Three People and Falling Stars
She knelt down and poured words though her fingers like sand
They spread out over the liquid ground that became the sky
And they slid down the glass like meteors or all the stars losing hold
And crying off the ceiling like a thousand drops of ice and light.
The words were chilled by night, and dry above her tears,
In the daytime they were warm dried powder of rocks,
Coloured with past and voices and trickled onto terra-cotta dust.
Now she perches in the grotto and spreads them into the blue-green dark,
On the edge of something, surrounded by a purple glow,
A knowing smile on her eyes and lips, like motherhood and secrets,
The woman’s eyes are downcast, following her spell’s journey,
She is looking up under soft lashes and slyness, to gaze at you.
Heat and cold, heaven and hell crowded in this same room together,
Life, death, all manifestations of emotions sat next to each other,
Like passengers in a subway car that’s too full, half of them smoking cigarettes.
They chatted of simple things, like the passage of man on his zigzagging run
And who’s going with to buy the milk and the bread and butter
And whether or not this cough that you’ll get will turn into pneumonia.
That man looked down at his manuscript with awe and fear and salty resign,
He had spoken with the eloquence of a man who knew his end was nigh.
He wanted to burn his masterpiece, the owl and the spirit told him it was the last,
But that, he thought, deprive the world of his departed soul, this burning effigy,
When the dawn came in over frost and trees, he went out with the rain,
Holding the hands of the children and dragons of light
With head turned over his shoulder, departing from whole colors and breath,
Whistling goodbye to soldiers and the saints of reform,
Songs that he learned when the village caved in.
The stars, the stars are falling, I heard you set them on their course,
The painted candy glass is breaking and the sun is coming through.
Sound of the storm means there’s a hole in the wall that’s holding back the sea,
Little blue-eyed girl is trying to stop the leak with her hand,
Her determination is the colour of dying coal and living embers
With the bleach of the wind and spray her hair is turning white on her head
And when the wall crumbles away from the brine and the earth
She takes her knees up off the grass and reaches out to hold back the flaming sea,
With her thin child arms and eyes turned up to the origin of tears.
She presses the ocean to her chest like a doll or a daughter,
It’s ashen and silky bulk is a bundle of sapphire and sand
And the folded back myths of man or beast and weighted with gems.
The edges of the flood trail out of her embrace like the edges of a quilt,
As she rests her head atop her load and carries it back to her room,
And following behind her are the maidens of lapis and gold,
And the parade of globes and doves and hounds that follow the trail of milk.
She is ready for her mother standing of the doorway of her home,
To lift the water away and wipe her clean with hands and cloth.
The girl is only waiting for the rain of liquid words to drink
*
Alternately titled 'Painting in the Upstairs Hall. I was thinking about meteor showers when i wrote it and too many other things to count. Make of it what you will but tell me what you think. be brutally honest. [/pre]
I really want to read your poem!
