, broadcasting yourself at some higher frequency. 💜
ReplyDeleteYou have a knack of streaming thought provoking narrations. The narrative is delicious. Each line is layered with a playful bite. I can linger on the taste, absorbing meaning. To misquote your line, to compliment - if I may… ; you have become a radio, broadcasting yourself at some higher frequency. 💜
ReplyDeleteShay, you used palilalia (I had to look up what it meant)so well here. As I read it I couldn't help but think of Sissy Hankshaw in, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues." You do such a wonderful job of shifting from places and moods and the poignant acceptance and maybe even made peace with the what-is shines out from your poem.
ReplyDelete