Sunday, January 30, 2011

Galveston Island (2011)

Motel shroud sheet thrown
down cheap on shore sleep,
the grave sea grass now weeps
a shrift white on shorn gown.

Wait a minute.

And in a minute rise to wait
the footboard is overgrown
to an iridescent blue marsh,

a tricolored heron posed so
blue becomes transparent,
is rapt through lifted sheet
because there's no one there
to cough the fluff cotton down
or downy shades poised now.

Perhaps inside a halo will burst-
no it's kept elsewhere where.

And there's none but a dream of
hurricane rustpaneled amphitheater
importing beauty to salty marshes.

One man lives in a bowl.
others on shorebird stilts.

Pastels for the common folk,
stone for the stone bishop lift,
a dumb wait for a stony heart.

Romance on the third floor
but you're not lead to see
the green patina or scarlet glass,
just a boulevard of sparkplug stores
and a statue for tall revolting heros:

the seawall has never loft enough
to stem the brown surge will.

17 comments:

  1. thank you for sharing this,
    I just love it.

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  2. Tall revolting heroes! Awesome. Galveston Island feels like both spain and newfoundland in this poem; makes me want to see the place. Thanks, Gerry.

    Peter

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  3. Wow, Gerry, that's a tough one to read out loud! Tonguetwisters in the first stanza.

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  4. @Liza Ursu: Thanks. Great name. I could only think 'Liza Bear'. I suspect you've heard that before.

    @Old 333: For me there was a weird vibe there. Ergo this poem which resisted all attempts to be a sonnet. It was and then it wasn't and then it was and then it wasn't. Repeatedly. Ha!

    @Francis: Thanks. Not sure if I 'like' this. More like I had to get it out of my system.

    @Gordon Mason: The result of many, many revisions, but it's sort of my gut re: Galveston.

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  5. "no one there to cough the fluff cotton down"
    I love that. It hit me like a movie with narrative. Dreams. Elusive and potent. Last night I said "f*ck" over and over in a dream. I don't remember it, but I was told. And now I wonder.

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  6. @WandW: No of us quite get the mystery of dreams, do we? Merrily, merrily, merrily...ha!

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  7. Gerry,
    Almost biblical in tone. Perhaps more than fitting for a quiet uninterrupted Sunday evening read.
    So good to have found your words this evening.

    All Good wishes with your onward voyage!
    Eileen :)

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  8. @Eileen: Biblical, eh? Interesting. Cheers and thanks for the read.

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  9. I really enjoyed the word play in this and the repetition of words used in different ways

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  10. @Chris: Thanks for the read Chris.

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  11. So much of my neck of the woods is boulevards of sparkplug stores. I really like "motel shroud sheet".

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  12. Great description...:)) Wanna definitely visit this island..! ;) My favorite:
    'Pastels for the common folk,
    stone for the stone bishop lift,
    a dumb wait for a stony heart.'

    Keep blogging..:))

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  13. @Fiducia: Thanks for the read. I'm producing as fast as I can. Which isn't that fast really. Ha!

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  14. Gerry, I wish you'd put one of those silly +1 buttons on your blog. I'd rather push buttons here than there, for some reason. Steak and fettucine, that's my plan. I bet that all rhymes in some universe with different physical laws...

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  15. @old 333:need to research that. anything to make your appreciation easier. ha!

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Yes?