TUESDAY POEM | Down Dulcie's Street by CB

(Down Dulcie's Street was published some years ago in a collection titled The Song of the Belly Button Man. Today's poem on the TP hub - The night I pierced my own belly button  - prompted me to post it again here. All hail to the belly button - and I do find myself wondering how many other belly button poems there might be out there?*)

                                                      DOWN DULCIE'S STREET

                                        Dulcie draws a toaster house. 

                                        Outside, a web of copper wire 

                                        weaves windows into walls, ties bricks 

                                        to fascias, laces gutters to roof 

                                        to chimney to fly-away

                                        chimney smoke. 

                                        She sends a charge 

                                        across the facade

                                        singes the white sky 

                                        blue, flashes red 

                                        onto the front doormat. 

Inside, there are no lines 

in sight. Breath settles 

into shadows, thought hovers

underfoot. There are shivers

of sound, the invisible murmur 

of magnetic fields waking. 

They shift and fold the paper 

                                                     envelope of home. 

 

                                        Dulcie walks us down her street. 

                                        Beneath the double light of moon 

                                        and sun, she draws electricity, trees

                                        and bees. Her felt-tips ripen

                                        fruit, coax flowers to open. She understands 

                                        the secrets of dragonflies, seeds germinating 

                                        in silent underground places. 

                                        You can tell 

                                        she knows ink 

                                        dreams in water. 

                                                  CB

Dulcie Kirk was in her late seventies when she drew this house and well into her eighties at the time of her passing (March 2010). I did not know her well but on the few occasions we met, was touched by her refreshing transparency and lack of compromise when it came to her art-making. She was remarkably prolific. 

This week's editor on the TP hub is Saradha Koirala
with The night I pierced my own belly button
by Maria McMillan (from her collection The Rope Walk, described by the poet as "intergenerational persona poetry sequences that feature aerial performers, 19th century ropemakers and gloomy mountain cribs.")




For this week's poetry smorgasbord, please click on the quill.