there’s a long road ahead
headlights vibrate news back
to me through the windows
and contours of night
there’s a raindrop kissing the glass
it feels heavy underneath
fragile eyes and folded hands
something’s gotta give
make room for the aftermath
PhilosopherPoet
his face is an alloy
he keeps his dreams
buried under the
enamel coat he wears
for unconscious
visitors
tonight is different
he writhes in the
stagnant sheets
with a hollow head
thoughts bounce
inside and echoes cascade
into archetypes holding
his stare and turning
the prayer shaped
hands into fists
only strangers can tame
a swollen psyche
it feels like a bruise
but heals under
a canter of laughter
hours will
tell you its time
to rest and let
the kernels of misery
climb out your spiderlike
hair
follow the purr
of the shadows where
the thrum of journal music
collects folds chuckles
whirls twitters and pours
into the pliant chamber
in his skull
tremors and calm
daggers evanesce
much like the tea
that wakes him
the soft milk
glides over
the soldier spoon
chemicals coalesce
his eyes newspaper
the events
the headlines rinse his thoughts
and stay as a reminder like
that gypsy laundry laughing
in the backyard
there was a small soul
who buried a hole
right underneath his
own carpet today
he thought that if he
could take enough
hysteria and squash it
into his jamjar with a
few simple fingers
people would come to watch
some healer had said
that putting your problems
in a jar overnight would
help you sink into the
swaddling momentum of peace
this morning he sat on his
bed and watched
the blister events
whirl wrapple quiver and
cry behind the tears of
peanut butter
watching it made him
late for work when a small
trickle of pathos rippled
down into the ground and
just above the lid
a few flies began
to sit there and watch
him hatch more
stone solid emotions
he cut his nails though
his grandmother
said a clean griever was
a righteous believer in
the book
she absorbed at night
today he only had a jar
to use and process the
heavy twinges for now.
that was ample enough
for his stamp of serenity
other folks grilled their
voices in waves of coffee
and headlines which
then made them scatter off
to imminent events
he finished his toast
wiped his hands
scrubbed his mouth
and got up feeling lighter
he pulled out the virile
tongue of his shoes and
tied the arms of laces
together to keep his
feet inside of the
brown arms that collected
at a heavy knot and
looked like a noose
PhilosopherPoet
I’m an image whore. I love poetry because it achieves this almost immediately And of course you don’t get much better than Ted Hughes. I enjoy him because he’s the Beethoven of poetry. He creates the storminess and ferocity that many other are afraid to mention and talk about. He uses the animal kingdom to reveal the dark side of humanity. He can be tender at times, but generally he’s vivid and intense.
This poem is probably more suited for a horror film, but I really like it. Comments are always welcome 😉
Macaw and Little Miss
In a cage of wire-ribs
The size of a man’s head, the macaw bristles in a staring
Combustion, suffers the stoking devils of his eyes.
In the old lady’s parlour, where an aspidistra succumbs
To the musk of faded velvet, he hangs in clear flames,
Like a torturer’s iron instrument preparing
With dense slow shudderings of greens, yellows, blues,
Crimsoning into the barbs:
Or like the smouldering head that hung
In Killdevil’s brass kitchen, in irons, who had been
Volcano swearing to vomit the world away in black ash,
And would, one day; or a fugitive aristocrat
From some thunderous mythological hierarchy, caught
By a little boy with a crust and a bent pin,
Or snare of horsehair set for a song-thrush,
And put in a cage to sing.
The old lady who feeds him seeds
Has a grand-daughter. The girl calls him ‘Poor Polly’, pokes fun.
‘Jolly Mop.’ But lies under every full moon,
The spun glass of her body bared and so gleam-still
Her brimming eyes do not tremble or spill
The dream where the warrior comes, lightning and iron,
Smashing and burning and rending towards her loin:
Deep into her pillow her silence pleads.
All day he stares at his furnace
With eyes red-raw, but when she comes they close.
‘Polly. Pretty Poll’, she cajoles, and rocks him gently.
She caresses, whispers kisses. The blue lids stay shut.
She strikes the cage in a tantrum and swirls out:
Instantly beak, wings, talons crash
The bars in conflagration and frenzy,
And his shriek shakes the house.
-Ted Hughes
I can see tubes hurt you
Pain bleach you
a clear sense of who you are marred the stone age contempt
now vanishing from your crippled lips.
I think I like what I see
I like the strong thrumming of your heart
When we lay blanketed in the bone silence
It was the other night
That you said the frost in the morning
Caught your eye,
It dripped, clear tears, that ran over the
The murk and sludge of
Christmas
I like your sense of things that
Trigger behind your eyes catching the unspoken
In a crackling snapshot,
Into the dark dense ringlets,
Of blanket and fog.
At night you’re relaxed,
Almost more alive, when your head
Melts into my chest, your whisper pours
through the room like a cat.
I have never forgot you, or your
plain faces. Your mornings then
lifted you lightly, telling you to
pick the plums.
When you are gone and the telephone restlessly
ticks, the newspaper lies buried under
your brushes…
I go to the bed, lie there, with the noise
Inside of me,
The room is full of you, the cemented scents,
And the bed that buried your boredom. I cannot
Hear your crying
Just watch the crumbs.
* * *
I listen to your words left
behind
seeping through
the duvet.
PhilosopherPoet
