The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poem Thread, 7/26/07

[BlueIris]

To preface: I'm not RetroLounge, nor would I ever try to replace RetroLounge. My poem threads are going to go a little differently than his did, in the sense that um, er, I'm going to post them at night, and probably not every night. I can't promise that all of them will be happy, inspiring or conventionally beautiful. In fact, some of them are going to be downright dark. We're going to have some feminism, some avant-garde abstraction, and some obscurity. Maybe a little humor. Hopefully, no one will try to track me down and sue me for copyright infringement. I might even post some of my poems. We'll see. So, without further delay:

"Postcard"

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have here are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds, blue & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's a race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance,
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

--Margaret Atwood

[Canuckistanian]

1. Ahem - "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes"

Adam had'em.

--Strickland Gillilan

[BlueIris]

2. Nice.

But I guess I was asking to be mocked, what with having posted the Atwood and all.

Just you wait, my little friends.

I got thousands of these.

[Canuckistanian]

3. OK, sorry. Try this - one my favorites

He is Gone

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

--W. H. Auden

[BlueIris]

5. Auden rules. nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear BlueIris!

Ah, this is wonderful....

The postcard vs. the reality of what lies outside the window....

And what is in the heart of our narrator?

Loss, love and loneliness....

It captures the feeling so damn well........

Thank you...:hug:

[BlueIris]

6. Atwood, in my humble opinion, is a better poet than a novelist.

And she really has the art of the opening line down. There's almost no one better at that than Atwood--except Akmatovah (and maybe Chaucer).

[BlueIris]

7. Kick.

[BlueIris]

8. Kick.

[I Have A Dream]

9. ...

:thumbsup:

[RetroLounge]

10. ...

:applause:

:hug:

RL

[Inchworm]

11. Thank you BlueIris

If I'm not mistaken, I used to live in the very room this poem was written in.

Mango rot and all

:thumbsup:

:hi: