Mirror Dream
I think
you were
my last though
I really can't know
anymore than I knew you
but when I imagine what would bring
such a flush of life again
how unlock the cipher,
unclock the ticking heart
from the bramble thicket moment,
I can't put
another face
behind mine in the mirror
only over my shoulder
the blank sea wall
only eyeless ocean gumming and
sucking, kelp caped over
her grey meals of
storm served wrecks.
If I stare
long enoughoverlaid in silver'd prism
there is beach, two
walking in turquoise, smell
of vermillion landbreeze blowing
at the back of your new addiction.
I see her kneel and go
wet, make you rock,
medusa'd to your concrete core.
The piers of your submerged legs
root in sand, shadow ripple
with pulsestrokes
with pulsestrokes
of her quick algae fingers,
spasm in the whipwire strands
of her jellyfish hair.
Oh I think she's your last
though I really
can't know.
~September 2012
If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:
mirror dream by Hedgewitch O'theWilds
Header Image: Mirror Mirror, by howzey, on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons License
Footer Image: Sketch for a Mermaid, by John William Waterhouse
Public domain, manipulation by joyannjones
This poem is potent. "I think you were my last" wraps me in. I experience the sea as the mirror here, and as the lover.... though maybe the two are one-in-the-same anyway.
ReplyDeleteits gonna take a few reads to get it all but so far i like it
ReplyDeleteThis is an amazing 'through the looking glass' image, where mirror becomes sea and woman transforms to an aquatic spirit. I love the pictures you used to compliment the text, and all the lovely words.
ReplyDelete'how unlock the cipher,
ReplyDeleteunclock the ticking heart
from the bramble thicket moment..' - loved the sound of these lines; the marine-flavored imagined landscape your work creates. and you chose perfect pictures to accompany your poem's spirit..amazing, as always.
i really cant know anymore than i knew you...that was the first tip right there...and i have to wonder how much we really know most...only what they let, you know...really intriguing imagery in the second bit...the sea elements....nice wrap back in the end as well...
ReplyDeleteWonderful piece ... some amazing emotions and pictures beautifully captured ..... love the line 'spasm in the whipwire strands/of her jellyfish hair'
ReplyDeleteHas quite a sensuous feel behind the musings of just how much you can know...someone...anything...yourself. I especially loved your second stanza...the sea's likeness of the feminine...ebb and flow...in and out...sexual.
ReplyDeleteThere's always that corner of ourselves we cannot reveal to others, nor they to us...we know what we know...and love that...but the mystery is there...always there to ponder. Lovely poem, Hedge!
ReplyDeleteAn amazing write--really--you are such a wonderful craftswoman--spinning and placing as well float in an out of your words--
ReplyDeleteIf we don't know who is it that needs to stand next to us, then we shall be only staring over our shoulder I guess.
ReplyDeleteOh I think she's your last
ReplyDeletethough I really
can't know.
A fitting conclusion, Joy! It keeps the mystery intact and the curious wanting more. It lingers on nicely! And your voice is just perfect!
Hank
Is it a poem about the self, reflecting on the many selves one has been and asking, 'Are we done yet?' -I'm not quite sure, the ancient ocean perturbs my mind, and don't know if it would be in the best of taste for me to speculate any further.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I am sure of, and can say about this poem, 'Lost Letters' and many others you have written, is that you have a way of putting words deliciously together, so that they sound wonderful to the ear. I could pick out many lines here, but your description of the "eyeless ocean gumming" and the "whipwire strands" are standouts.
Thanks for both the compliment, and for your perceptions, Mark. Like Sandburg, I can't always claim I understand everything I write. I do think there is an element of what you describe in your first paragraph--aging is in a lot of my symbols these days...no doubt there's a reason for that. ;_)
DeletePowerful writing - a real sense of mystery - some really delicious images - I love the ambiguity - the reading adds another dimension of meaning - I don't think she'll be the last
ReplyDeleteEverybody must get stoned? Still, being anybody's rainy day woman is a bad way to spend one's time. Unfortunately, isn't it always the one who cares the least who has the power? Bless that chick's algae fingers; though personally I'd have simply drowned him in the surf, cos, I care not at all.
ReplyDeleteOh, and....don't they say that turnabout is fair play? You showed that very nicely, here, dear witch.
This is really something, Hedge. I'll spare you the quoting, but . . . wow.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked--and you can quote if you want--I grant the hedgewitchian exemption to those who do it intelligently.
DeleteJoy Ann, your imagery is always spot on, my dear woman. There is a lot to internalize in this, it beckons several reads. My favourite part is this;
ReplyDelete"The piers of your submerged legs
root in sand, shadow ripple
with pulsestrokes
of her quick algae fingers,
spasm in the whipwire strands
of her jellyfish hair."
I also read your new comment policy, and I have to agree with you (some of it I chuckled at as well). I am not quite awful about reading other people when they are not at the same prompt as me.
Thanks for your support,
Pamela
Thanks, pamela. I'm pretty awful myself..but I always enjoy your work when I am able to get out of my rut and visit.
DeleteOh my, yes, wow. The layers and nuance here are masterful. The mystery if endless, just like that ocean. Fabulous.
ReplyDeleteWow - this is just wonderful, Joy. So many lines and images that are beautiful in sound quality as well as image - some that come to even my addled memory - the two and the turquoise, the caped kelp - storm wrecked meals - I'm trying to do this from memory - the prism'd silver bringing back the mirror, the over the shoulder, vermilion land breeze, the kneeling the wet, the spasming, the jelly fish hair and the fingers - were they what was spasming - the last addiction and the legs in the sand - some weird idea of Atlas or Colussus comes to mind here (a wreck though sure enough) - the unclocked heart - flush of life and sea wall - the sense of serving in a very deep and servile way and yet surviving. It's very poignant - the whole issue of one's last - all that kind of comparison as well as the end of things - and then, too, comes the idea of what's made to last and what just isn't or doesn't. You read it beautifully also. k. (ps - love that pic at the top especially.) k.
ReplyDeleteThanks, k--yes I got lucky finding that one on flick'r. It looked like an eye to me, or maybe a disintegrating dried up spider, like you sometimes find in old corners(at least in my house.Not exactly an obsessive cleaner.) Glad you enjoyed the reading...there are some I really think benefit from it.
DeleteBrilliant. The mirror answers back--or what's in the mirror answers back, or, or, or... Yes, this must be read multiple times (and still I do not fathom it all, but that is part of its brilliance). If I stare long enough...perhaps...I don't really know...
ReplyDeleteBrilliant.
Thank you, ds--some say mirrors are portals to another dimension--they certainly can make you think.
Delete
ReplyDeletetruly scrumptious to my hedge hungry mind bite . . .
its a your thing - distinctive, standout
exclusive in the delivery . . .
getting that feeling like i'm looking
at a negative but getting the whole picture
Man Ray without the misogyny
. . .
your reading - the delectable twist in
the finale, screws the entirety to
the ocean floor
Thanks Arron--yeah the negative invert on the photo was my little hint of DaDa. Yours this week blew me away--yet again--a piece of cosmic fluff on that dark wave you put out.
DeleteSomething in there was incredibly sexy, vibrant....... and it snuck up on me.... That is truly artistry with words.....
ReplyDeleteonly eyeless ocean gumming and
ReplyDeletesucking, kelp caped over
her grey meals of
storm served wrecks.
...love this imagery. A fantastic weave of a piece.
"How...unclock the ticking heart from the bramble thicket moment" is one of the best lines I have ever read. Wowzers, kiddo.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sherry. You are a wonderfully supportive reader and I appreciate it much.
Deletei really enjoy when you do a reading!
ReplyDeletethought provoking in the first, pulse quickening in the second verse. love the sensuality.
♥
I am tided and sated.
ReplyDeleteI like the framing of the poem, side by side, as if a mirror from different perspective ~ I must say though that the second stanza is beautifully done ~
ReplyDeleteWonderful write. Love the imagery of knowing yet not knowing someone.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful composition. I love the way it begins..."I think you were my last..."...quite evocative. The sea brings out so much, the rhythm anfd the reflections...like the physical manifestation of poetry itself. I admire this one much, friend.
ReplyDeletereflected images... unreliable... really, not knowing is made substantial. The paradox of that is explored wonderfully in this piece, Joy.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting poem. I liked the dueling right and left justified stanzas and was curious to whom the poem was addressed (then I realized that “mirror” made the answer obvious). You chose beautiful paintings to go with it.
ReplyDeleteIn my mirror
I see her image
A thousand times
Btw, I read your comment policy and liked it. I still appreciate even quick, superficial comments on my site, but in a way I’d rather they not feel forced to write something. Sometimes I visit a site and like what I read, but not know what to say and it’s perfectly fine if somebody feels that way after reading my work. Also, no shame in doing the best you can and no more, we all have busy lives. Some weeks are busier than others, and sometimes you’re on a tear or in a rut. That’s just how it goes.
Thank you. I of course appreciate people reading, and if all they have time to leave is a quick comment some days, I'm fine with that. I also often feel similarly rushed and totally understand. It's just the routine pursuit of comments for comments sake that wears me out. It isn't the length of the comment, it's the connection, or lack of it. I agree completely with you about that 'forced' feeling, also. Thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts.
DeleteI love these gorgeous and creative lines from section one:
ReplyDelete"unlock the cipher,
unclock the ticking heart"
"eyeless ocean gumming and
sucking, kelp caped over
her grey meals"
And then I read the second half, at which point my jaw dropped lower and lower with each new line until I heard a pop and had to close my mouth at last.
That was very steamy up until the ending, which was just painful to read. Such shatter of spirit to watch your love with someone else, particularly if she is the last rather than you ... and also particularly if you're watching the one who was meant to be your last.
This whole section was unbelievably intense:
"two
walking in turquoise, smell
of vermillion landbreeze blowing
at the back of your new addiction.
I see her kneel and go
wet, make you rock,
medusa'd to your concrete core"
I love the completely new way you've described the oldest act in the book. What a way to end, with a hard, cold heart entranced by a mythological creature. Isn't that how it goes? She isn't real, not the way he sees her anyway.
I have to say I thought at first this was over my head, but when i read it again, I found it enticing with such perception...will you be my teacher? ;)
ReplyDeleteYour reading of this poem is perfection...and I find that my reading and hearing you read is almost like two dimensions against each other....your reading is masterful..something I can not do with my own offerings.
ReplyDeleteSuch a haunting poem, Joy. But then again, I find everything you write to haunt me...and that is, to me, a mark of a master poet.
You constantly take me into other, unknown, or unseen, worlds.
Brava!
Jane
I love the duality of the mirror image. It seems to separate time, and place. It gives the poem a dream-like quality. The layers of ambiguity are in place yet so translucent as to allow us to see and even experience them without quite knowing what they mean. Unbelievable craftsmanship.
ReplyDeleteYou make it quite easy to get lost in "Mirror Dreams." Your words possess such a lovely and discriptive flow.
ReplyDelete"Medusa'd to your concrete core." Now that's a brutally honest description of this heartbreaker. And yet, there's a softness in your writing, your images. You are a wonder. Amy
ReplyDeletehttp://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/09/14/black-sheep-a-tale-of-three-sisters/