Sickening
"This sickness is not unto death" (John 11:4), and yet Lazarus died..."
~Søren Kierkegaard
The sky is a headache
and the wind a rash of clouds.
A fever burns in the sun
till its chattering teeth break.
Who will physic the moon
put it under the knife
cure this flea-bite plague of life
caught with no conscious intent
that infects the unprotected firmament?
~April 2013
Images: The Alpilles with Olive Trees in the Foreground, Old Man in Sorrow(On the Edge of Eternity) by Vincent Van Gogh
Public domain via wikipaintings. org
dang. wee bit gritty today eh? nice build in your word choice...the headache, rash, fever...kill it perhaps to staunch the spread..."where sickness thrives, bad things will follow" ~Gandalf
ReplyDeleteThis is my third time entering this comment - blogger does not like my iPad--and funnily I noticed your Steven's quote below about spreading the plague. So spread the good kind of plague not the flea-bite kind. A grim poem for Earth day month but well-realized. I have a soft spot for any poem that can use physic without sounding contrived. k.
ReplyDeleteThank you, k, for putting up with blogger's tantrums, and for taking the time to read and comment. I will switch back to allow anonymous commenting for awhile--the spam was getting awful but it's also entertaining--maybe that will help. Also want say how much I like your old blogger screen name. Outlier, outlaw and lawyer, all in one word box.
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DeleteThanks. That was my original intention, but then I did not want such a heavy shadow of my professional life. Even as is, it makes it a bit difficult. (It's more my own sense of it probably. The few clients that know of my blogging life are very sweet about it, but I sometimes have this image of certain other ones. Even though I never write of work, people don't like the idea of a loquacious attorney, I think.)
This just punches you in the gut. Brilliant writing, Hedge.
ReplyDeleteFantastic write, Joy. "The sky is a headache".....the unprotected firmament. Says it like it is.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the artworks preceded the poem, but your words have tapped directly into the mood they evoke, and turned paint strokes into a thought process. Excellent piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kerry. Poem preceded painting, though I think they are connected in my mind--this one came into my brain when I woke up this morning, and as I was writing it down, I thought of Vincent.
Deleteunprotected firmament sunk it in- irreversibly. all the symptoms of a kind of surrender to the unavoidable infection. short, strong writing, and as someone said above... this punches the gut. apt title and artwork enhance the sensations you evoke. I am happy to have your work to read while stretching myself to write daily. Thank you for your encouraging comments. They make the process much more do-able and definitely more fun.
ReplyDeleteGreat quote to get the ball rolling or stone pushing Sisyphus . . .
ReplyDeleteThe picture PO sandwich is a triptych of terror,
toned down just enough for human consumption . . . on first view -
but spend long enough with the three and understand that pale
this isn't but rather a harnessing of the horror . . .
of course I am projecting but if I wasn't then I wouldn't exist enough . . . when I was younger I thought I understood Vincent, being that I paint and share certain character traits but little did I know that age had to educate me in only the way that time can when pitted against the human body, gravity acts the innocent with its apparent weak force disguise but coupled with experience these things devastate humans (its what they do best((maybe by design)).
BUT
when I face it daily rather than hiding from its effects
and hold a mirror to its invisible actions I imagine I am showing it its own face and it becomes uncomfortable; only then, as it squirms with the disquiet of being sprung do I see its beauty
and love it like Vincent!
you make a rebel rise hedge :)
The sky is a headache
and the wind a rash of clouds
A fever burns in the sun
dusting everyone
life is an infection
So do you feel like this from writing a poem a day for 6 days in a row? I'm feeling it! You express it beautifully Joy. :o)
ReplyDeleteEqually superb as a stand-alone poem or as a commentary on the painting. This is one poem I really would have liked to have written.
ReplyDeleteThis is just so unrelievedly bleak, that the suggestion, at the end, of the sky's innocent vulnerability, just makes this really hard to read, for me. I don't mean from any technical aspect, but simply because it is so despairing, and because the author is someone dear to me.
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