Poem-a-day
May. 18th, 2023 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormSo I've posted 30 poems now, plan to continue going until the 29th-ish anyhow.
#28 Global warming as a failure of relationship II
She comes through your window more insistently now
Even at night,
Even when you try to sleep
At first you barely noticed
But now you toss and turn in the heat
Or huddle against the storm.
In the past you could walk away from your history
Or so you thought
As you walked away from so many things:
Homes,
People,
Jobs,
Social roles,
Your own parents, who failed
As you now fail
In responsibilities.
You buy an air conditioner to drown her out
But it only grows worse
Locked doors,
Sandbags stockpiled against a flood,
A case of water in the basement
Eventually none of it can ease your mind.
For both of you it started so beautifully,
With curiosity,
Each revelling in the beauty and strangeness of the other.
That’s what first love is like
Never giving a realistic thought to the times to come
Instead daydreaming of golden days together
Full of sparkling brooks and green trees
And ignoring logistics.
She never stopped giving: it was you who took her for granted.
Now the honeymoon is over
The bees are all dying
And so in turn the flowers die
And the feasts languish.
You alternate between “how dare she” and “if I had only known…?”
But it was your attention that was lacking
Slipping away into navel-gazing
It’s a shame: she fashioned you so marvellously well
And still the love is there, buried now on both sides
In a myriad of slights and indifferences.
Sometimes in your dreams,
Tossed in those sleepless hot nights
Or in silent moments waiting for a storm
You think to go to her, apologize,
Maybe even make it right
And sometimes you try for a day.
She always accepts you, but always
It is too hard,
She wants commitment
But it’s complicated
Your attention wavers,
You go back home
Go back to your life
And you try shutting the window this time.
#29 Global Warming as Failure of Relationship
Not sister, not brother
Not child, not mother
Not friend, not lover
Not self nor other
Still and always together
Can’t know it through books
Can’t know it by looks
Nor by new-age crooks
Hiding in nooks
Till the atmosphere cooks
You can’t learn, your concern
Won’t discern. You reaffirm
You must earn.
Though you yearn
Still it burns
Spurning you in return.
#30
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings fire when I’m cold
And cradles me against darkness.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has been so steadfast
No human has withstood
No human has accepted
No human has alchemized
This essential core of storms that threatens
Threatens
Threatens
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings rest after summer
And wakens me to beauty.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has withstood
Just stood
Threatened
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It supports grief after loss
And spring after winter.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has accepted
Me
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings space after connection
And connection after
Alchemy after
No human
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
#28 Global warming as a failure of relationship II
She comes through your window more insistently now
Even at night,
Even when you try to sleep
At first you barely noticed
But now you toss and turn in the heat
Or huddle against the storm.
In the past you could walk away from your history
Or so you thought
As you walked away from so many things:
Homes,
People,
Jobs,
Social roles,
Your own parents, who failed
As you now fail
In responsibilities.
You buy an air conditioner to drown her out
But it only grows worse
Locked doors,
Sandbags stockpiled against a flood,
A case of water in the basement
Eventually none of it can ease your mind.
For both of you it started so beautifully,
With curiosity,
Each revelling in the beauty and strangeness of the other.
That’s what first love is like
Never giving a realistic thought to the times to come
Instead daydreaming of golden days together
Full of sparkling brooks and green trees
And ignoring logistics.
She never stopped giving: it was you who took her for granted.
Now the honeymoon is over
The bees are all dying
And so in turn the flowers die
And the feasts languish.
You alternate between “how dare she” and “if I had only known…?”
But it was your attention that was lacking
Slipping away into navel-gazing
It’s a shame: she fashioned you so marvellously well
And still the love is there, buried now on both sides
In a myriad of slights and indifferences.
Sometimes in your dreams,
Tossed in those sleepless hot nights
Or in silent moments waiting for a storm
You think to go to her, apologize,
Maybe even make it right
And sometimes you try for a day.
She always accepts you, but always
It is too hard,
She wants commitment
But it’s complicated
Your attention wavers,
You go back home
Go back to your life
And you try shutting the window this time.
#29 Global Warming as Failure of Relationship
Not sister, not brother
Not child, not mother
Not friend, not lover
Not self nor other
Still and always together
Can’t know it through books
Can’t know it by looks
Nor by new-age crooks
Hiding in nooks
Till the atmosphere cooks
You can’t learn, your concern
Won’t discern. You reaffirm
You must earn.
Though you yearn
Still it burns
Spurning you in return.
#30
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings fire when I’m cold
And cradles me against darkness.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has been so steadfast
No human has withstood
No human has accepted
No human has alchemized
This essential core of storms that threatens
Threatens
Threatens
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings rest after summer
And wakens me to beauty.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has withstood
Just stood
Threatened
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It supports grief after loss
And spring after winter.
Others speak of muses as fickle
But no human has accepted
Me
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
It brings space after connection
And connection after
Alchemy after
No human
It is the kindest of muses.
Solace, I call it.
