Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Rán

 

I can't recall what this place was like
before the renovations.
There were difficulties--
bombings, whatnot,
and the removal to the madhouse of the construction foreman. 

Blueprints are lovely, don't you think?
Smooth and blue as calm seas. 
Birth, though, that's a bloody messy business
of screaming gobsmacked arrival
held up in the hands of the midwife who never cuts her nails.

It's not so much that I love this place as it is that I was presented with it.
I woke in these rooms
with the hammering already in progress. 
I long for waterfalls and love,
but have skin like bricks, and hair like shingles.

People say, make it beautiful, you can do it!
Be your own fetch, a siren of the flooded basemant,
luring yourself with your own song.
Make it your home away from home as drowning sailors do,
find the bright side of blistering paint and warped floors like heavy seas.

All right then. I have tattooed the name Ran
on my arm, see it when I hold you.
We are limited only by burst plumbing, crumbling rebar,
and our own imaginations,
navigating our Rubik's Cube Winchester House of gorgeous possibility.
__________

for Sunday Muse and shared with desperatepoets open link. 


16 comments:

  1. We are born into this world and inside this body and life we did not actually choose, but here we are. I love every stanza here Shay. As always your imagery takes us up on the high wire of feeling with you. I don't think I have read another poet that uses imagery so wonderfully as you my friend. Again, thank you for being a part of the Muse as a host, and as a friend. Your thoughts and amazing presence have made the Muse a bright star in a sky of many. Thank you for being a part of it all!

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  2. Like Carrie, I have never read another poet who has the imagination you do, and the supreme skills in how you tell your tales. In a sane world, you would have been famous long ago. But you are famous to your fans online. Thank you for helping The Muse shine, and for the extreme entertainment value of your wonderful, incomparable poems.

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  3. All of the above! I love this amazing poem.

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  4. Who built the house of love? After much torture and late interrogation, we confess. Then came home improvement. The next poem and the next, hammer and parasol in hand. Amen.

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  5. This breaks through the dullness of the morning and leaves me breathless. A strong & stunning poem.

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  6. This is some profound work with the metaphor, Shay. The entire first stanza is jawdropping, and it just goes up from there.."I woke in these rooms/with the hammering already in progress..." seems only to underline the inescapable, inexorable nature of reality, despite the narrator's dreams and desires of something else, of her own, not prefab. Another bar that's been tossed outslde the bounds of the known cosmos while the rest of us can only gape in awe.

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  7. This is a brilliant poem Shay, your imagery and words are profound 🙌

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  8. Yes Shea, we get what we get when we get here, and we got to do what we gotta do once we’re doing it. Some do a better job than others, but we all got to do it — and we all hope we’re doing the best we can. Like you’re write here my friend. Hadn’t realized you were part of getting The Sunday Muse up and running with Carrie and Chrissa. Wanted to say what a wonderful job, and kudos to Carrie for keeping it going. Going to miss it. I’ve published a couple of prompt sites over the past couple decades, and I realize how hard it is. My heart attacks and my pacemaker finally took that off the table for me. I want to say thank you to the three of you.

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  9. Head spinning. Feeling stupid. Love you. Love your genius.

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  10. "I long for waterfalls and love,
    but have skin like bricks, and hair like shingles."


    WOW... WOW.

    Shay, you seriously blow me away. I could never write something like this. Beautiful.

    Much love,
    David
    SkepticsKaddish.com

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  11. This is all so wonderfully crafted, just incomparable. I mean, the whole thing, but these struck me with a disturbing gong:

    "Birth, though, that's a bloody messy business
    of screaming gobsmacked arrival
    held up in the hands of the midwife who never cuts her nails."

    "It's not so much that I love this place as it is that I was presented with it."

    "find the bright side of blistering paint and warped floors like heavy seas."

    "We are limited only by burst plumbing, crumbling rebar,
    and our own imaginations,
    navigating our Rubik's Cube Winchester House of gorgeous possibility."

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  12. Shay - thank you for sharing pieces of you with us at the muse and helping with the community. I have always thought you wrote with an intriguing pen, seeing life through a different lens. We are born into a world of unknowns and we hammer away one day a time trying to build something wonderful. ~ Truedessa

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  13. “held up in the hands of the midwife who never cuts her nails.” - fantastic. And I love how the poem devolves (deconstructs?) into your “skin like bricks, and hair like shingles.” And the Ran tattoo on your arm. So good.

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  14. I love how your opening line makes me sit up and take notice straight away to what I am about to read, or embark upon, in this swashbuckling journey of a poem. Fantastic.

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?