To end National Poetry Month (and because I've been wacking away at another seminar paper and am too tired and slammed to find a poem by someone else), I'm giving you another one from "Cloudfire and a Bowl of Kauri Leaves."
Enjoy. And, as always, feedback is welcome.
* * * *
Wayplace
at the city’s limit,
straddling the hill
Elder Chris could
barely manage
without getting off
to walk. Not tourist.
Not sea-veined kiwi.
Something between.
Though standing
ten years distant
from this photo, I’d
call you foreign. Alien.
Vagrant from a self
Time surreptitiously
forgot. It’s not
the slacks, the tie,
the shirt sleeves. Not
the name badge, words
white on black on white,
or the bag straps heavy
as a parachute harness
on your shoulders.
Not even your unnatural
lean against the pole’s
lean, legs cropped at
the knee by the photo’s
edge, or the gestures
you’ve twisted around
each hand: right arm
square to the abdomen,
pinkie and thumb hung
loose from your fist,
left hand timid toward sky,
index finger raised, set
to hook God’s bowels
from the Give Way sign
overhead. But how your
smile of a pose says
anything but content. How
your paper-thin passions
betray the burn
of breaking in new skin.
How you carved “Body +
Pushbike” in the pole then
took off chasing cloudfire
until it seared the veins like
apocalypse. Immersed you
in the cistern of God’s
mystery. Clarified your eyes
to white stones palmed smooth
by the smoldering lust of the sea.
.
ReplyDeleteThe first half I was thinking this might be your best yet; then the image of hooking God's bowels threw me out of the poem and then a number of other moments prevented me from getting back inside. It's hard to say though if those would have worked had I not already been startled out of your hands.
The concept of not being tourist nor native nor inbetween came through very clearly, at least to one, like me, who has had that experience. And the tag and the parachute and other moments in the first half were perfect.
I've been wrestling with that image myself because I think it's much too strong, especially in juxtaposition with the hand's timidity. Perhaps
ReplyDeleteindex finger raised, set
to punctuate the Give Way sign
overhead.
I'm not married to it, but I wonder how that reads outside my own head.
.
ReplyDeleteBetter I think.