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green mansions
If we could sit down for one Christmas dinner,
together,
after all the years
had converged and split our hearts
into yesterday,
if we could gather around the table,
sit down before we lose our balance,
drunk with the wine of forgiveness
after all the tears have been wept
and still be blown away by the constant wind,
the angry sea calming, the moon smiling
jagged cuts on our faces,
the bleeding
from the inside out stopped with the
sweet fullness of time,
if i could forgive myself I could
forgive you for not knowing
any better.
"If" is such a huge word. Poets use it sometimes;
it strings together hope,
it lifts us to the green mansions of when and
opens the door of now.
Today we are poets. Today we harvest the wind
and cherish its fallen fruit. We take the last bite
and enter the world of prodigals and heretics
on fire with ecstasy, free again like little children,
and those who have nothing to steal away
but for what we bring to our last supper.
hungry for our lost soul.
Editing stage:
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Comments
Kailashana2
Mon, 2011-12-26 18:34
Hi Beau, does it matter to
Hi Beau, does it matter to you that the 23rd was the date of my last poem? That I didn't post anything yesterday or the day before?
Does it matter that poems are posted in blogs, as a way of circumventing the 24/hr rule?
I didn't think so.
It seems to me we should *grow up* as poets, and as human beings, our intent in why we do things is infinitely more important that following *rules* which some folks will consistently break and others will consistently follow, no matter how bad they are. Not that I think the 24-hr rule is a bad thing, but that
in this case, it seems to me that you're interested only in following rules.
Where's your poetry? How often do you WRITE and how often do you write about the rules of poetry,
or the how-to's.?
There is a difference in those of us who do and those of us who talk about how to do and when to do, If you know what I mean.
Respectfully, disinclined to understand your point, other than point to rules instead of the poem.
~A
author commentKailashana2
Mon, 2011-12-26 20:09
Yes. Ma'm. I'll raise my
Yes. Ma'm. I'll raise my hand next time.
~A
author commentwesley snow
Mon, 2011-12-26 21:50
As to the poem...
... I have a tiny suggestion. I think in the first line of the third stanza IF would stand out "if" you slipped in a couple of quotation marks. I know you prefer not to use punctuation, but maybe once wouldn't be bad. That's all. The poem is excellent and made me think of Keat's "When I have fears..." that I posted in the Quickie Critique Workshop. Only you used finished sentences.
wesley
W. H. Snow
A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Kailashana2
Mon, 2011-12-26 22:32
Hey that's a good idea,
Hey that's a good idea, Wesley. I kind of forgot that in the third paragraph's case, *if* SHOULD have had quotation marks. (As you can see, I've used commas and periods, however ;-)
Thanks.
~A
A little story about the poem. The poem came a little speech/toast my daughter gave at Christmas dinner yesterday. One family member (22 years old was missing, he had committed suicide). I had called her earlier that day to ask if she would mind very much if I begged off cbeing there. I just didn't want to see my x or her father again (he recently came back into her life after over 25 years' absence). I saw them the night before over my son's Christmas Eve dinner.
I'm not as magnanimous and forgiving as I'd like to be, and she reminded me that I wasn't there for myself alone. And we can all strive to be better no matter how hard it is, and sometimes it takes us someone to remind us of that, if we're so blessed.
author commentwesley snow
Tue, 2011-12-27 12:24
wo.
.
W. H. Snow
A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
http://www.neopoet.com/mentor/about