Tuesday, April 02, 2013

TUESDAY POEM - Chancellor of Shadows by Lance Larson

  






                     CHANCELLOR OF SHADOWS

                     Horses are praying the old-fashioned way, trotting
                     a fenced field at twilight under a towel of moon. 

                     Swans settle on the pond, like five-paragraph essays
                     on beauty. Yes, we all have our rituals, like the skunk

                     stitching one pulsing patch of shadow to the next
                     with the swish of its tail. Not to mention questions.

                     How many broken pies at the bakery dream
                     the forgiveness of hungry mouths? How many

                     weeks till the silverfish tunnels through Chaucer?
                     What if the other life is buried inside this one?

                     A stack of bricks, a work shirt billowing on the line:
                     epics in the making. Each set of doubts, a garden.

                     Like the owl, I want to be paid in mice and falling
                     stars, take my midnights in the middle of the day.

                     LANCE LARSON

For more of Utah-based Lance Larsen's poems, click here  



There is no editor over on the TP hub this week.
No editor on the TP hub this week? Why?
Well, it's our 3rd birthday and we're in creative, celebratory mode!
18 of our 30-strong group of international poets (we hale/hail from at least four continents) will be posting a line or a stanza each day for the coming three weeks. We've decided not to go with any specific theme and instead to play poetry like jazz, improvising with language and rhythm as prompted. . . fun to write and, we imagine, just as much fun to read.

Harvey Molloy tapped out the first two lines this morning; click on the quill for a look-see and then pop back to the Tuesday Poem site every couple of days to watch things take shape.

The completed poem will be posted on Tuesday 24 April.








* Riroriro, Korimako, fly me a line? Pastel on Paper - CB

2 comments:

  1. Lovely lovely poem! There are so many lines to admire here -- fantastic opening, so full of movement and promise (and that unexpected skunk -- the reader does not see him coming, after the majesty of horses and swans: so clever). But my favourite part is this:

    A stack of bricks, a work shirt billowing on the line:
    epics in the making. Each set of doubts, a garden.

    And how it moves from there toward the close. I was not acquainted with the Poet Laureate of Utah before - thanks for this!

    ReplyDelete