Sam Barbee, Winston-Salem, NC
—Art Courtesy of Public Domain
LAMENTATION
By sundown, I am old again.
Clouds free themselves
from street trees, no longer
crave what they cannot have.
Nostalgia restructured, beauty
can melt away, guiltless,
leaving a volatile acetone where
we should never strike a match.
I feel it in my bones, in each
expletive rolling easily between
my lips—profane prayers
to provoke your anger
and shudder. Invoke verses
of dark incidents—enveloped,
edges and corners licked over,
slicing the careless tongue.
Today shall be archived,
one to remember. Embossed
for future generations, for those
sealed in plastic like an insect
in amber—succumbed to fatigue—
and relocate beyond the horizon,
at peace even without
a palatial home.
By sundown, I am old again.
Clouds free themselves
from street trees, no longer
crave what they cannot have.
Nostalgia restructured, beauty
can melt away, guiltless,
leaving a volatile acetone where
we should never strike a match.
I feel it in my bones, in each
expletive rolling easily between
my lips—profane prayers
to provoke your anger
and shudder. Invoke verses
of dark incidents—enveloped,
edges and corners licked over,
slicing the careless tongue.
Today shall be archived,
one to remember. Embossed
for future generations, for those
sealed in plastic like an insect
in amber—succumbed to fatigue—
and relocate beyond the horizon,
at peace even without
a palatial home.
SLIGHT ACCUMULATION
Snow determines the winners.
A strip of winter drapes the garden wall,
gleaming purpose before midday.
Galvanized fence smiles across the lawn.
Frames of bushes chatter among themselves.
Mailbox posts ready for duty.
Neighboring houses patient like luggage
aligned for a familiar grip. Trials of sleds
and boot-prints disrupt silence. Children’s
laughter tumbles over daffodil and jonquil
bulbs you tend each spring. Your garden
keeps its low profile, gash of border stones
idle. Hives crave the buzz of new honey.
Midday glare absolves shadows as I
attempt to rouse you, fracture our
compacted hush. Disrupt unbearable
stillness that envelops us behind frosted panes.
No solstice reclaims congealed seconds
lost to slumber. Noon sun has its way.
and I describe the snowfall. You squint
at the window, inquire about the hour.
Insist I witness, but can predict no thaw.
Snow determines the winners.
A strip of winter drapes the garden wall,
gleaming purpose before midday.
Galvanized fence smiles across the lawn.
Frames of bushes chatter among themselves.
Mailbox posts ready for duty.
Neighboring houses patient like luggage
aligned for a familiar grip. Trials of sleds
and boot-prints disrupt silence. Children’s
laughter tumbles over daffodil and jonquil
bulbs you tend each spring. Your garden
keeps its low profile, gash of border stones
idle. Hives crave the buzz of new honey.
Midday glare absolves shadows as I
attempt to rouse you, fracture our
compacted hush. Disrupt unbearable
stillness that envelops us behind frosted panes.
No solstice reclaims congealed seconds
lost to slumber. Noon sun has its way.
and I describe the snowfall. You squint
at the window, inquire about the hour.
Insist I witness, but can predict no thaw.
HARD RETURN
We told each other after, get cocktails
later, time to say things better—
in a favorite lounge, or haunt, without neon
shadow, only hints of glamour on your cheek—
like where barren trellis grasps moonlight:
its grey cage restraining night like ash retains meaning—
no text or email, I should handwrite you
a letter: veins bleeding ink—
no narrative need intervene: word-scrawl brutal
to read, but scribbled-fact remains fact—
I know your rhetoric is stark, constantly swaying me,
because you can stick landings in the dark—
seldom plumb, always true.
SIDE AFFECT
If I could kill grief, I would.
Deny its touch, not enliven a new
shiver from yesterday’s cold.
Framed regret. Static charges.
I will feed my rove of mongrels
before they scatter. Ponder solutions.
Preach against battle’s unkind consequences—
camouflaged—survive toughest intensity,
subsequent bloat. Slow or swift, balance
rapture of death as an unwrapped diamond.
Grace the palm, mend shadows' ravel
lessening like Pluto’s slow orbit.
I must adopt the O in zero, re-total
my dusk-long thesis. Learn a happy song,
blue-lit and heartening, rain plumping earth
and stones, apertures swelling and fearless.
Mid-search for ominous peace. Deconstruct
disaster, without laity. No spandrel punctured
or dislodged. Nothing held back. Distinct
digits knowing each influence endures,
even as dismay begins to purr.
If I could kill grief, I would.
Deny its touch, not enliven a new
shiver from yesterday’s cold.
Framed regret. Static charges.
I will feed my rove of mongrels
before they scatter. Ponder solutions.
Preach against battle’s unkind consequences—
camouflaged—survive toughest intensity,
subsequent bloat. Slow or swift, balance
rapture of death as an unwrapped diamond.
Grace the palm, mend shadows' ravel
lessening like Pluto’s slow orbit.
I must adopt the O in zero, re-total
my dusk-long thesis. Learn a happy song,
blue-lit and heartening, rain plumping earth
and stones, apertures swelling and fearless.
Mid-search for ominous peace. Deconstruct
disaster, without laity. No spandrel punctured
or dislodged. Nothing held back. Distinct
digits knowing each influence endures,
even as dismay begins to purr.
SYMBIOSIS
A sword slicing through the heart
creates two hearts. Even grief’s
cleansing grip breaks the body
into hemispheres, blurs the next
longitude, crisscrosses latitude.
Each edge of a blank page
reveals a new universe.
The unlikely and unforeseen
resonate like rain conceiving weather,
like ash reseeding hearth.
I despise the routine in me:
acceptance of the wafer
as an end, a pale savior wetted
by grape juice while my blasphemy
affronts another morning,
another afterthought anointed
by my clay touch laced with velvet fingers.
I will reshape my view, infuse ensuing breath,
prove what I defile transfigures
to petals of glory which flourish over rust.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
―Anne Lamott
____________________
Welcome back to the Kitchen, Sam! Sam Barbee first appeared in Medusa’s Kitchen on 10/7/20 (medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/search?q=sam+barbee/). He has a new book out: Apertures of Voluptuous Force (Redhawk Publications); see redhawkpublications.com/Apertures-of-Voluptuous-Force-p463083759/. Congratulations, Sam, and thanks for these poems today!
Poetry is busy in our area today: the last session of The Way of Poetry workshop meets this morning; Sac. Storytelling Guild meets this afternoon; and tonight, Teatro Espejo presents Graciela: Poesia de la Luna Llena, a tribute to Sacramento poet Graciela Ramirez. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area.
____________________
—Medusa
A sword slicing through the heart
creates two hearts. Even grief’s
cleansing grip breaks the body
into hemispheres, blurs the next
longitude, crisscrosses latitude.
Each edge of a blank page
reveals a new universe.
The unlikely and unforeseen
resonate like rain conceiving weather,
like ash reseeding hearth.
I despise the routine in me:
acceptance of the wafer
as an end, a pale savior wetted
by grape juice while my blasphemy
affronts another morning,
another afterthought anointed
by my clay touch laced with velvet fingers.
I will reshape my view, infuse ensuing breath,
prove what I defile transfigures
to petals of glory which flourish over rust.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
―Anne Lamott
____________________
Welcome back to the Kitchen, Sam! Sam Barbee first appeared in Medusa’s Kitchen on 10/7/20 (medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/search?q=sam+barbee/). He has a new book out: Apertures of Voluptuous Force (Redhawk Publications); see redhawkpublications.com/Apertures-of-Voluptuous-Force-p463083759/. Congratulations, Sam, and thanks for these poems today!
Poetry is busy in our area today: the last session of The Way of Poetry workshop meets this morning; Sac. Storytelling Guild meets this afternoon; and tonight, Teatro Espejo presents Graciela: Poesia de la Luna Llena, a tribute to Sacramento poet Graciela Ramirez. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area.
____________________
—Medusa
Sam's new book!
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
