By Joseph Barrientos
Two on two
the lapping of the waves
I can hear them calling
like her fingers on my skin;
both call to salt and sky
reflections of two lives
Fae tunes
danced upon the divide
of world’s chanced and chosen
with the water’s swift
abandon
Night is the flicker of cigarette ash out the window. Someone whistles in tune as the snow rides the wind down, down. He calls out to the face he thinks he remembers in the muck of a road, but the memory is grit stains and brown ponds, and the taxi drowns the torchlight out.
When the sky strikes clouded hour
it should be sleep which you devour–
ancient rites
to lay your sights
upon the treasures of your birth;
shaded, still, but gold by mirth
a notion-thought, a nation-state
set upon the starry plate
lips consume by golden ticks
of time, of hearts, of callous pricks
(of soul, you dirty mind)
that in their feasting bind
further dawn, further hope
and leave the starving poets to elope
with museless musings
by economic typings–
which is to say, by morning I am weeping
for all the pains that you’re still keeping.
It is a blind chase–
the riddle of a woman’s grace.
I would name myself a statue
but this stunted face could not construe
the subdued motion of my growth
through softest bond and yearning oaths.
Public Domain image of Sara Teasdale. Image itself care of Wikimedia Commons.
This week, the spotlight falls on one Sara Teasdale, a lyrical poet of the early 20th century.
Sara Teasdale is a fine example of a tribulation many poets, writers, and other creative sorts have faced throughout history: depression. Many that pursue the arts seem to fall into it, as they fall into all emotions–heavily, for it seems often enough, this is the trade-off they must face for being able to tap those emotions and draw their power into their words, their art.
As such, Teasdale was a lonely woman. She found herself gripped by that, and by the darkness of her depression–it ate at her, and shone through in her works as often as the topic of love and the heart. There was such an undercurrent of longing…it should come as no surprise things ended for her the way they did.
Though a master of language, her words apparently were not enough to reach the world, and Teasdale committed suicide in 1933 by overdose on sleeping pills, just two years after the suicide of another famous poet–and friend of hers–that shall form next week’s spotlight. She is immortalized today in St. Louis’s Walk of Fame.
But today’s poem of hers showcases the heart, the love, and yes, that longing…the quality in her works that makes her so very human.
Heavy is the eventide disarray,
the walk that stretch into horizon’s wake—
flesh be weak, say men in dead dismay
the unknowing writhe of souls in company
stroking through the down-me-lay.
Shards line the tone,
men and women still for lack of heart
a dream of poets out from the world sewn—
not once content, too often bared:
Man was not meant to walk alone.
Victor Hugo, image care of Wikimedia Commons.
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved – loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
~Victor Hugo
“Love doesn’t sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all of the time, made new.”
~Ursula K. Le Guin
Bridge beckons bright tides
Through eyes, the starlit twinkle—
Hearts, freely given.
* Technically not a Haiku, given the topic and the lack of seasonal groundings, and without the cynical or oft-humorous stylings of a Senryu, but done in the same style. A short work, but I hope it satisfies all the same!
I fade in secret
Heart with the rain and the leaves—
Wilting spring flowers.
No dream may suffice
in lieu of waking glances.
Still life holds love destitute,
such that dreams become vision,
the lie on which heart relies.
* Oh I do so loathe my stomach, at times, for all its troubles.
Forgive this poet’s absence this evening. The above is my submission for One Stop Poetry, and it may not be my best work, but it was produced under a day of food poisoning…which consequently is the same reason you may detect a noticeable disappearing act from me tonight. I’ll likely read as I can, but I’ve been keeping quite to bed today, and given how my stomach’s still acting, I don’t foresee that changing shortly.
The Waking Den 