Day: May 9, 2017

I do believe I’m feeling underwrought

Epimedium-latisepalum2017

The villanelle won’t jell, I feel dismayed.
I know they’re hell, but they distill my thoughts
A triolet would work if I could play.

I boiled the villanelle  to sell    today
I do believe I’m feeling underwrought
The villanelle won’t jell, I feel dismayed

I planned to sell the whole lot on Ebay
But someone threw a hint I never caught
A triolet would work if I could play

I appreciate the values of wet hay
My teacher never mentioned  poems  caught short
The villanelle won’t sell, I can’t  display.

Some will plight  their  troth and others  pray
The teacher saw the writing  she’d not taught
A triolet would work if I could play

I wrote a poem with words I had not sought
Is it vice to pay when we’ve not bought?
The villanelle won’t jell,I  say,hurrah
A  violin would work if one could play

The End by Emily Berry

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/118582?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PMAG_MAY_09_2017&utm_content=PMAG_MAY_09_2017+CID_81ba1eb43cddc435e618fa33b180458d&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=The%20End

 

The End
BY EMILY BERRY
I believed death was a flat plain spectacular endlessly
Can you distort my voice when I say this?
My scared ghost peeling off me
Distortion, she says, as if she has just made it up
And then she is quoting a line from a poem
Or is it a whole poem, I wish I could remember
My voice opens and calls you in
I don’t know if you can hear me
I said, I carry inside me the trace of a threat that I cannot discharge
I said, I want to ask you things you can’t ask a person who doesn’t exist
She said, Why can’t you ask them
If we can’t have everything what is the closest amount to everything we can have?
She said, Why can’t you have everything
Well, you know, when you’re looking for a person, sometimes they appear
And a light goes on and off in the opposite window, twice
Yes, you say, that was a sign
Strange love for the living, strange love for the dead
Listen. I don’t know who you are but you remind me of —
I wish you would put some kind of distortion on my voice, I tell her
So people don’t know it’s me
They know what they know, she said
I told a story about my shame
It got cold when the air touched it
Then it got hot, throbbed, wept, attracted fragments with which it eventually glittered
Till I couldn’t stop looking at it
Exactly, she says
And then she is quoting a line from a poem, I don’t know which one
In my dream she reached out to touch me as if to say, It’s all right
How I began to believe in something
Are you there?
The wind called to the trees
And then it happened
And they said, How do you feel?
And I said, Like a fountain
Night falls from my neck like silver arrows
 
Very gently

When he woke up he looked the same

 

He was always very adamant
He could not change his mind
So I soaked his head in old red wine
Because I am so kind.

 

When he woke up he looked the same
But he spoke so tenderly:
You may have tricked some other guys.
But you ain’t trickin’ me.

 

I said I knew  no other men;
He was my heart’s desire.
He threw his water glass at me
And said I was a liar.

 

So then I realised with dread,
My love was utter folly.
I gave him 20 English pounds
To buy himself a lolly.

 

Adamantine’s good for jewels
But not for picking men.
I shall learn my lesson now.
Pray I’ll never sin again

With my footprints on the back

He was wearing the wrong kind of clothing
His awkwardness  gave him away
He wore a white mac
With  my footprints on the back
Where forever they will rightly stay,

He went out to Mass on  a Sunday
And confessed all his sins well before.
He  suffered from pride
And many women he eyed.
Whom he gave a warm welcome and more.

The religious folk seem to get tempted
By the sins that they wrongly fear most.
They think of smart asses
And lasses in glasses
When  of their salvation they boast

We tolerate what once we could not bear

The pain of loss grows gentler by the year
Less jagged and destructive to the heart
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

We soothe ourselves by satisfying care
We let the dear one’s image separate.
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year

Sometimes grief feels like a panic fear.
We wonder if we chose the best of charts
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

There are folk of whom we must beware.
Gossips and audacious, head-less tarts
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year

Do not let the wolves boast of their lair
Evade the poisonous and their arrowed darts
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

Without will, the healing process starts
Slowly  pain and anguish will depart
The pain of loss grows gentler by the year
We  tolerate what once we could not bear

The isolating loneliness, the fear

The  widespread  scattering of the Jewish genes
Caused by pogroms, wars, and holocaust
A Russian mother, Father, German seems
Now all of them, have turned to earth and dust.

Then the city French called Montreal
Safe home  to refugees of every sort
Here Leonard found his path, he heard the call
And learned to bear the suffering of the heart.

Where many leave this world by their own choice,
The isolating loneliness, the fear
Instead, he struggled, strained, gave us his voice
Even after death, we feel him near.

A man descended from Aaron, the priest,
The same  genetic group that gave us  Christ

 

 

Yet to these gaps, wildflowers will be allured.

Life is like a  Northern drystone wall
The limestone’s perfect balance is designed.
But take one stone out and the whole will fall.
For every stone was to the next aligned.

Maybe its new form is strong, secure
But often it collapses, leaving gaps.
Yet to these gaps, wildflowers will  be allured.
And little pools  form, home to frogs  perhaps

As life goes on, our complex structure grows
And in some part, we see collapse contained.
Not just contained, but new life comes and goes.
In the end,  love’s willingness remains.

The journey takes us through a strange terrain.
We are a  whole, though parts are misaligned