Resurrection
Whose Eyes Are These? by Nicole Nicholson
This was written for two purposes: 1) for Read Write Prompt #70: In Your Face (poetry, that is), and 2) a personal project.
The personal project is to write one poem per day for Lent (excepting Sundays). To help myself out, I have been pulling lines from other people’s poetry to jump-start my own inspiration. The lines I used to jump-start this one come from Jim Morrison’s “Paris Journal”. You can check out more poems I’ve written like this by clicking here. And be sure that I’ll be posting more of these kinds of poems throughout the Lenten season.
Now, enjoy the poem.
-Nicole
———————————————
Tell them you came & saw
& look’d into my eyes
& saw the shadow
of the guard receding
- Jim Morrison
Darkness and storms in my eyes – but
I can see your windows clearly. So clearly, they
speak to me,
telling me of dreams pulverized – slapped
across the face, shoved face first into
dust, kicked until their bones cracked
and angels bled and cried for mercy on their
tortured behalf. And fantasies – drowned
until they died in twilight, exhaling gasps and then
nothing but a slow dying whimper. I know that
resurrection
is a tricky business – but you do it well. You’ve already
killed the guards. Shot down the first line
of the regiment and sent the others fleeing,
dropping bloodsteps dripping from arms
of your bullet wounds. Tracking blood away
from the scene in their scenic bootprints, which
look awful good up against the stark concrete
in your eyes. Now,
I see you,
with that sonic concrete in your eyes that
begs for garlands, rainbows, incense dying
to give birth to new life, and noise to fill
the empty echoes left behind inside your mind
by murdered hopes. Or better yet,
let’s rip up and banish
your concrete gulag
to some Hell
that not even Dante can reach by a nightmare’s
journey to paint for us in thirteenth-century
fire-and-brimstone colors. Let’s
tear it down,
for I’ve looked through your windows
and seen
that the shadow of the guard has
receded. Now let’s
roll away the stone
and get to work on your
resurrection.
Written 3/16/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
i like the exchange in this between turmoil and triumph. it’s a rich piece!
very interesting nicole… life gone bad, disappears and tries to come back clean… but then again, could not help but to note roll away the stone… is there something more hidden in the vision… it is good to see you back, thanks for stopping by and always a pleasure to stop, read and enjoy
I like the idea of emotional/mental barriers as concrete with guards, and the idea of tearing down such barriers. Nice one
This is so powerful. Such physical images of suffering with the possiblity of redemption and resurrection. I read it over a few times, and find it quite moving. A good Lent poem…
I’m not very religious (being a lapsed Catholic), religion is how I live my life and how I am to other people, but I must say this is beautifully written, you.