The Wandering Eye
I made you
from a map, a hawk and a flower.
I thought you
clockwork-canny, full of power,
a road-veined eye for
spying the highway hours;
a bird, a map,
a flower meant to be
a fragrance and a passage
seeking sea.
But so far away
you flew there could never be
a coming back
despite the lies, despite the slick pretense,
so to see you now
as a morph'd and piddling glance
on a burning
globe of constant transience
is only another
blink of blight and fear.
You tell me this
is the you who's real and clear;
fine words from one
who's broken every mirror.
August 2020,
(with fragments from March 2014)
posted for
Images:Still Life with Spherical Mirror, 1934 © M.C. Escher Fair Use
footer, artist and title unknown, Fair Use
I love the course this poem takes Joy. It starts with the beauty of beginnings in life and love and then comes the leaving and then the return. Every line paints another amazing picture of what is and was, but that last one is steller awesome!
ReplyDeleteFerocious, this one is. Also, fragile as something once dear found in an attic. Not easily done, dear BFF. I don't want to say too much here, as I'm 99.9% sure i know what this is about, so I'll just say that I love the rhyme and form which begs to be read out loud, and as always, your striking and original imagery. You have taken hold of your subject and absolutely owned it.
ReplyDeleteThis began in enchantment and swerved into...not disenchantment...but a crisp refusal to continue. It had me glancing over my shoulder and at the same time imagining these lines from a stage, where the speaker ends up right over you.
ReplyDeleteI love the "road-veined eye for spying highway hours." Such powerful closing lines, too.
ReplyDeleteThe whole poem clockwork-canny -- amazing what you made from a map, a hawk, and a flower. It pivots from image and line to line taking us to the brink, the blink, of that blinding mirror. The "you" who is real and clear. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteFrom the title on, I knew I would be captivated. A map, a hawk and a flower. The map and hawk seem to fit in my peripheral view but, the flower adds to the fragility of the journey. It seems to represent life and death in many ways. That last verse says so much clarity is hard to find in a broken mirror. Ouch...
ReplyDeleteWonderful writing!
This is filled with drama, tastes bitter with betrayal and written with great style. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteThis flows, and ebbs, and flows again. Your style is unique and YOU.
ReplyDeleteFlavors of old Will, to me - the drawing in, then the rapier jab at the close, done with meter and rhyme ~
ReplyDelete