Yours is a convivial restraint, apart from plaudits. Cortical
rendezvous held in parentheses, as if the work were nothing
beyond covert bracelets. Norms. A variance of kilt. The
window near the wind. Predicate norm. In fact, unfastened.
Fast asleep. You show your loyalty by chiming in. You show
your sheepliness by corresponding. I won't purchase your
endorsements of inclement votive warmth. Abundantly abuelas
finger flutes. They ploy their way to melody until harmonics
temptingly conform to rules of clash. One floats from home
front easily, until one flat-out leaves the place. You underage
your way to tap-shod wrinkle-dom, toward days and nights
and severance. The Pleiades invoke their own rhymes while
we weather staunch lit storms. The view perfects itself,
apart from eyelight set to form.
Shade trees, acorns, mash upon the yard, cleats, tennis
shoes, minced freedom
Sheila E. Murphy
I liked this poem, Sheila.
ReplyDeleteI read this poem numerous times.
At first, I read it as a critique of another writer. Like a dissection of a person into only unpleasant qualities.
So it was the poem's "meanness" that first got my attention.
And then I switched gears and read it as allegory of language and an apostrophe to language and the poem chameleonically changed its coloration instantly--the way Marianne Moore said the chameleon could "snap the spectrum up for food."
But then your poems so often do just that, Sheila.
Reading it this latter way, I found the poem's pathos very affecting, since "I won't purchase your endorsements of inclement votive warmth" seems to be the way I always feel when I momentarily "give up" on poetry (as for an hour or day) in my head...or wherever it is we "give up."
If you see this comment, Sheila, thanks for the lovely seasonal poems--for the ones from years past and present. They always make it to a vertical surface where they can keep afloat over the more regular deposits of books and other sundries. :-)
And Happy New Year to You and Yours!