I was born breach and reaching
for a Bible and a break-up song.
It's eight months to the day
since I last saw you.
I've weaned myself of counting breaths,
redeemed myself by wanting less;
it's only when I dream
that I break and call you.
Sunrise sees me clothe the bones,
grease my braid, and carry on.
Summer's come and almost gone -
wolf and wheel.
Let autumn steal my time to think.
Winter, chill my blood to ink.
Spring is soon enough for me
to thaw and feel.
For Kerry's prompt at Real Toads
Thursday, July 16, 2015
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About Me
- Maude Lynn
- Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. ---Flannery O'Connor
18 comments:
If I could only read one poem, over and over, for the rest of my life, this would be it.
That opening line is so good!
A favorite theme in your poetry seems to be holding things in, and this is another in that genre.
Ah, yes! I have to agree!! You are the best, MZ!! Have a beautiful weekend.
Wowza! I love the rhymes in this! The opening line drew me right in! Great job!
After a web search and even listening to the song, I find I still don't understand the allusion in "Wolf and WHeel." That aside, my goodness, ouch! I feel the breach and a desire for a truth that isn't slippery. I feel my own loss, as if I were speaking to a child I gave birth too who is gone. In my case, it is the child I never had.
One of the many factors I admire most about the body of your poetry is the unique voice you bring to each piece. This poem is a brilliant example. It creates a picture in the reader's mind more of the speaker than the addressee. The 'you' of the poem provides focus for what the 'me' is feeling. As for the situation you have described, it is so real for me as your reader that I feel I could be the narrator. Honestly, could it get any better than this?
This is such a lovely poem--I thought it might be about your mother--that doesn't matter for purposes of the poem, but it did seem to me to give the references to birth and weaning extra meaning. So succinct and intense and really rather sad. I hope the blood does chill to ink if that means you will write about it all. Take care, k.
The title phrase is the one that rang loudest for me--it has that feel of the old ways, along with greased braid, that mocks the bible in hand, the breaking bones it causes in the things that matter--though I do feel this is more of a poem of the personal, as befits talking in one's own voice, it goes beyond that, too, into the dark heart of experience and regret.
Seriously, MZ...carry your sweet ass to Nashville & make a zillion dollars writing songs. Get yourself on over to 'The Bluebird Cafe' and sell this shit to those sangers! My son-in-law has his plastic surgery office on Music Row and there are blocks and blocks of recording studios. SERIOUSLY, GO FOR IT!!! Great poem. xo
I must agree with Marion Lawless. Your talent and creativity are off the charts. I am so glad to get to read you every day!
Okay, I misread this. It's about grief, obviously. I'm tired.
Awe!!! I'm loving so many of these lines...they are SO good...love your opening and your unique voice...ALWAYS!
A spectacular poem, in the voice that is yours alone. Wowzers, kiddo!I agree with Marion, you could make a fortune selling your lyrics.
Maybe I'm infected with personal knowledge, but the voice here is an homage to one who gifted it, by good or bad example. The speaker's mother gone eight months, or simply a luminary that passed? In a good poem like this, it doesn't really matter. It refuses the personal attachments to garb in a tough mythic, a bony narrative. A survivor's song that still weeps.
It seems redundant to work on voice, when you clearly already have one...as sharp as yours.
Mama's on your mind, in your blood, in your ink... ~
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