So, without further ado, let's begin...
Caravan
You always come
with summer
heat's blue anvil, the drought,
still
night's insect
pulse,
its glittering
banquet of stars; they seem
to pull your wagonload of wax dolls
and cheap mirrors like
gypsies' mismatched ponies,
with all your disarray of wares
spread like a fortune-teller's promise
on the frayed brown
velvet
wilderness
of your eyes.
~May 2018
Images: Encampment of Gypsies with Caravans, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh Public domain.
The Fortune Teller, 1933, (Georges) Brassai Fair use.
I sometimes wonder what the world was like, the same 24 hour days, but without electricity. What did those settlers think in the long nights of winter. What did the natives see in night skies unlittered with light, in days without clocks. And then came the wares-bringer, with wheels, those harbingers of civilization: speed of transit. When we can move fast.... well, we can move faster than we planned.
ReplyDeleteI have a pair of 55's this week, as we watch this brief experiment in democracy unwind.
mine
<a href="https://grapeling.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/where-we/>where we</a>
Hope you have a kick-ass weekend, Hedge ~
Yes, until you're alone with the stars on a roadless wild plain, you don;t know alone, and what desperate measures, like suburbia, it will take to banish the whole concept...we run from solitude and hardship, only to create more comples versions of it, perhaps. Thanks for playing twice, M. Here is the correct link for your second
DeleteFutile though it may be, what I love about poetry is its refusal to let language sleep us, fluffing the magic carpet, perchance to dream ... Such a fine scrolling here of summer's advent in a caravan with all its knowns -- iota of sky and heat and drone and stars -- but that is just proscenium, for what is that behind and inside such comings, raising its curtain? Who are these dusky travelers with their primal wares? Are we watching or are they staring us down from some "fray brown wilderness" of "eyes"? Surprise and delight in such tried and true imagoes. So that's the mystery of summer icumen in. Scheherezade, thy boombox beat is 55 this day. Kick my ass from Friday to Monday. Bring it on.
ReplyDeleteI've been in silent seeps of late, alternating with futile scratching, but at least there's a name for it today:
https://blueoran.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/downside-the-fall/
Silent sleeps are sometimes a needful void. I have too many of them myself, but the alternative seems difficult as well. Still, the scratches come, and the far off music sounds in our increasingly hearing-impaired ears, and we follow the piping wherever it leads. Thanks for your kind words,B, and for playing despite the mess that works against it.
DeleteThere is not a wasted line in this, each one rewarding with image and sense (meant in both ways). You don't evoke the night and the heat and those that travel...the night and the heat and the path have descended into the breath and bones of every word here and inhabited them fully. This is to the general run of blog poetry what Ben & Jerry's is to a tepid glass of skim milk.
ReplyDeletePraise from you is praise indeed, dear friend. Thank you so much.
DeleteMine, dearie:
ReplyDeletehttp://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-other-sister.html
Out of the cosmos again. You are on SUCH a roll lately.
DeleteThanks for hosting another wonderful 55 Hedge - apologies, my head is splitting in 2 - so I'll be back when I can see/think clearly to comment -
ReplyDeletein the meantime, here's my 55 for this week -
https://papertiger88.blogspot.ca/2018/05/cooling-my-sex.html
A very warm 55, and some great cascades of imagery--glad you could play, and so sorry you feel like crap, dear. It happens, but it's no fun. BTW, effusive comments are not obligatory here, either. This is a no-strings prompt. :_)
DeleteFrom summer heat's blue anvil to the
ReplyDeletefrayed velvet wilderness of the fortune-teller's eyes....the image you paint is sublime.
Here's mine:
https://smellthecoffeeweb.com/2018/05/11/between-thoughts/
So glad you came out to play with us, Vivian.
DeleteYou are right. With all the stuff around us...lights, people, noise, information going 24/7, it is a wonder we even can think of the concept of silence. I too have been in the desert - alone - the mountains, the plains - even my back yard. I am sharing a nap from yesterday with you all today. I love your 55. I dreamed about my mother twonights ago. I couldn't find her name in the phone book and I couldn't remember our number to call her. I awoke in a cold sweat and finally took a nap during the middle of the day. It was just as lost, except for the lullaby of a cardinal.
ReplyDeleteDreams, songs, especially those endless calls of birds which a busy life fades out, are important to hold on to sometimes. Thanks for this moody 55, which made me feel as I also was in your nap, eyes closed, somewhere.
DeleteYou are always welcome to join me although sometimes the way is twisty.
Deletehttps://kanzensakura.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/nap/ oops!!! I forgot my link
ReplyDeleteGorgeous, Joy.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sherry.
DeleteSummer nights were often my salvation. I lived where there were few artificial lights to steal moon and stars from the view outside my window. This is beautiful. For me it is an ode to all we've lost by believing everything electric makes us civilized.
ReplyDeleteHere is my 55.. https://blackinkhowl.blogspot.com/2018/05/cinnamon-truth.html
I also have seen night as a salvation--when it wasn't a torment of nightmares and doubts. Solitude works both ways, I suppose. Loved your potent 55.
DeleteYour poem makes me think of the Gypsies' arrival in Macondo, in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Of the way their tents and colors and ice and truths and trickery both disrupted the town and opened the eyes of the people to new things, and to old things they were no longer seeing.
ReplyDeleteThe mirrors and the "fortune-teller's promises" makes me think of today--smoke and mirrors every where, so many words full of nothing...
Your chosen images are perfect, too. I love how the second image dances so well with the last few lines.
Thanks for your insight, Magaly, and the very flattering comparison. There is something about gypsies, isn't there?
DeleteThe 55 is closed for this week. Thanks to all who make it memorable, and see you next Friday.
ReplyDelete