fail us.
We are cities, we are horses, we are coral
reefs.
We are looted, we are blistered, we are
bleached.
We are reduced.
She - the lumpy tit, he - the blocked digestion, he -
the dicky ticker, she – the faulty womb.
We fail. This is a fact. You are here to tell me this.
I remember you first on the flying fox, your hair
behind
you like blackbird wings. Your eyes clenched as tight
as your
thighs to the crossbar. Laughing! Still 14. We wore
gold crosses,
talked about love while we dried ourselves beside
the lake
(I don’t believe we ever solved it.) And now, this other thing --
what
to do with it? We are as ill-equipped, but the new failure
is a
reduction, a kind of deafness. The other was like
everyone
in the world speaking at once. Do you remember
how we’d sit
shivering in our towels until it was time to go in? Cities?
We were
whole galaxies back then - roiling, roaring, blazing,
bursting from our skins.
Mary McCallum
__
For more Tuesday Poems click on the quill in the sidebar or, more prosaically, click here. There's another 'body' poem at the hub and a lot else...
bursting from our skins.
Mary McCallum
__
For more Tuesday Poems click on the quill in the sidebar or, more prosaically, click here. There's another 'body' poem at the hub and a lot else...
12 comments:
Mary, This is very fine indeed. You capture essences beautifully, poetically.
John
The essence of life and of relationship. Lovely.
Thanks you John and Elisabeth for commenting overnight like that and so wonderfully. Such a pleasure to wake up - still tired from posting a just-written poem after midnight - to find responses - and good ones (oh, good ones!). I can sing out the door now on my morning walk.
Mary, what beautiful existential words. The body is truly a subject for poetry. I find the form of this poem intriguing. Would love to know your thoughts on this? Thanks so much for posting!
Seems to be, you are still 'bursting from your skin' when it comes to poetry... :)
Magnificence?
Yes, magnificence, Mary. My response to this poem is visceral, somatic - a sigh and a shuddering.
I'm going to have to pin it up in my studio somewhere - or perhaps write it on the wall beside my bath!
Thank you - and yes, there are multiple connections between your poem and the strong sentiment expressed by Jane Hirshfield in hers. (How amazing the coincidence of the donkey & Santorini!!) xx
Thanks Claire, Maggie and Elizabeth!
As far as the shape of the poem goes, the lines felt staccato and not readily connected at first - they needed to stand alone. I imagined the thoughts coming - as thoughts can come to me - as whole sentences and then a gap. Shock at the news of the friend's illness ('failure') would accentuate that I think. The longer lines emphasise the prosaic nature of some of the outpourings here, too; and the contrasting ideas of 'magnificence' and 'failure' explain the one long line and then a word or words at the end of each line that fall or fail or falter - landing in the next line - and remaining there, vulnerable. I tried to link the lines more but they resisted it. I like this construction. Thanks for your interest, Elizabeth.
I see I've commented as Randell Cottage! Ah! That's my other hat.
That's another fine poem, Mary - you are writing some tremendous poems at the moment, and that cottage friend of yours is doing just as well!
Heh heh - thanks Tim. A cottage that writes poems eh, now there's a thing...
I, too, like the idea of a cottage writing poems.:) And there are some 'magnificent' lines in this:
"I remember you first on the flying fox, your hair
behind you like blackbird wings."
and the conclusion:
"We were
whole galaxies back then - roiling, roaring, blazing,
bursting from our skins."
thanks Helen - given the galaxy metaphor I wondered if 'bursting' was enough - should it be 'exploding'?
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