Litany to a Melancholic
This poem was written for Read Write Poem Prompt # 105: Borrowed Words.
NEW! You can listen to this poem on Gabcast.
The words led me to write a poem involving one of my hometowns, Middletown, Ohio. One of my goals for 2010 is to finish a small book of poems about the small town, especially those that were formed and/or grew as the result of manufacturing plants. The poems strung together will tell the story of the town through the eyes of a few key characters. This poem will (hopefully) end up in that book.
So here you go. And as always, enjoy.
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Forget that the moon is sliced by the
violence of wire smiles that dangle from
pole to pole. I know you – you notice
these things. Like how
each telephone pole itself is a
victim of modern slaughter, their dead, polished wooden husks
standing on display like
conquered corpses to line this
backwoods Appian Way. Like how
the stalks of corn bend their backs in
submission to the wind and nod their spiked blond heads
towards the city – and you might think
that they are saluting the concrete, iron, and glass supremacy
from which we have just emerged. And like how
even this car seems to intrude this last patch of pastoral
with a certain violence, sounding out its
lustful pleasure from the act in every darkened direction
with its steady libretto of
metal-and-gasoline roar. Forget all of
that. We are newborns here.
And as we silence the engine and leave
this metal-on-wheels cocoon
resting on a square of asphalt, I want you to
see. See how neglect cradles the
trees in her arms, cares for them with the
fecund earth beneath our feet. See how
meteors made the moon beautiful, giving her
darkened eyes that cast water back and forth
from shore to shore. And see
this clearing, as we enter its heart
and pierce the flocculent shadows and velvet
black sitting in taciturn, holy observation and
casting curtains in the air and onto
the floor. Here is an altar, dappled with dirt and
pine needle glory. Here is a
hidden house of God. And
here is
one more place for you that is
unspoiled, just outside the borders of
human hands. You misanthrope. You quote
Ginsberg and Blake like your own breath yet you
hate those flesh souls cradled by the arms of this
earth. You scream about the
legalese bubble that allows the steel mill
sitting inside the town that birthed us in our teenaged frenzy
to puke and shit its
blast furnace, tiny shrapnel, and chemical-and-fire effluence
around it in a self-righteous fountain –
yet you forget
that we are just as much holy as we are the
monstrous hands that created these
metal-and-Moloch giants. You forget
that this life is a tightrope walk on the
thin line where yin and yang meet and that
we wear god and devil masks by turns. You forget
that existence
is an uneasy truce.
Now, put away your cynic’s armor, that
suit of tarnished gray that you paint
with stolen colors – blue, indigo, and violet –
from the dark half of the poet’s rainbow. That suit
of fig leaf that can never hide your longing, your own
shame. That suit that you put on
when you cast the entire world as giants –
and you stand,
dwarf and raging,
with a wet fire in your breast,
and you scream, yet thinking
that your words languish, lying beneath the whispers
of a grasshopper.
And take. Take this holy ground. Take
the needles below your feet. Take
the moon, that ancient lady bruised in her infancy. Take
that handful of metal shavings that you
found fresh at your doorstep before the morning light. And take
the flame from that steel mill smokestack torch that
beacons our town’s name and fame, slapping the night
with a single eye of fire. Take it
all together, and understand that
green can always grow beside the gray. But
I ask you one last question:
how can you grasp that green
if you never bother to open your hands?
Written 12/14/09 and 12/15/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
NEW
This was powerful with excellent imagery.
Hi Nicole,
So much rich language and imagery again:’flocculent shadows and velvet black’, ‘metal-and-Moloch giants’. Also ‘steel mill smokestack torch’ being a tiny part of the entire final stanza that I particularly like.
Damn… right from the beginning with the “wire smiles” to the end with the “slapping the night with a single eye of fire” (and particularly the “dark half of the poet’s rainbow” in between), this caught me and swept me up and wouldn’t let go. I really hope you put together an entire book of work like this, because then I will be scrambling to obtain it.
This piece tells a story I recognize. Wonderfully done.
“meteors made the moon beautiful” …so true. Lovely work.
Nicole,
I really like the unflinching style you use here. It reminds me in the passion of its conviction and honest comparisons (e.g. decadent Rome and its crucifixions and the dead phone poles) though not in any derivative sense with Philip Levine and his poems about Detroit and the auto factories. I also really like your use of the imperative, the directed speech to a “you” and finally the appeal to the sacred.
This is a truly marvellous poem Apart from the powerful vivid imagery what impresses me the most is the musicality of the verse
Only a few can achieve this and you are one who can.
I like the poem’s respect for the concrete and steel and how the pastoral and poetic can somehow merge with it.
I admire your ability to create clear pictures of both the town and the person addressed by the speaker. The language of this held me from beginning to end. I think it will be a wonderful addition to any book of poetry.
It is so rich that you included a wordle prompt poem into this over arching project. These words grip, hold and don’t let go. Fantastic word weaving.
Nicole, your poetry always challenges me – such strong images, such deep waters you lead us through!
I was blown away by these lines:
And as we silence the engine and leave
this metal-on-wheels cocoon
resting on a square of asphalt, I want you to
see. See how neglect cradles the
trees in her arms, cares for them with the
fecund earth beneath our feet.
Wow! The poem is powerful both in the imagery you use and the phrases. I think it is riveting from beginning to end! Engaging, Thank you for sharing this.
Such powerful images. I like how you force us to consider strange, juxtapositions, contradictions, how things came to be, and the truces we all make to live in a modern, industrialized world (though some of us have the luxury of enjoying factory fruits without having the factories in our backyards). This line is one of my favorites: “Like how each telephone pole itself is a victim of modern slaughter”
I’m posting my poem drafts on a new password protected blog: http://www.poems.elizabethenslin.com. Feel free to email me if you’d like the password.
for sure powerful…..and great imagery
from Therese — I agree with all praise above. Powerful forward motion, strong voice, inventive images. This poem is an uneasy truce itself — between what’s holy and what’s ruined. The moon as a lady bruised in infancy is great! So is the wonderful combination of green/grey — a kind of muted truce between life and death, growth and decay. Nicely done!