trains derail in my direction
Ugh, I am having a hard time focusing on anything today, so here's a poem:
Q&A: She Talks to Herself
"Experience...is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced..."
Walter Peter
Why is a train whistle different in the dark?
Distance disappears when you can't see.
Is death like that? Everything up close?
Near and far, satin roof and star, yes.
Trains derail in my direction. Did I mention that?
Several times. Also, the Bermuda Triangle.
If the face in the mirror's unfriendly, whose fault is that?
Blame if on the seventh cranial nerve.
I'll put cheerfulness in my voice. I'll put lilt. Will that do?
Suit yourself. Come to think of it, you do.
Why did you just say tower just now?
The thing is, there's no way out
and nothing gets in. All our days
are days spent there.
In the garden the quince trees are sloughing off their bark.
Did you notice that? Last year there were baskets of them.
Last year. Those are the saddest words. The pair of them.
Why do some words - extinguish, relinquish, anguish - sound like leaving?
The breath goes out of them.
If the windows failed, would the house fall? Or, would I?
What crosses the sash is conjecture. Look, the view is yours alone.
Before you go, would you give me a verse or two, something old?
When the wind's in the east/It's fit for neither man nor beast.
That's weather lore. It lies. As if lightning never struck
the same spot twice.
Afterlife crisis: What would that be like?
Is there more?
~Anne Compton
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/809481.html.
people have commented there.
Q&A: She Talks to Herself
"Experience...is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced..."
Walter Peter
Why is a train whistle different in the dark?
Distance disappears when you can't see.
Is death like that? Everything up close?
Near and far, satin roof and star, yes.
Trains derail in my direction. Did I mention that?
Several times. Also, the Bermuda Triangle.
If the face in the mirror's unfriendly, whose fault is that?
Blame if on the seventh cranial nerve.
I'll put cheerfulness in my voice. I'll put lilt. Will that do?
Suit yourself. Come to think of it, you do.
Why did you just say tower just now?
The thing is, there's no way out
and nothing gets in. All our days
are days spent there.
In the garden the quince trees are sloughing off their bark.
Did you notice that? Last year there were baskets of them.
Last year. Those are the saddest words. The pair of them.
Why do some words - extinguish, relinquish, anguish - sound like leaving?
The breath goes out of them.
If the windows failed, would the house fall? Or, would I?
What crosses the sash is conjecture. Look, the view is yours alone.
Before you go, would you give me a verse or two, something old?
When the wind's in the east/It's fit for neither man nor beast.
That's weather lore. It lies. As if lightning never struck
the same spot twice.
Afterlife crisis: What would that be like?
Is there more?
~Anne Compton
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/809481.html.
people have commented there.