Please buy me a rose of bridal white
placed in a vase of anthracite
Wear your suit of wool and flint
and on my tongue a peppermint.
Please buy me a rose of pleasing pink
placed in the pool to turn and sink
Bring the singer who loves the blues
and bury her bones beneath the pews.
Please buy me a rose of funeral black
buy me a dozen, all in a stack
Make the ring from a hangman's rope
Invite the judge, the devil, the Pope.
Please buy me a rose of brilliant red
and remind me you did until I'm dead
Bake the cake with sugar and tar
and preserve my heart in a Mason jar.
________
for Word Harden Word List--Ishmael Reed
So perfectly amazing.
ReplyDeleteOH MY. Brilliancy unleashed .....
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to say. Each stanza could stand alone, and all of it together is such artistic, exquisite poetry.
ReplyDeleteThe rhyming almost adds to the sense of wryness hovering beneath - a delicious poem - Jae
ReplyDeleteHow many lambs went to slaughter singing I doesy Do? This one, charmed by the romance of the symbols while getting battened on by the teeth. "Remind me you did until I'm dead" is Plath writing her epitaph. Suffering a long partner is like surviving one's kids.
ReplyDeleteOOOH, that ending!
ReplyDeleteA nursery rhyme or a young girl's fancies gone misshapen with the bitter brew of experience or time spent in the jaws of a wolf. A tour de force, Shay.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative gut-punch love poem. I had to look up anthracite but I love all the images in this, it's like one tarot card falling face up after another.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, you know I love your brimstone jumprope tag and its reference to the buried, inexorable rhyme in all our heads that is the first thing we learn as children. Here that rhyme is nothing sort of perfect, even exquisite, and serves up this crumbling cake of tar and roses as free verse could never do--mocking the unfailing cadence of lovesongs yet holding the reality of love shattered into pieces with each sinking, flaring rose. It's really hard to find anything adequate to say about the integrity and power of the words--each stanza is a bullet that revolves the chamber to the next. You are on fire here, as you have been this whole season. Fine fine writing, Shay.
ReplyDeleteDang. You crackerjack.
ReplyDeleteA jumprope children’s song with all the darkness of the plague and adult loss. The best lines are where language skips double-dutch - “ suit of wool and flint,” “Bake the cake with sugar and tar.”
ReplyDelete