Surrender
"...this is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper." ~T.S.Elliot
You've come a long way
to see me slip my skin
across the star-burrowed sky
past Cassiopeia's iron chair
past the spear of Orion
to the killing floor.
You've come for the show
that must always go on
to see my hair burning trees
on my lips the black hole
night for my breath
dripping acid rain.
A big bang for your buck
now the requisite whimper
that comes in the dark
with the last surrender.
I wanted to stay just
a little bit longer
but everything wavers
when fate breaks her lamp.
October 2020
posted for
Images: California Wildfires From Space © NASA Scott Kelly Fair Use
Title unknown © Mathew Brohder via Internet Fair Use
You have given me a whole new, real and poetic vision of the perilous earth from space Joy! So many exquisite lines!! This knocks it out of the park! When you shat out you do it grand! I love love love this!!!
ReplyDeleteFantastic. The birth of the universe through to the flat death throes of entropy in 20 spare, clean, bang and whimper lines. Who dies here: the poet? us? the world? the cosmos? Slipping your skin past the constellations is a beautiful invitation, like you are going to go skinny dipping in the stars, but then, but then, the killing floor. Amazing. Like all humanity, we never see that coming.
ReplyDeleteThen the supra-real imagery, allusion, reality of burning trees and black holes. Acid rain for sure.
In the "won't you stay" I hear the plaintive tones of Frankie Valli's falsetto (truesetto?).
The end, the end, is so deeply evocative. "When fate breaks her lamp". Lordy, I know exactly what that means and fear it, yet of course that has no denotation I could explain. Brilliant.
I love that "star-burrowed sky". The burning trees as hair, the black hole of the mouth are amazing images. LOVE your closing lines. "I wanted to stay just a little bit longer" breaks my heart. Poor weeping earth mother.
ReplyDeleteO gosh, this breaks my heart. I despair of what has already happened to our planet due to the shortsighted greed of those who wield power. So glad we both managed to write for the Muse this week; I wasn't sure either of us would!
ReplyDeleteStrong and dark hedgewitch! Powerful piece.
ReplyDeleteQuite the show -"big bang for the buck" - I wonder about our earthly show it seems the director and script writers have lost their way. I worry about how the greatest show on earth will end. Whimpering defeat..sigh..
ReplyDeleteNod to T.S. Elliot is a wonderful thing ... 'when fate breaks her lamp' I will ponder the depth long and hard.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me want to weep; it's could hissed across a dark stage or thundered from a screen and the end would be the same--a shock of tears and the aftershock of the lines themselves.
ReplyDeleteYes, Yes! "everything wavers when fate breaks her lamp" love that line. I actually could have quoted the entire poem. There is so much I love in this poem. There are times lately I wonder if fate came to us with a broken lamp.
ReplyDeleteLove “star-burrowed sky”, and the plaintive call of your last two lines.
ReplyDeleteAll we can do is write the whore's lament and echo the waver. Well done and best. - Brendan
ReplyDelete