blown from my own body.
I have kept you in photographs that swam
and emerged from shallow night pools.
There is a blue cord connecting us,
an Arctic fissure calling with its constant lure.
I wake from dreams stunned, immobile,
a beat behind your false sunrise.
There is a bridge you don't believe in,
where I wait, lighting bonfires that burn the boards I stand on.
There is a lock and the looped chain future,
with only one key, in the palm of your hand.
As I turn to smoke, you turn to stone
where terns wheel and scream their Gypsy fortunes.
I become a bird as I fall, forgiving us both,
in awkward semaphore I hope you'll understand.
______
for Sunday Muse # 95 where I am hosting.
I become a bird as I fall, forgiving us both,
ReplyDeletein awkward semaphore I hope you'll understand
It appears to be a yearning and a hope that both can be together but still it may not be a reality if one of them choose not to conform. Great word craft Shay!
Hank
Images in shallow night pools … the concept captures my fancy. Loved George Michael too!
ReplyDeleteOh Shay....that first line grabbed me and pulled me through all the other lines like a long lost friend taking me on a glorious journey of love and what sometimes comes of it in the break of day. I absolutely love the ending, but I did not want it to end!
ReplyDeleteWhat an opening stanza! (and closing one.) This poem is fighting the cold of alienation, desperate at times perhaps, but always gracile and strong, even in the broken parts. The close and the trademark metaphor of birds you so often show us yet never exhaust, are evocative and forceful without losing their bittersweet yearning for something to change, to become all it could be instead of less. "There is a bridge you don't believe in.." that made me sigh and close my eyes at the pain, at the burden of invisibility the narrator takes on. A powerful human document of the spirit, and a fine poem, Shay.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! The jars of glass blown from your own body, and "there is bridge you don't believe in".............the entire poem is a wonder. I can SEE the smoke, the wheeling terns, becoming a bird as you fall.............absolutely gorgeous.
ReplyDelete'I wake from dreams stunned, immobile, a beat behind your false sunrise' ~ you always amaze me ... this line most of all in your poem. I have experienced the false sunrise.
ReplyDeleteThe pain of the jar and the photographs screams out before we learn of the connection--"There is a blue cord connecting us,
ReplyDeletean Arctic fissure calling with its constant lure" such pain I feel "a beat behind your false sunrise." This poem Throbs so much that the forgiveness surprises me, though it occurs with another scream. Your use of birds and movement and immobility is stunning.
Your lines and images--as usual--cut to the bone. Or, to the middle of my heart.
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza is exquisite. The rhythm picks up in such a way that it makes your heart race. I love this one.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fable full of gorgeous images--the grief glazing them is palpable, though. Just amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis is a stunning write. I love your images, all of them really, but especially the glass jars and the two turning to opposite materials, and of course the bird. Love it.
ReplyDeleteWow. I could gush on and on but I won't. Too many lines of alienation and loss in this to quote. Needless to say, this went straight to my brain and then to my heart. A most unlovely poem of birds, of falling, of glass. The bridge that one doesn't believe in...too much like life itself.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to quote the whole poem, so much amazing writing here from the stunning "I have kept you in jars of glass / blown from my own body" to the wonderfully provocative ending: "I become a bird as I fall, forgiving us both, / in awkward semaphore I hope you'll understand." It feels like it all pivots on the "There is a blue cord connecting us", which seems like an all-time great way to describe the connection between photographer and the viewer. And then how what connects us is actually a break in the universe, the unalterable, permanent distance of a "fissure." Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWonderful images throughout this poem, Shay. That last stanza was incredible.
ReplyDeleteI understand this all too well.. your words perfectly describe my own heart.
ReplyDelete