Tuesday, December 04, 2012

TUESDAY POEM | Not Yet A Man




                           NOT YET A MAN


                           There are notes of melancholy in the air.

                           A boy folded his wings and fell through

                           a seam in the clouds - broken comet blazing

                           through blue, he dragged the ceiling of heaven

                           down. His cry cracked the sullen sea.

               
                                       Did you hear his splash?

                     
                         The dusk barely shook itself -

                         there was no moment's silence.


                         The smallest of waves rose to soak

                         the local shore, tickling the laughing feet

                         of children too busy with sand

                         and ice creams to notice. I counted

                         nine pink tongues licking.


                         He raked the sky clean.

                       
                         Someone's son

                         and

                         a
 
                         split

                         second

                         plummeting.



                         CB 

                       

FLOAT - CB - Acrylic on Paper 1995



This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Kathleen Jones
Kathleen has chosen a remarkable poem by Canadian eco-poet Catherine Owen -


"Our minds can turn anything romantic.
Is the problem.
The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes    

        pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,   
        at night, like two of Isadora Duncan’s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,   
        harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren’t our hearts

more similar to wastelands. . ." 



Yes!

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3 comments:

  1. Both fresh and haunting, Claire. Strangely the whole seems to ascend although it describes descent.

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  2. Lovely rendering of the Icarus story, Claire. Beautifully done.

    'fell through/a seam in the clouds/broken comet blazing/through blue, he dragged the ceiling of heaven/down. His cry cracked the sullen sea."

    'the dusk barely shook itself.' "He raked the sky clean//Somebody's son' Sigh.

    Has anyone done this since Auden's? And love the painting. xo Melissa

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  3. So haunting and heartbreaking. I see this not as the story of Icarus but of events far more immediate and tragic in our world, boys broken and lost, and no one listening. The images are searing in their subtlety, their wondrous grace. And then that luminous painting, "Float," offering hope. Just beautiful, dear Claire.

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