Ditch the ads, upload images and much more - upgrade today from 5.95/month!
Read • Contests • Groups • Learn • Forums • Store • Help
 

seepage, the


              

 

 

horses heaving masters and bottle fly and sweat down cobblestone lanes
that bend and crack up at night in the empty lightning storms
full of cheery light and lethal jellyfish beauty
are bold as barn foul under the new day's early purple tocks
but their kingdom is the sun and the
plains where panther winds shot wildflower faeries
to heaven where their shoulders roll
and sing

night street fishbelly yellow lamplight
where craps games swizzle plastic runes, stardot end cigarettes
smokey bottles of odd, homemade likker
and the realization that all the other guys might die first
someday

these beginnings of caring for
like jellyfish on currents whorl stingers and beguiling loveliness
together
                  in the mash
                  and once ruled the primordial seas
                  with the big whale and the megalodon shark
     but now out of place
in the sidewalk crack
where blood and worms belong gathered by reigns

these beginnings of or endings of oceans,
the sudden realization of a grimace rooting, primal, wet

endlessly fertile, we, nubile bellies of dreams, so eager
but we fear,
we do, the it we

are

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author notes



prompt:


"The Seven Sorrows"

by Ted Hughes

The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.

The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.

And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.

The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle's palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.

And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.

And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox's sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox's prayer.

And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.




In a list

A contest entry

    : , Your review:

    Comment Suggestion: What is your your first impression?
    • Line numbers  • Invite them to read
    : no Cost: 0 free left 0 points, You have (?)

Comments


  • kill me gently
    November 18
    Edit | Reply
    This was amazing and beautiful. There is no doubt you are a very talented writer.

  • StarLight29
    November 18
    Edit | Reply
    This was quite amazing thank you for sharing it with us all


  • Night Hope gold member
    November 16

    Edit | Reply

    I swear, Mister, there isn't a subject you touch that isn't enhanced by your amazing pen. This is a wonderful poem, Danny. I'm so pleased you put this in my contest. I know, from our discussions on Plath and Hughes, what your feelings are about their destructive relationship. I'm proud and happy that we do not suffer from having two geniuses in the house. But then, I am still the student, and you shall always be the teacher. Thank you for entering this beauty into my contest, Sweetheart. Good luck.



  • aychellus gold member
    November 4

    Edit | Reply
    a majestic prosaic ramble! rich with imagery and vivid literal pictures. this is accomplished work indeed!! good luck in the contest