Feather From An Empty Hat
In the whirlwind
leaves in tumult turn
seasons change, chiseled from
an empty hat
hooping along the curb,
flown to drown in the sleety river
by snow’s hardliquor breath
huffing in staggers through the
winter grass cut before the storm
where dry brown leaves nest
a broken feather pulled
by djinns of the stuttering south,
by djinns of the stuttering south,
homeless in the field.
The poem I wrote in my sleep
was huge
it moved the earth
it changed the world
it was a rock mountain
out of which I carved
clanging truth in heads of jackals,
ravens and goddesses
ravens and goddesses
and wrote their conversations
verbatim etched in a brazen font
upon the golem’s brow
yet when I woke
in the blue crystal light
there were no words
there were no words
on my pillow, only one
spent feather, ragged
from the cold.February 2012
Posted for Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub
Image: Guinea fowl feather
By User:Ben_pcc (Some bird.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
dang...nice journey in this...in the opening i really like...
ReplyDeleteflown to drown in the sleety river
by snow’s hardliquor breath
great descriptors...and then the dream carved in the heads of jackals and golems...smiles...it surely would have shook the world...
perhaps though in the receiving of the feather there is as much if not more wisdom...smiles..
love the wrap around in this hedge...
happy saturday to yoU!
Oh, this is love you. Agree with Brian--wonderful descriptions, great juxtapositions that vividly depict your scene, dream, awakening. And the frame is lovely--
ReplyDeleteBesides the ones Brian mentioned, I love the hooping along the curb and the stuttering South. And, of course, the sense of the dream epiphany is terrific. K.
PS -- I THOUGHT I was typing LOVELY! Ha.
DeleteMy brain and fingers are increasingly out of synch. (I used to be a completely reliable typist.) Crazy. K.
I figured it was something like that. My fingers do the same thing--I think faster than I can type, and they just write what they want to, not what I tell them to sometimes. Thanks, K.
DeleteThis imaginative poem sent shivers down my spine. Brilliant.
ReplyDeletewow...what a ride...love that the poems take flight and run free instead of being pressed between some boring book pages...smiles... some of them are just born to be wild...great imagery here hedge...luved it much..
ReplyDeleteI have several times had dreams where I thought I was writing a real bonafide masterpiece, but upon waking it slipped away. Then one time, I managed to quick scribble it down and then go back to sleep. When I woke up, I eagerly reached for my notebook, and the lines were just nonsense. "Stanzas of gibberish" as Ginsberg described in "Howl." To me, that's what you've described here...the grand feeling followed by the little result.
ReplyDeleteI love love the second verse..
ReplyDeleteThe poem I wrote in my sleep
was huge
it moved the earth
it changed the world
it was a rock mountain
out of which I carved
clanging truth in heads of jackals,
ravens and goddesses
Happy Saturday to you ~
As with others, this part really spoke to me:
ReplyDeleteThe poem I wrote in my sleep
was huge
I've felt this so many times and tried to write down what I feel, even dreaming of writing it down, and then it slips away.
Often enough we thought what we wrote the night before was fantastic. Sometimes yes but most times not! Great write Joy!
ReplyDeleteHank
I just love how you wove in sublte sculpting images: chiseling, carving, etching..and the other-dimensional feel that gave us goddesses, dreams, golems, ravens and jackals. Superb.
ReplyDeletewow what a write, poems are written in our sleep.
ReplyDeleteThese dreams and the reality they intersect combine to create a tantalizing look into imagination. Your play with hard and soft, malleable dream and hard reality become reversed, pulling us into dream along with you perhaps. The message left you in the form of a feather, the shaman's wing, lets us know that we can travel there too, if we open ourselves to their possibility. I like how you bring all of these elents into play and create a piece with mystery and music!
ReplyDeleteThanks for getting the dichotomy of the two stanzas Charles, and the dynamic of the feather. Yours was excellent, as always.
DeleteOMG I SO adore this poem, especially the crescendoing second stanza, and the one lone feather ragged from the cold. HOL-EE COW, kiddo. Superb writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
DeleteThose Guinea Fowl feathers litter the ground over here, but each is its own perfection. I have also written poems in my sleep, but what is not captured on awaking is lost forever, along with every other ground-breaking solution one finds in sleep.
ReplyDeleteThis piece retains that dream-like distortion of reality and the grasping for shreds when the dream is done.
How cool you have them where you are, too, Kerry. I feed five feral guinea fowl at my bird feeder with the doves and cardinals, and this is the feather I saw in my dream, and in waking hours too, of course--they tend to shed them a lot.Thanks for reading. I have one for Ella's photos going up in the morning.
DeleteLoved the imagery of the hooping hat and the sleet- signifying perhaps a change in the seasons. The exit to the dream world was such an interesting turn- and I loved how.you expressed that feeling of having something so huge in your head but being unable to capture it. And then waking- to find just the feather- maybe to me signifying unrest/change- as did the first stanza of this piece. Really nice linkage and thought process - oh - and of course- the most well crafted descriptions! Snows hard liquor breath- damn- why couldn't I have thought of this!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stu--that's one of my favorite compliments. I enjoyed yours very much as well.
DeleteWonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Chiselled from an empty hat, but then the opening lines of the second stanza told me that here was an exceptional poem. Delightful. I know the moment of the empty pillow after the excitement of the masterpiece. I guess we all do, but you have brought it to life and let it loose in the room. Marvellous!
ReplyDeleteYes, I usually can get to the scratch pad when this happens, but in this case, the poem seemed so perfect and impossible to forget I was lulled into a false sense of security. When I woke up there was not one word left. ;-) Thanks for reading, Dave.
DeleteHey, even the lil' fella walking under that hat is gone ... Which I guess tropes the trollop times still troll-wards, into a rougher, ruder time. Your dream of the second stanza mounts almost a sufficient resistance to the "hardliquor" breath and breadth of the first -- some golem, mythic faces/facets, exquisite oracles "verbatim etched in a brazen font": But indeed the single severed feather suffices, or is all we have, wing and quill and wild gorgeousness with which to tickle wit in dullard times. "Ragged from the cold," but what a simple delight. - Brendan
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, B. and glad you enjoyed. So we bring the outside in, and the inside out.
Delete... And yes, compression resolves, but first the dizzy ziggurats of stanzas 1-2, please. - B
ReplyDeleteThe tag compression is not about verbal compression. It refers to my poem of that title, and I've used it to tag several that have that feeling for me.
DeleteI'm kinda surprised that I haven't dreamed of writing. I dream up paintings though. Usually abstract and bold (unlike me entirely) but they too disperse and fade upon waking. I like to believe there are spirit guides or angels recording all our lost brilliance though, and we will see it all again some day.
DeleteI agree, I think it's still somewhere in our brains, or its ghost meaning or symbol is, and dreaming about it means it will come floating up some day. Good to see you, DA.
DeleteI like the shift between the stanza... and this is beautiful to me:
ReplyDeleteflown to drown in the sleety river
by snow’s hardliquor breath
huffing in staggers through the
winter grass cut before the storm
A wondeful sculpted journey... original take on the prompt...much enjoyed!
ReplyDeletejust stunning, Joy!
ReplyDelete♥
I agree - just stunning! And I do so understand the masterpiece in dreams and the empty head on waking...
ReplyDeleteAnna :o]
I really love this, Hedge. The smallness of poem, but so dense in mass, which you embody here.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ruth. Glad you enjoyed.
Delete