Fatal Charm
Untie the leaf and let it drop.
Shrivel each wing of the stuttering moth.
Shrink the sun, let loose the dark
to stripe the sky-beast's paneled heart
heavy with more than it can hold;
let the rain come hard and cold,
each death's-head drop a memoir told
of summer's wasting, long-winded decline.
Freeze the fruit and kill the vine
that can't be mine.
~September 2016
posted for real toads
Optional Musical Accompaniment
Image: Untitled, by Zdislav Beksinkski Fair Use
Fall Fade ©joyannjones 2014
Splendid and seasonal, the decay and rot, and that personal touch at the end, cursing of the fruit we cannot eat. And just the kind of chanting charm that make me spellbound.
ReplyDeleteYou use the imperative voice in such a gentle and authoritative manner, one is sure of the magic in the charm. The best part of the whole, for me, is they way you reveal in the final lines the purpose of the charm..a very personal need to avenge a broken heart. Your work is so strong.
ReplyDeleteNothing i can say is going to add or detract from this; it's perfect.
ReplyDeleteYup, perfect.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful yet disturbing - a broken heart
ReplyDeleteOut of the mouth of Winter herself! How I love this, Hedge. Of the earth, natural, alive in its need for death.
ReplyDeleteI'd be afraid to read this aloud and I'm only a muggle.
ReplyDeleteTried to post this earlier: To autumn, then, too Poe for Keats but true to season, time and paramourics. Stevens might have found language to be content that the vine was never ours--that's the supreme fiction--but his ideas of order are too pure for places like, well, 2016. The charm formula is impeccable, the weave of rhyme scant and close, the metrical bed unfailing and the lysis--"that can't be mine"--is fatal. I've lost almost all heart for online poetry, its all there is but it can't be (like all things digitally corrosive of expression), so what to do? Apologies for the fade, and always thanks for so many arch charms. Their portents brew lasting wonders.
ReplyDeleteI fear this reads more like a curse than a charm, yet like all poems of limited words, things can really be almost anything--perhaps the vine is more a strangling weed sown by a past self...who knows. I, too, am finding the online thing pretty empty, but where else does one put these things? Thanks for trying again--I know blogger doesn't make it easy.
DeleteI'm entranced by the smooth, melancholic tones in Autumn Leaves as I read this -- a gentle breaking in the rhythm of it as well in your bittersweet words. Heartbreaking and yet, somehow a comfort at the same time (this may be because I miss the Winter)..Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThe perfect charm for the coming season. My father didn't like the way the angle of the sun changed. He dreaded it.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is perfect. I can feel the white witch tapping her toe to it!
ReplyDeletewell, I think I completely missed the mark with mine. but it's good to feel up to reading again, and to read you, Hedge ~
ReplyDelete