Snake Smoke
An eye is a window,
a window an eye.
I can't tell you any more
so don't ask me.
A promise is a lie,
a lie is a promise;
curling smoke from my pipe,
a snake climbing air.
Chaos the white bride
for a bridegroom of money,
worst man holds the ring.
Priest eats the flower girl.
A promise is a lie,
a lie is a promise;
snake smoke from my pipe,
a garotte made of air.
A marriage is a funeral,
a funeral a marriage.
I can't talk now
I'm late for the wedding.
September 2021
posted for Fireblossom
Note: Yes, it's a cigar, not a pipe. Poetic license.
Images: Wind From The Sea, © Andrew Wyeth, 1947 Fair Use
Photo of Lakeith Stanfield, author unknown via internet Fair Use
Ay. That last line packs a wallop, dear BFF. I love the stanzas about the smoke. In a way this poem sounds to me like something I would write myself, but it has your inimitable stamp of course. Also, I'm glad someone chose this image to write for. Everyone seems to like the Alan Rickman one best. Thanks for making my week at Muse complete by joining in!
ReplyDeleteThank you Shay, for hosting, for reading, and for comparing anything I might write with something you might use your gift to express. This was my favorite of the pics--he looks like some hipster professor to me, ;_)
DeleteHe really doe, doesn't he? I thought it was a very cool shot. Glad you used it!
Delete"A snake climbing air" ... love that metaphor! Magic stuff here.
ReplyDeleteI adore this poem and the swirling around of truths from both sides! I too love this image but your poem for it is spectacular! I am always delighted when you join us at the Muse Joy!!
ReplyDelete"Chaos the white bride" -- Oooh! So good! And "worst man holds the ring" - wonderfully unexpected. But "a garrote made of air" for a promise/lie, is top drawer. Leaves me choking on metaphor.
ReplyDeleteThe A. Wyeth art is perfect ... "I can't talk now I'm late for the wedding" ~~~ EPIC end.
ReplyDeleteAlways be wary of a forked tongue! The smoke seems to have a life of its own, like the curtains in Wyeth's painting.
ReplyDeleteMost promises I don't think start out as a lie but many certainly end up there.
ReplyDeleteTHIS,
Chaos the white bride
for a bridegroom of money,
worst man holds the ring.
Priest eats the flower girl.,
SAYS IT ALL.
Promises and deceptions..aw shit!
anyway...
Years and years ago a Wyeth show came to the Detroit Institute of Art. Loved what we unloaded and hung but my god!!! I think he painted on concrete because all of his paintings were measured buy the pound. The largest of them took a crane and 6 men.
Ha! I didn't know that about Wyeth. Makes it even more cool, though, to know he used that kind of scale. The well-known painting by Seurat at the Art Institute of Chicago called Sunday Afternoon on the Grand Jatte used to bowl me over every time I saw it--it's 6 feet by 10 and takes up an entire wall. I feel for the muscles involved, but that kind of size does make a painting unique and impressive. Thanks for coming by and reading, Mark.
DeleteHey Joy, sorry for the radio silence. Life reared up, stomped, and kicked *hard* with her rear hooves with my head in the way. Haven't felt much poetic. So it goes.
ReplyDeleteHow you couple the opposites - a song, a refrain and response, as it were - makes me sip my whiskey in appreciation, and a toast ~
this is excellent joy, love the way the poem snakes around back and forth, up and down, truth and lie, all in the air, no solid ground. i could quote the whole thing, every word was perfect. and i love the ending, or lack there of "sorry, got to go...) makes the motion feel perpetual, never ending. love this joy, very well done
ReplyDelete