Description: old poems, like this one, always make me wonder where the fuck they came from and where the fuck that poet went. sometimes i think that poems are stepping stones.
a cresendo of horses -------------------------------------------
Look: A tree trying to catch aeroplanes.
Its bulk waves with mum’s skirt, clothes billow
calm flags of domesticity on the washing line.
Autumn blossoms the bees’ last meal. The wind
has a sinister cackle. My parents’ house
is full of new doors waiting
to replace old ones that creak and stick
as if the air has suddenly turned thick
with years that have escaped their grasp.
Redecorating the same walls again
and again. Garden saplings now plump
with summers. Paint-free the doors
almost resemble coffins, pine cocoons;
the only new doors that can be imagined
in such company. Now that I’m moving
out I start to feel that home too
is something weak and mortal. Life outgrows
or ceases and sleeps. Our goodbyes
and goodlucks among door frames
temporarily empty. The house stark as death.
The sky looms lower, a fat grey belly.
Listen! A crescendo of horses. The sunset
is riding towards us.
Yes! The best title ever returns! Complete with stupid "Vampire Fanfic Bash it!" labels!
I shall comment anew, I shall.
Look: A tree trying to catch aeroplanes.
Its bulk waves with mum’s skirt, clothes billow
calm flags of domesticity on the washing line.
This is such a great pictures. It's like this: camera, low angle. Trees in the background, a fairly strong wind blowing them forward. An aeroplane flies overhead as yr mother takes clothes off the washing line.
I especially like "calm flags of domesticity." There seems to be something ... not ominous, mind you, but portentuous; there's an undercurrent in the wind, and the sky is dark. I know: the wind signals rain in my mind.
Houses, too.
old ones that creak and stick
as if the air has suddenly turned thick
with years that have escaped their grasp.
Lots of houses have that semi-shiny layer-after-layer of pain so think you can press your fingernail into it and it's kind of spongy, and cracked in places. It does feel kind of sticky and thick and stuffy.
the fact that the doors are off and the wind is blowing make the eventual
Run.
seem like the thing to do.
"Paint-free, the doors" comma! this needs a freakin comma .
The sky looms lower, a fat grey belly.
Ohh I'm totally right about the rain.
I also love the formatting. The Look: and Listen! and how there's so much to look at, how the poem has this crescendo it's leading up to, moving from home and tranquility to death and slowly, but ever more steadily, approaching doom: the death of the home, of what was, of changes and moving and trying to escape both the mortality descending upon what was and the stifling stillness that seems now to have pervaded all that came before. It's just.... gah! it's perfect. Cept the comma. put the freakin comma in.
Oh, and that poet, yeah. That poets's dead, you know. you see it in the poem. I wonder if he ran, or just that that was his first instinct. I wonder if it rained.
It`s like spending an the late afternoon laying on the grass looking around - intermingling thoughts, observations, and memories.... until the dusk hurries us along indoors. Lots of cool images.
Submission Name: a cresendo of horses
