A stanza added to three quiet ones— it could become a record of the commotion caused by one silent train rolling in, another one about to depart.
Archive for December, 2009
Was It the Best She Would Do? (Day 2,600: Take 2)
Posted: December 31, 2009 by Arambler in Overnight PoemsTags: Poetry, stanza, train
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Church Bells of an Agnostic
Posted: December 29, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: agnostic, crow roost, Poetry
Church Bells of an Atheist Agnostic There’s a soaring chime that can’t be recorded. A murder of them takes over the northern sky as another day crumbles into itself. Come again night. More than six of them, six beats to a measure. A rest is noted but not taken till each bird has evaporated into [...]
Rotate 180 Degrees
Posted: December 28, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: Is the Actor Happy?, Poetry, Silver Lake, Tragedy/Comedy
Silver Lake on the way to work. Is the Actor Happy on the way home. A black charm knocks the train off its rails onto a parallel ride through some serious winter air. En route, I lose all ability to distinguish between those two masks.
Vic
Posted: December 27, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: Poetry, Stevie Smith, Vic Chesnutt
Deceptively simple, deceptively broken, some collision of Southern Gothic with Stevie Smith’s “not waving but drowning”—I know so little. All I can do is keep listening to the music. That’s what’s left to do.
Black and White Sky Over Loring Park
Posted: December 26, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: black birds, Loring Park, Poetry
A winter’s civil twilight breaks open a black bird swarm. That caw commotion over church bells reveals how little she knows.
Inside Emerald Village
Posted: December 25, 2009 by Arambler in Civil Twilight or Dawn PoemsTags: Emerald Village, father/daughter, Poetry
Hands over hands—a grip. Kiss the knuckles to grasp the meaning of love without words.
December 24 (Day 2,593)
Posted: December 24, 2009 by Arambler in Day PoemsTags: December 24, faith, forecast, Poetry
Half page ads peddle faith in 45-minute segments by the hour on two campuses. And a website to worship. A faltered blizzard reminds her of her own faith—how it works better without a forecast, without a Twitter account. Not a without—a within.
Winter Solstice
Posted: December 23, 2009 by Arambler in Night PoemsTags: "Moonshiner", dark side, Poetry, winter solstice
A man in the corner of the corner bar sings “Moonshiner.” A beat-up harmonica gets swiped across his mouth between lines. She’s returning from the dark side again—bottled water to her lips.
Leporello
Posted: December 22, 2009 by Arambler in Night PoemsTags: accordion, bellows, inheritance, leporello, Poetry
She wails when he plays it. If only those bellows were paper, she might forgive her father this disturbance. Her mother says he’s a little off key—she should know. But that’s not it. Her distress is buried in the mechanics of what we inherit.
