Rock me to sleep across the Styx until the boatman holds my cradle;
a sun point in the distance calls us all.
We’ll wander white fields of smoke and dust
while congregations of snow blow like low-flying angels around our feet.
We want to touch that sun;
but we cannot lay holy man hands on it until we
shed our bodies like bad dirt.
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Tag Archives: Rimbaud
February 2010 Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge Poem #5: The Devotee
Midnight. I trace the borders of this town with my two feet
under a blanket of stars. Darkness clings to me,
washed away by scattered pairs of headlights
shining like broken beads spilled onto the road
and rolling past me as I walk. August smells like
spent bonfires coughing up their burnt wood ghosts and
warm rain spilling its heavy and humid funk onto
dirt and concrete. I am naked; I am wet;
but I don’t care.
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February 2010 Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge Poem #4: You Don’t See It
You don’t see it, but some days
I drag moonlit danger behind me like a veil of milky dust
casting itself off of my crown. I balance
armies of fire on the backs of my arms and
use them for wings. I hear
the stars rubbing their legs together for the want of music
and hanging gold fiddled notes on Venus’ earlobes. They
chime, making love in the solar wind.
I strap bass lines onto my back;
wrap chain mail angels around my chest;
strap thunderclouds to the soles of my feet;
and I dance.
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February 2010 Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge Poem #3: Delirium
This is my third piece for the February 2010 Mini-Challenge over at Read Write Poem. This month’s challenge directed us to gather a poet’s work around us, pull out or underline lines we really liked, and then construct at least two centos, or patchwork poems (one each on days one and two, of course) from those lines. On day 3, we have the option of either writing another cento or parting ways with the lines and writing our own poems based on or inspired by our chosen poet.
I chose to do another cento using Arthur Rimbaud’s lines.
And you can read all of my February Mini-Challenge Poems here.
-Nicole
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I have swallowed a fabulous dose of poison. On my
hospital bed, an overpowering smell of incense wafts over me:
guardians of the holy oil, confessors, martyrs. I have a
pillow over my mouth, they can’t hear me, they’re
phantoms. I’m no longer in the world; life’s clock
has stopped. Yes indeed, I’ve shut my eyes
against your light;
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February 2010 Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge Poem #2: The Prophet
This is my second piece for the February 2010 Mini-Challenge over at Read Write Poem. This month’s challenge directed us to gather a poet’s work around us, pull out or underline lines we really liked, and then construct at least two centos, or patchwork poems (one each on days one and two, of course) from those lines. On day 3, we have the option of either writing another cento or parting ways with the lines and writing our own poems based on or inspired by our chosen poet.
I chose Arthur Rimbaud.
And you can read all of my February Mini-Challenge Poems here.
-Nicole
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I have a horror of all trades. In my vision I saw
a million charming creatures moving in time to
beautiful church-music, Power and Peace, noble ambitions, and
lord knows what. These, it was promised, would
bury the tree of good and evil in absolute darkness, would
banish despotic proprieties, freeing us to love purely
in the pure land. It’s the vision of numbers; eternity, the
shoreless ocean in the sun.
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February 2010 Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge Poem #1: The Fire This Time
This is my first piece for the February 2010 Mini-Challenge over at Read Write Poem. This month’s challenge directed us to gather a poet’s work around us, pull out or underline lines we really liked, and then construct at least two centos, or patchwork poems (one each on days one and two, of course) from those lines. On day 3, we have the option of either writing another cento or parting ways with the lines and writing our own poems based on or inspired by our chosen poet.
I chose Arthur Rimbaud.
And you can read all of my February Mini-Challenge Poems here.
-Nicole
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The epic of a madness. Ecstasy, nightmare, sleep, in a
nest of flames. I summoned pestilence so I could choke on
sand, on blood. I buried the dead in my bowels. I’ve got a
taste for almost nothing anymore but dirt and stones. Feed on
broken bricks, on bits of scree and the old stones in churchyards; I have
faith in poison.
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