By the lake there's a bakery that's sinking
and the lilies wear wimples all fall
they'll sell you croquettes of your bitter regrets
that can no longer hurt you at all.
When the moon sells its light to a lady
as a gift for her children to break
you'll hear their laughter for all the years after
until it dies down to an ache.
When everything dies in November,
a baby is found in the reeds
with such a fair face that you'll long to embrace
its body of riverbank weeds.
You'll declare yourself poet in a graveyard
emblazoned with roses and jade,
then you'll write a sonnet with the world scratched on it
and die in the bed that you've made.
_________
I can't even pick out a line that's special - the whole poem is remarkable. This made a huge impact on me. WOW
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way, cant quote the whole poem - but the laughter that dies down to an ache feels familiar. Wonderful work, Shay! You are a word wizard.
ReplyDeleteThe whole poem has this eerie. old, wise undertones, the words like will o wisp in the hands of a grandmother perhaps, that you know is sweet but you would not wish to cross. I found this part to be especially enchanting :"When the moon sells its light to a lady
ReplyDeleteas a gift for her children to break
you'll hear their laughter for all the years after
until it dies down to an ache." , but the whole rhyme scheme just rolls of the tongue nicely. Thank you for sharing this piece!
I love it when you rhyme Shay! The flow is always as perfect as synchronized swimmers in waters as deep as the lines!
ReplyDeleteEdna Agnes indeed in this fin-de-siecle poesy. Is Poe the answer to van Gogh, these gothic obsidians vatic equivalent to the mad brilliant blue stroke? What fine music is made on the strained shores of the sane. But what elsearewegonnado, "when everything dies in November"? Make its beauty desperate, of course ...
ReplyDeleteYou know I always love your brimstone jump rope poems, and this one is exquisite...not in an artsy surface way, but in its deep, mesmerizing use of image and dark metaphor. I especially love the opening and third stanzas, but the poem is flawless in each line, and I have never felt more like a poet in a graveyard than in the twilight of November's ash as it drifts on the poem's closed face.
ReplyDeleteJust exquisite, Shay. I got chills reading it.
ReplyDeleteCan't pick a favorite line or stanza. Beautiful. Like HW said, flawless. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteDarkly beautiful and I love the irony. You are masterful!
ReplyDeleteLove all the sights and smells in this, Shay, especially the second stanza. The whole poem is somehow quintessentially autumn and and your imagery always so beautifully dark.
ReplyDelete