This is the last Star Sequence poem I'll be posting here. I was hoping this one would be among the very best in the collection but I have never felt it made the cut. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks as always.
I awoke in the windy center
where emotion was not so much void
as carefully sheltered in damp and dim
storm cellars resting beside such other
forgotten family artifacts.
Preserved with the watermelon rind,
huckleberry and the sweet potato
in the vacuum of conformity,
the nothingness of being
exactly like everyone else.
Longing for the comfortably numb,
I found myself drifting into frozen
regions between the literary Berkshires
and the troubled northeastern sea.
No lies or truth to fret over only a flood
of silence in the icy springs that gave way
to brooding summers near the shore.
Solitary contemplation among the millions
pressed neatly into so many salt boxes and capes
on the tree lined lanes. So many languishing elms,
maples, birches, and oaks browning beneath the acid
rains and apathy.
But out here on the unstable edge of the continent,
there is a current between dream and reality,
surreal lightning sparked by the casual exchange
of neurons, an improbable fog
boiling over the ocean, greening
these uncertain mountains
even in the parched season.
Clouds plucked by winds and thin
as angel wings stray by,
blazing white feathers floating lazily
as promises over a thirsting interior.
A balancing of wishes
against deep faults.
Promises felt in the heart
are as rare as summer rainfall
along this fragile coastline still
the hollow heart thirsts for that current
from some elemental spring
when love was truly felt
and the heart whole enough
to understand its worth.
Do the lost ones recognize
home when they find it? Maybe
this is how they were lost. And yet out here,
on the unstable edge of the continent,
we love each other more than we know.
The stars burn fitfully
at twilight here between the fog
and dry thin evenings
in patterns foreign to my eyes.
And shadows stumble
over a tumbled landscape
while the horizon dreams
uneasily.
2 comments:
The opening image is too blurry. There are three aspects: 1. seemingly a not-so-calm eye of a hurricane, 2. stifled emotions, 3. the cluttered storm cellar. While I can see what you’re going for, the image isn’t focused enough to make me comfortable with it and my eyes keep bouncing around trying to organize it into a sensible form. It’s a rocky start.
Moving to the second part, we’ve left most of the previous images behind and are into ice, flood, and rain, but they seem to be spread out a lot, still a little unorganized.
Now, with so many places and images, I have to decide what the unstable edge of the continent is. You were talking east coast, but it isn’t very clear that you’ve changed to west coast, as I’m sure you are. More weather images, but it seems a little more stable than what was in the first two sections. This section seems more cohesive once you’ve found secure footing and know where it’s placed.
I’m not sure what the two stray lines refer to.
The next two parts don’t seem to belong with the rest, they still have weather and terrain images, but the previous sections didn’t set us up for the ideas between the images, so it seems out of place.
I think the last section is the strongest, and the third section could rival it with just a little work.
I bet this will teach you not to ask for my comments again, (no, I know it won’t, just as your rewrites don’t deter me a bit)
you don't want to ask for my comments either, after coming back back from something that concerns drink and smoke. Us Irish are wankers.
'where emotion was not so much void'
What is this all about? Why not so much void? Why not where emotion is not void?
There are a few things that I realised but in my proper frame of mind I will be able to answer better. Peace, love and freedom.
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