New owners claim our room,
nail tankards over the fireplace
like killed mallards.
Toss the moss green davenport,
say goodbye to the linoleum
curled along the corner.
Au revoir to a wrinkled lunch sack
we carried beside the library pool,
paint cans we never used.
Box the pinafore and windup
clock, turn down the blue pilot light
and set the locks.
The taxi thrusts you to my chest,
first time all week the heart leaps up
in fresh winter air.
Still Life With Husband and Wife
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
poignant portrait
my only reservation is the last line: not keen on "wither blown" but maybe it works
my only reservation is the last line: not keen on "wither blown" but maybe it works
-
mojave9999
- Posts:10
- Joined:25 Feb 2015, 00:55
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
Billy and Frank...
changed the line employing that word "wither."
gas light now "blue pilot light." and revised final image.
good crit Frank.
thanks to you both.
Au revoir to a wrinkled lunch sack
we carried beside the library pool,
paint cans we never used.
Box the pinafore and windup
clock, turn down the blue pilot light
and set the locks.
The taxi thrusts you to my chest,
first time all week the heart leaps up
in fresh winter air.
changed the line employing that word "wither."
gas light now "blue pilot light." and revised final image.
good crit Frank.
thanks to you both.
Au revoir to a wrinkled lunch sack
we carried beside the library pool,
paint cans we never used.
Box the pinafore and windup
clock, turn down the blue pilot light
and set the locks.
The taxi thrusts you to my chest,
first time all week the heart leaps up
in fresh winter air.
-
mojave9999
- Posts:10
- Joined:25 Feb 2015, 00:55
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
Frank....
that one isn't my poem.
did you think it was one of my children?
bernie
that one isn't my poem.
did you think it was one of my children?
bernie
-
mojave9999
- Posts:10
- Joined:25 Feb 2015, 00:55
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
sorry Frank.
not a theme i would approach, but hum a few bars and i'll see if that refreshes the ole brain.
bernie
not a theme i would approach, but hum a few bars and i'll see if that refreshes the ole brain.
bernie
-
Michael (MV)
- Posts:2164
- Joined:18 Apr 2005, 04:57
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
Hi Bernie, and Welcome back
starting w/ the title Still Life With Husband and Wife, this poem sounds/reads familiar.
workshop suggest for that last stanza:
The taxi delivers you to my chest,
first time all week the heart leaps
in fresh winter air.
Michael (MV)
-
mojave9999
- Posts:10
- Joined:25 Feb 2015, 00:55
Re: Still Life With Husband and Wife
Frank...could you mean this ole chestnut?
CHICHICAPA, MEXICO
Bernard Henrie
Mezcal Del Maguey Chichicapa
is one dirt road farther than the day laborers from Oaxaca.
Coconut farmers live there, hands and clothes carry the scent
of bath soap.
The men are brown as beans. Washing under outdoor pumps
their bellies are plump and white.
We play dominoes under the shade of my copal tree
and share the Mezcal of the city.
When they sleep on the Day of the Dead they awake refreshed
and disappointed.
Women walk single file the way women once followed behind
ancient horsemen.
In my clinic, they point on a doll to the places they hurt.
When they don’t want me, they speak Mayan.
When they nurse, their breasts fall as sweet potatoes
from a basket. They carry barley corn in their pockets.
Children run after the red pullets. They ride a stuttering
burrow who circles the plaza as though trying to remember.
Older girls stay with one another, long chestnut arms,
I imagine their pupils set with deep purple iris.
Young men gamble with their deaf beauty. Turkeys come
to them, stars whiten.
Skinned animals hang in the market, small goats chew,
their bobbed tails twirl.
Dried stigmas from the saffron crocus stiffen on pages
of newsprint.
Night rises from the arroyo north of the city and turns
my house black.
I read under the hurricane lamp. The crickets move close,
the eyes of the yellow dog are open in a waking trance.
The town cannot afford a bright moon. Shooting stars
are clean as bells, voyaging planets slide close.
You cannot write them, there is no post office.
It is too far for the bus to come.
Frank----
thanks for the welcome. since we last talked i snagged a liver transplant. doing fine and now post op seven months.
that title, let me think upon it, OK?
bernie
CHICHICAPA, MEXICO
Bernard Henrie
Mezcal Del Maguey Chichicapa
is one dirt road farther than the day laborers from Oaxaca.
Coconut farmers live there, hands and clothes carry the scent
of bath soap.
The men are brown as beans. Washing under outdoor pumps
their bellies are plump and white.
We play dominoes under the shade of my copal tree
and share the Mezcal of the city.
When they sleep on the Day of the Dead they awake refreshed
and disappointed.
Women walk single file the way women once followed behind
ancient horsemen.
In my clinic, they point on a doll to the places they hurt.
When they don’t want me, they speak Mayan.
When they nurse, their breasts fall as sweet potatoes
from a basket. They carry barley corn in their pockets.
Children run after the red pullets. They ride a stuttering
burrow who circles the plaza as though trying to remember.
Older girls stay with one another, long chestnut arms,
I imagine their pupils set with deep purple iris.
Young men gamble with their deaf beauty. Turkeys come
to them, stars whiten.
Skinned animals hang in the market, small goats chew,
their bobbed tails twirl.
Dried stigmas from the saffron crocus stiffen on pages
of newsprint.
Night rises from the arroyo north of the city and turns
my house black.
I read under the hurricane lamp. The crickets move close,
the eyes of the yellow dog are open in a waking trance.
The town cannot afford a bright moon. Shooting stars
are clean as bells, voyaging planets slide close.
You cannot write them, there is no post office.
It is too far for the bus to come.
Frank----
thanks for the welcome. since we last talked i snagged a liver transplant. doing fine and now post op seven months.
that title, let me think upon it, OK?
bernie