mardi 10 novembre 2009

visit from the bard



i'm releasing pathos with
every bead of sweat, every
cigarette i smoke, all the
moments of my life building into
this paradigm of parody

i charge with the elements
die with the seasons, i'm high
on sleep deprivation and black tea
so that i see past reason
into the bard's own raging vision

yes i'm changing with fits and starts
and here he is, fit for kingdom come
he too is drenched with sweat
injecting pink-white pollen from a
violet syringe into a primordial vein

then takes another stiff drink
of ink, breathing into the
moonlight as it stretches
into a cloudbank, the ebony
night lit up with shooting stars

he spots venus buzzing by
then saturn and mars
he does not count on stars
but does a nosedive onto newsprint
scribbling his name again and again

wondering if the morning light
will find him drunk on absinthe
and whether or not pandora's box
still sits atop his nightstand
and if he will open her up

i am the first to fly out
i am the mother sun in the
dawning, the ghost at 6am
i am the butter on his toast
a slave to his feathered head

but never enough of his words
i feed him honey on a spoon
so he will feed my wit
transform my sweat to pearls
and my smoke to poems

and i pass into his trance
embrace his dogged footsteps
trample on his lavender lips
as he mumbles ancient chants
and tosses his ravings into the air

drawing from violent seas
mariners' tales, from desert
sands caravans, from the greek
our helen's face and why not
when history is in his fist

but i the fool of fools
speaking in tongues and
feigning jokes, pleading
with him into day
until he sleeps like a baby

and these visions fade
as i fall upon my pillow
there is a spot where
his head once lay but i
have wasted it, dreaming

10 commentaires:

enudelman a dit…

Laura, a tour de force. One of your best, without a doubt. I'm impressed how you pull off this epic one-breath poem with really exquisite imagery and effortless flow. Superb!

Laura Tattoo a dit…

:>>)) i wrote it in the last two hours! it really was an inspiration in reading your poem tonight. thank you, ed! xoxoxooxoxoxo

Anonyme a dit…

i keep thinking of baudelaires poem when i read yours laura:

it is the hour to be drunken!
to escape being the martyed slaves of time be ceaselessly drunk on wine, on poetry, or on virtue as you wish.

i love your new poem laura...you were obviously inspired when you wrote it! r.w.

Laura Tattoo a dit…

thanks, dahlink... i was totally out of body out of mind. i took some extra pain medicine... it did take me over the top. so it was indeed "the hour to be drunken!" thanks for the baudelaire quote, un de mes poètes préférés dans l'histoire du mot écrit! peut-être c'est lui, le "bard"? (one of my favorite poets in the history of the written word! perhpas it was he, the "bard"? :>>)) xoxoxooxoxoxoxxo

Ozymandias a dit…

This is so ethereal and inebriating. I drank in each word like some intoxicatant, completely losing myself into it. If this isn't poetry, nothing is.

Laura Tattoo a dit…

ozy, ty. i read your blogger profile today, and i adore the following; SO, with your permission to reprint it here that someone might accidently come upon it because it's the best joke i've heard in YEARS:

"You've got to make contact with the alien leader. How will you tell when the conversation is finished?

"When he tears out his hair-equivalent!"

BRILLIANT! :>>))

Brenda Clews a dit…

Beautiful! I read with wonder and amazement at the range of images, the sweep through mythological history, the tender muse... and, somehow too, I thought of Baudelaire, of fin de'siecle, there is almost decadent, almost Pre-Raphaelite demon lover romance here! But he's not a drug, or swirl of light, he's the muse. Fabuloso!

Laura Tattoo a dit…

bren, it certainly felt like i was tapping the muse: these are moments of surabundance and bliss! ty, my dear poetic spirit and intellectual sister. xoxooxox

Mary Stebbins Taitt a dit…

Wonderful! Nicely done.

Ad above, I like that second cat picture with the diagonal lines--that would make a GREAT artpiece!!

Laura Tattoo a dit…

yes, the cat photo in the thanksgiving post! my son noted that it looked like an oil painting, and he never makes remarks. :>>>))) made me very happy. you are free to paint it, of course. "avec le temps..." :>>))