She was no fair-haired beauty grown
out of storybooks—no Andersen, no Grimm
heroine, no scraggly thing bursting
jewels and flowers. No, she’s long and thick
and olive oil. My skin can’t shake her,
can’t surface from Mother’s petticoats.
Her summer hymn tickles my throat, stuck
like a cold as I stumble through words
I never pasted into memory. I never
thought this panic or this expectorant
praise was good, was safe, and I never wear
the love she wears as plastic
as her glow-in-the-dark, five-dollar Jesus.
Her vanity’s a habit, ingrained as carbon, ancient
as her hobby of casting stones and cyclones
and winter coats. Her sins wear lipstick
and powder and are modest
as an Old Testament tablet or the puff
of white hair housing centuries
of sleeping secrets.
All those threats flooding out of her mouth
(a spout of the immaculate mouth) swallowed
me up and spun me like a twister until I blistered
and said STOP. I’ll take on Hell
if this is her religious love, her motherly
tolerance. And still I’m tangled in her skirts.
Those floral calicos—her healthy gardens
wilt in her pews, coil in death in her scrapbooks.
I continuously dodge her pendulum.
My heart, she says, is a garbage bin
tumid with rotting corpses without vengeful
faith to cull the demons (and the weighty
bulk of her concocted monsters).
Author notes
not the best, but at least it's something
picture: Street Picture 2 by magaz
http://magaz.deviantart.com/art/untitled-street-portrait-003-42375759
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Comments
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I really like this. You imbibe the idea with rich, dark textures and really make the subject real. There's depth to your words, your phrases and ideas that keep the reader moving forward. It would be easy to write this with only "surface" descriptions, but you went so deep and pulled out the ugly underbelly and somehow made it beautiful. Great imagery.
. Rewarded 6
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I don't think the purpose was lost at all. While the reader might not identify Mother Nature specifically from the piece, he will certainly still identify the prickly old woman. This is exceptionally good work, notably the imagery and the phrasing. Well done.
Gren -
Oh, this is so obscure!
I tried without success to get some sort of link with May and the start of summer, but to no avail. Next, I looked up “Zealot.” My dictionary said...Zealous person, uncompromising or extreme partisan, fanatic.
She sounds a bit of a bitch, fixed in her ways and not prepared to accept that other people have opinions. Upset her and she’ll throw stones or seed hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Her love is a thin veneer, which she wears because she has to, because it is expected.
At first, I thought you might be related to this person but then I realised she is not a person.
Is she a religion, a devout ritual laden catholic, or a harsh unbending puritan?
Perhaps, I’m barking up the wrong tree; in any event, it’s always fun to think about your poetry.
Regards, Peter
. Rewarded 8
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I'm planning on rewriting this one someday (hopefully soon). I'd wanted to say something about how shitty Mother Nature was being during May, especially to the US midwest. However, May took on this too real personality and I just went off on her, and any connection she had to the actual month dwindled.
Thanks for reading and commenting. Sorry I ran you around with my crazy poem with its lost purpose.
-K
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