Isle of Skye (and other poems)
Poetry by me about things
It’s the week of Thanksgiving in the USofA, a time marked by turkey, football, and Squanto. This post has nothing to do with any of that.
While I still wait for the Next Big Underside Story (or Poem) to present itself in my inbox, please enjoy this hold music in the way of three poems. They may or may not change your life. Leaning toward not, but “may” is still a non-zero chance, so give it a go below.
Isle of Skye
Behind was a volcano, or so shaped, a perfect
upside-down cone. We were playing in the river,
finding stones to crouch upon. We made faces
and pumped our arms for photographs. The sheep,
later, stood halfway up the cliff as if set there,
as if it were normal to climb halfway up a cliff
and stop. Others congregated along the ruin of a barn,
and as we dispersed them with our happy intrusion,
two of them bustled off together down the road, as if
hand in hand. I didn't know whether to envy this perception
of love. It is said we are sheep, and when we hold
each others' hands, dally off into the night together, maybe
we find stars twinkling in a loch and, looking up, match them
with their originals, a million light-years away. In a sense,
it could be said the light in the water is as real as that in the sky,
and the reflection of a snapshot no less genuine
than the picture itself. Later, against a backdrop of a firth,
we crossed a long-haired Highland cow with its young,
and their hippy faces and feminine horns reminded me how,
no matter who, we all reflect a piece of someone else,
and somehow, in the process, become a little less a sheep.
This one came about in response to Napowrimo (April, aka National Poetry Writing Month) when I took it upon myself to write travel poems based largely around my two major trips at the time: one to the UK, the other to the American West. I called this semi-collection “How Crumbs Travel” and have reposted a few here before.
You can tell which one (UK or West) this is, I believe, if you know your place names and animals (while it’s about as rugged and beautiful as the West, Scotland is another world to itself). My family who was present during these scenes may recognize some of it. It was previously published in Joyful! magazine.
The Occident and the Ember
A grainy excuse on a solar-powered morning
belies the smoked lamplight by your window.
Curtains peel back, still and shorn bare, your
Draconian standards paltry beneath your torture.
Endless pendulum, I beg of you. Someone tell
Father; I can't stand your breath anymore, the breaking,
ghoulish memory of gone tomorrows. When I look at you,
heaven is a dream I can't wake up from. Was that
indecisive? Animals harbor better feelings. I am
judgmental, barren and damaged as if by famine and
Kraken and any derangement, all self-fulfilling prophecies
laughed over, spilt. What do you see when you look at
me? Ill-shaven, badly-bruised, can't you see I miss you?
Not for all the greenery, all the insurance; all the mish-mashed,
Oedipal complexes we employ, the wishy-washy fixtures; the granulated
parents we forge from clay and dust only to destroy. We were kings,
queens, Edith, rulers of this world, used only to make straight lines,
re-write the memoirs of our youth. No one sees this, it's not
statutory if no one believes it. It's dark again.
Tractor trailers down-shift on the freeway. It is a muggy,
uncared-for night, left on the stoop without a towel.
Vitamins spread across the table. Picked up, one by one.
Without the harbingers, I couldn't have known. Certainly not you.
X-factors come into play boldly. I really am sorry it came to this.
Yesterday we buried you. They walk in dark suits, dark shoes, ties reach a
zenith before the plummet. Tonight, I will dream heaven again, for you.
This poem is a specific form. Bonus points if you can tell me what kind! The points can be used for… uh… nothing. They can be used for nothing. Anyway. It’s entirely fictional stream of consciousness storytelling and probably nonsense, but I find I like it anyway. Maybe you agree. Nonetheless, it was previously published in Touch: The Journal of Healing.
On changing tides
Out by the rails, the grass too tall to walk through,
but we did anyway, checking each other for ticks
afterwards. We itched like the blades
still scored our legs. She always had
such sensitive skin,
but I don't.
The break room was our island of sun
beneath the skylights. She told me over slushies
what attraction was, its traits of irresistibility,
how it drags us out like a rip tide.
How we shoot the moon
to keep the rising tide from our shoes.
At some point, she sneaked in
a pun on hearts,
but I can't.
Such a hard rain and so many worms on the asphalt.
I watched her in the gray-light, a parka
darkening her face, the car's tires kicking up
droplets as she pulled away. Clocks
only scab the wounds, they never heal.
Packages come and go, zip codes change.
I watch the sky grow dark and light,
tirelessly, black and blue
again. One day she'll see I'm gone,
at peace with the moon.
I'll pack up my things,
take some lotion in case,
thinking she'll know,
but she won't.
Another narrative, one of the forlorn lover variety, of which I once wrote many of disparate qualities. This is one of the better ones, or at least I and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily thought so. It is neither biographical nor based on actual happenings. It plays with structure a bit, repeating parallel end lines and attempting cleverness through unexpected twists and double entendres. YMMV.
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