Solitude’s door is always unlocked.
Excellent! I really love this. It is a gem - just perfect.
Wow, this is beautiful. So poignantly expressed; very human, and relatable!
What can you say?
They say that when you write poetry
you shouldn’t use abstractions,
but be specific with images as sharp as a handful of rusty roofing nails, glinting in the sun next to the empty pool
in your grandmother’s backyard just outside of Phoenix.
But when Anger breaks over your head like a rotten 2×4,
it can change your mind.
When Mercy is stealing the covers,
and Hope is skipping through the garden in a white sun-dress
and cutting the heads off the jasmine,
what can you say but that?
When Sorrow sits on a metal folding chair
in a dark, empty gymnasium,
are you supposed to reduce him to a metaphor?
Or Despair downstairs in the basement,
who is just now rousing his wicked violin?
When Pride and Piety are grappling like shadows in the kitchen
over the state of your soul, knocking your mother’s china off the shelf
and leaving muddy footprints on the yellowed linoleum, and Chastity is bumming a cigarette,
are you just going to ignore them.
Dismiss them as phantasms?
Howl, “Abstract nouns don’t belong here!”?
I could go on, but when Love draws near,
runs slender fingers through my hair,
and whispers in my ear, “Come with me,”
what can I do but that?
“beating silence / On a Tuesday afternoon” is an amazing line.
Formalistically, I love how you start with an abstraction and then slowly implode it into something brutally specific and beautifully “real.”
I’ve played with that motif before but not quite as successfully as you did here (see next comment).
The sentiment and all of your images are just so right and beautiful, Sarah.
Beautiful, and true. Well done.
Amazing trip towards quietude -- maybe peace.
Excellent! I really love this. It is a gem - just perfect.
Wow, this is beautiful. So poignantly expressed; very human, and relatable!
What can you say?
They say that when you write poetry
you shouldn’t use abstractions,
but be specific with images as sharp as a handful of rusty roofing nails, glinting in the sun next to the empty pool
in your grandmother’s backyard just outside of Phoenix.
But when Anger breaks over your head like a rotten 2×4,
it can change your mind.
When Mercy is stealing the covers,
and Hope is skipping through the garden in a white sun-dress
and cutting the heads off the jasmine,
what can you say but that?
When Sorrow sits on a metal folding chair
in a dark, empty gymnasium,
are you supposed to reduce him to a metaphor?
Or Despair downstairs in the basement,
who is just now rousing his wicked violin?
When Pride and Piety are grappling like shadows in the kitchen
over the state of your soul, knocking your mother’s china off the shelf
and leaving muddy footprints on the yellowed linoleum, and Chastity is bumming a cigarette,
are you just going to ignore them.
Dismiss them as phantasms?
Howl, “Abstract nouns don’t belong here!”?
I could go on, but when Love draws near,
runs slender fingers through my hair,
and whispers in my ear, “Come with me,”
what can I do but that?
“beating silence / On a Tuesday afternoon” is an amazing line.
Formalistically, I love how you start with an abstraction and then slowly implode it into something brutally specific and beautifully “real.”
I’ve played with that motif before but not quite as successfully as you did here (see next comment).
The sentiment and all of your images are just so right and beautiful, Sarah.
Beautiful, and true. Well done.
Amazing trip towards quietude -- maybe peace.