Thursday, January 8, 2009

Where to Find Me

Southern pavement lined in detached stems of dry amber
The breeze and mellow hum of wood and bronze strings
Telephone wires trim midnight as the sky slowly edges left
Calming vibration on my back as my eyes peer up, my heart begins to slow
On the hood of my car, atop this mountain, kissed by the chilled air
Buttoned in silk and wool, as soft red tresses tinge my cheeks into shivering rouge
With black stained finger-tips, tracing the numberless dots above
And the still beady eyes singing that eerie song in his naked home
Stolen by the road that leads the way back to that small city below

Susie E.

01-08-09

2 comments:

Mark_W said...

Susie,

Happy New Year!

I really, really like this one: not least because, from an entirely personal and probably entirely different to what you had in mind point of view, it gets at (though in a much better and more skilled way) some of what I was trying to drive at in that "Cities" post I did a while back...

"The breeze and mellow hum of wood and bronze strings /
Telephone wires trim midnight as the sky slowly edges left"


This really makes the rhythms of the City (or town) and the gentle throb of it being "alive" sing, and I love the way the title links into that (bittersweet?) sense of belonging, despite being out among the stars. [What's the Don Henley line from " The End of the Innocence"? Somewhere back there in the dust / That same small town in each of us]

I was reminded (though I think you do it much better, to be fair) of Robert Rehder's poem "Entropy", which I (doubtless heretically) think ends up being an ultimately rather routine poem about Venice, but which, neverthesless, has one of the best couple of opening lines ever:

The stillness of the city floats on
Unending movement


I think the movements of the vibrations and the chilled air here evoke this much better than the canals of Venice that Rehder had in mind....

Anyway, nice one! :-)

Mark_W

Mark_W said...

PS - I love the new photos of London too....

Mark_W