Sunday, August 1, 2010

it ain't why

with no keen counter to humid flats
rose of sharon mauves in mid-august
burst in the eye's betrayal legion and

under gables feral a longing drenches
poured down panes flapped lead peels
mixt and ridden by unguttered rain

curved up on wetness sweet at splash
to poke in furtive quiet an arbor hid
of unripe grapes climbing scaling blues

unfixed to picket and pecking lark
from rolling front behind her back
chopped bug tagged his rust creep box

red caboose with curled black arrow
lined blue and green and it was good
the sprayed art of him spiked in flats

black white moonlit that snapped away
skirt stuck paisley intact from quickly
licking came pale the same curved thigh

clanged iron recoil from a pearly quiver
balled up panties by the engine track
a nacre nib in fiction so perfect fades

recorded to a wrinkly black book
in pocket shady ink on onion skin
culled smile over donuts plated plain

and peaceful rings of cooling coffee
on gray speckled veneer chipped thin
to plywood dusted sweet and low

scratching the dawn he went up swiss
got on the china horse near needle park
and not returned through alpine drifts

less days ahead than behind the bark
what happens after fade to black
is just what happens now

11 comments:

  1. Has a gritty and groovy feel to it, Gerry!

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  2. @Antonionioni: Yeah, that cat chopped bug is one mean mother- Shut your mouth! Jus talkin' 'bout chopped bug. Cheers.

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  3. Love the textures here...flowers, rust, panties, onion skin and donuts.

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  4. @willow: Textures matter a lot I think. Tactile is one way of be in the world. xo

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  5. Gerry,

    Some lovely words and images afore my eyes.
    I like the 'fade to black'...........

    Eileen

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  6. I like how this reads as an " almost" in a serpentine kind of path; the visuals are vivid, as usual, but it feels like more than that as well....sort of like a story that's being told as it tries to tell itself. I like the way reading your stuff plays with my mind.

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  7. Your words are lugging me over mind’s ‘betrayal legion’, at times stumbling over ‘unfixed to pickets’ and climbing up ‘gables’,raking my brains to scatter hitherto nameless images in to a likely ultramodern drawing ( to which I am, of late, beautifully getting used to);all the images merging to one single reflection, a wonderful poetic experience.Thanks, sincerely.

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  8. @Harlequin: Ha! Just messin' with ya! I was trying to leave the enjambment from triplet to triplet as ambiguous as possible so that multiple readings were possible. Not sure if I pulled that off but I'll take your '"almost"' as a maybe. Hey, I'm grasping at straws here.

    @AnAesBard: Cheers and thanks for enjoying.

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  9. you have such a great way with sounds. the way you arrange the sounds in this poem really make the reader stop and digest each line and each word, and when read in entirety, it has such a distinct flow to it; i love it.

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  10. @Chris: thx. I actually apply quite a bit of effort to get the sound to be what I want it to be. Many revisions, etc. It's an experiment of sorts to see if it's possible to create a kind of music with words. That's pretty much the definition of poetry for me. So thanks for enjoying the outcome. cheers.

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Yes?