Dissension
Autumn leaves
paper thin hosts
texture of body
color of wine
movement of body
in dissent
falling with a curl
of whispered air
bounced by the air
and stabbed
by the cold
hands of sinful
wind
Autumn leaves
color of wine
the peak of life
story of a lifetime
in chameleon veins,
capricious skin
comes around again
as mortal life
circles
leaves are miraculous
only in color
My comments: I wrote this poem while driving down the Merritt Parkway on a Saturday morning, trying to convince myself that my ability to write a simple poem had not dried up. I made it my goal to make up a poem about something; nothing that I thought about for a long time, nothing overtly meaningful. The capriciousness of autumn gave me the idea. I wanted to capture the grandness and the depth of something most people consider strictly visual. People come to New England just to see the leaves change, but what kind of miracle does the change represent?
I am an atheist, but the Christian references are so ingrained in our culture that they express everything I saw in those leaves. After all, the purely romantic secular idea of a miracle has its roots in religion.
Women who lost their sons
Women wept
wearily, not in shame,
openly in defiance of loss
they threw down the phone
and wanted to smash it against
stone – their sons once were, now lost.
They once were stone, chiseled away
but never gone
they could be taken by river’s
current but never gone
immortal to mothers who should
die first, now giant heaps
in their hearts
and no new memories
to form, those few years’ worth
must sustain them
for a lifetime.
My comments: For me, this poem is the product of my imagining a mother losing a child, a young child, before she has time to develope many memories. I sometimes have this masochistic urge to imagine what my life would be like if I lost someone close to me, as I am sure many do. With this poem I was trying to imagine the desolation one feels when the strongest bond we know is broken.
It occured to me after I wrote the poem that it is very relevant to many people affected by the war. I figured that is what most people would take from it. But, if you can for a moment, try to imagine losing someone close to you. Try to feel a pain in your heart worse than any physical pain and you will know what I felt as I was writing this.
The shroud
The dead, pine box draped in a flag,
lowered into the ground, past grass, past dirt
to be, devoured by the earth,
shroud sewn a long time ago, shroud stitched by quiver fingers
for a revolution, past.
A declaration was signed before this shroud’s existence;
you wouldn’t wave that paper in my face or tie it to my porch,
I know what it means, know what I have to remember.
A dead rope, clung to by the flag, lower
at the passing of the sun, its son
I may be, but I don’t have to see it to know
what it means.
I don’t have to kiss it, salute it, save it from the dirty
ground like I did as a boy: I know what it means.
It’s on the moon for all to see, although they can’t see it up there
they know what it means.
A flag draped around statues necks alongside a chain
not to be ripped away, but someone took it down
to remind all what it means.
It is everywhere, for all to see, and remains what some want
it to be. But, without seeing it
I know what it means.
My comments: I want to hear what someone else thinks first.