an older poem revisited… enjoy! happy friday~
On my back- Ceiling Fan Above
http://www.presssendpoetry.com/2010/03/on-my-back-ceiling-fan-above.html
Category: poem
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remembering…."on my back, ceiling fan above"
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IF
if our whole lives
spun off like a voyager into
the deepest frozen
fingers of spacei would still… i still would
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Burial Rites on White Island Volcano (haibun)
The way the sulfur burns our throats on this molten prison
This smoking island “it can’t possibly be worth it” digging
Yellow neon sweating rock – but oh how on some sun-filled days
The deep water around us seems gentle and free and how the birds
May have returned to say goodnight as we settle in, bones aching
From hard labor, our feet covered in volcanic dust, our nostrils
Burnt with the sulfur, oh it is ungodly quiet when we settle in to sleep,
It is quiet when the lahars bury us at sea….End of days foretold
swiftly the darkness becomes
a light to walk towards.[written about the the White Island volcano in New Zealand: “Attempts were made in the mid 1880s, 1898–1901 and 1913-1914 to mine sulphur from White Island but the last of these came to a halt in September 1914, when part of the western crater rim collapsed, creating a lahar which killed all 10 workers. They disappeared without trace, and only a camp cat survived.”]
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Brush with Greatness (Tanka)
Skin of a bumble
bee like 1,000 year old
spider web fuzz, say
“please come back” to your own taut
trembling hand, trapped and waiting.
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Impound Lot (tanka)
Carcasses of metal
like skulls dried by time
all abandoned –
with voodoo, souls throw
chicken bones in the dirt.
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The Silver Fish by Shawn Pittard (guest)
Really enjoyed the poem below ~ hope you do as well!
American Life in Poetry: Column 380
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Lots of contemporary poems are merely little personal anecdotes set into lines, but I prefer my
anecdotes to have an overlay of magic. Here’s just such a poem by Shawn Pittard, who lives in
California.
The Silver FishI killed a great silver fish,
cut him open with a longthin knife. The river carried
his heart away. I took hisdead eyes home. His red flesh
sang to me on the fire I builtin my backyard. His taste
was the lost memory of mywildness. Behind amber clouds
of cedar smoke, Oriondrew his bow. A black moon rose
from the night’s dark waters,a sliver of its bright face
reflecting back into the universe.American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Shawn Pittard, from his most recent book of poems,
Standing in the River, Tebot Bach, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Shawn Pittard and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation
Contact: alp@poetryfoundation.org
This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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crosby stills and nash concert on the pier
Harmonies tightly weave as
thin clouds hula the moon tonight.
One crab, alone, swims like a small
girl dressed in white, spinning.
The old men on stage appear to be
apparitions from a past volant –
all long hair, flowers, and sweet blue eyes.
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Trans-lucent
i believe i’ve already died-
trans-luscent hands
hold blank pages
toss them wildly to an
invisible wind
passer-bys see only
thin papers
floating gently back
to Earth.
Poetry by JC Snyder 