Two months from the lamplit darkness that was December,
wrapped in a delicious affair with books, and poetry,
when I lamented the stubborn snow's refusal, once again, to visit,
February has arrived, changing the game, wanting everything its way.
This month has been as cold and severe as the lover who leaves
in the morning, after a thousand others, transfigured behind a screen
of secrets and silence. New snow is peaceful, people say, but no one
volunteers to go out and live in it, lie down in it, die in it.
Sometimes one wakes up confused, as if animated from inside
a capsule, with no history, no map, no landmarks. What then?
Maybe clarity comes with the next breath--or, everything remains
foreign, multiplying itself obscenely, crowded to bursting with horrors.
Sun on snow has the brightness of surgical lights to a person tied
down and drugged. The sun is the optometrist's penlight aimed
at an infected eye hardly able to bear it. It is February and the new way,
a cold intensity that can't be stopped, ravenous, stronger every day.
___________________
for What's Going On? --Light.
Music: Tears For Fears Pale Shelter
Well done. Especially liked your volunteer line. What then? Indeed. -G
ReplyDelete"Sun on snow has the brightness of surgical lights to a person tied / down and drugged." How apt! as is every other line in this intense poem. You nail it, from the comfortable dark solitude to the sharp secretive visitor intruder who wants it all their own way. The song, too, underlines the discomfort. I would love to hear you read this aloud.
ReplyDeletemore often than not, i wake confused. possibly a result of going to sleep confused.
ReplyDeleteand yes, this ravenous February can't be stopped, it appears. ~
You have described the February cold So very well. This is such a creatively descriptive expression: " This month has been as cold and severe as the lover who leaves in the morning " Hang in there, a warm-up is on the way.
ReplyDeleteYour imagery, as always, is unique and so imaginative. The optometrist's penlight aimed at an infected eye is especially good.
ReplyDeleteFebruary has been so very cold and snowy here. I have to wear sunglasses outside when the sun decides to show as the glare can be too much after all this darkness.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous was me! don't ask crazy
DeleteThe February feel in the poem is very exotic to me as in my country most of the time specially in daytime it's so hot.
ReplyDeleteStunning poem, Shay! I love the description of December as ‘lamplit darkness’ when one can be ‘wrapped in a delicious affair with books, and poetry’, the thought that ‘maybe clarity comes with the next breath’, and ‘sun is the optometrist's penlight aimed at an infected eye’.
ReplyDeleteLegends of the fall, indeed. Every word of this feels measured, informed with reason and intellect, sane, and yet behind the eloquence is still a sense of heart-deep dismay, perhaps even the sour aftertaste of ont too many panics. That second stanza! Just bone-chilling and utterly real. And the third is bitterly familiar, a feeling felt deeply but never before quite nailed down. Just an exquisite write, every line, Shay. Everything works, which is more than we can say about a great many things these days.
ReplyDelete*one* too many
DeleteThis is a new favorite poem of yours for me. It's one of those where I think every stanza keeps picking up steam, somehow improving on the last. And, of course, your seasonal poems are among my favorites, too.
ReplyDeleteThat's completely a different take on the prompt. I can only imagine that cold a weather, but with your words and writing style I could imagine it with vividness. Great!
ReplyDelete"Cold and severe as the lover who leaves in the morning," YES!! You are in peak form here, Shay. Amazing!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant and wonderful. You have a surgical precision with your pen, Shay. Love the analogy with the sun on snow being almost unbearable. February has been a strange one, I agree.
ReplyDeleteWhat a powerful and truly chilling poem..all those fears and feelings wrapped up so well - Jae
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