McCarra/Poetry
When We Still
once upon a time, when we still
believed in happy endings, the ice
cracked beneath our boots in the
parking lot, spring still to come, those
flowers garlanded through your hair
and your voice so far, so far away
and fading away as if caught and
carried by the wind, scrambling your
syllables as the tines of the fork thrust
through the stew, vegetable matter chopped
none too fine, yet we shall not
choke, I think
the three wishes given and gone, the
finger pricked, used to pen some
scarlet script, a crimsoned syllabus
brightening her eyes, cheeks rosered
lilywhite by turns
Alpha and Omega
In the beginning, when all was new,
and you and I and the green shoots
looked up at the sun, there
was no need to jockey for position,
snarling at this one, spitting at the
other, smearing and slandering all
the day long, the hecklers from
the penny-seats, delighting in the
murky depths they could sink to, as
if a moray eel with razor-teeth, lurking
in the brackish waters, brother to that one
beneath the feet of a woman, crawling forever
upon his belly, lowest of the low, while
bully-boys clear the room with a cane,
rigging outcomes with a heavy hand,
laying the lies on, thick as buttercream
on teacakes studded with pretty pills.
still, my alpha and omega, as
the green leaves have changed to
scarlet-gold, crimsontipped, blood-orange, burning
up into the blueskies, flametrees flagrant, the
truth of the season shifting. The sky is
not black because someone says
it is so. I will believe
the evidence of
my eyes.
Triune Themed
morning, noon, and night these
three muses (Calliope, Erato, and
Thalia)
inspire new ways to utter those
three little words we let slip
after a late dinner and
too much wine, inspiring tercets in
triplicate, the three sandwiched sheets
of paper, carbon, and paper again
dusting fingers with soot, dust you are and
dust you will return to, so says Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, the triune
God blessed when the trifecta lines
your pockets with green, triple digits this
time and you bless the gods and
the muses three, informing your words, the
beginning, middle, and end of all our histories,
the love, loyalty, and friendship gold-emblazoned
upon your hand and heart
Night Missive
written to memory, in the dark, one letter at
a time, then separating phrases like
sheep from goats, wheat from chaff,
engaging in verbal
gymnastics, the turn of phrase to turn
the eye to the next page, and the next. Is
this chatter made up of the sparks from
stars? More likely from the thin strip of
gold where the door (nearly)
closes, a glimmer of brilliance, words, like pearls,
strung, one after another, amidst the
slumping shadows of upholstery, curtains,
clothing, the
clobber of an acquisitive nature.
tomorrow: to seek out the blue box
mushroomed at a corner, or mid-block,
brighter than their green, stolid cousins,
squat above a slab of concrete.
see here: the rain, puddled, magnifies the
words, those restrictions on weighty
prattle, tied in brown paper and twine,
destined for pawing by a thick-fingered
clerk in baby blue, hazardous words indeed
At Sixes and Sevens
ah, the rivulets of tea streaming from
upended crockery, the jam
smeared, half upon the toast
and half upon the cloth, the boiled
eggs ill-timed and runny,
all at sixes and sevens, both as
cross as two sticks, so she says
let’s close our eyes, dear,
and start again, afresh,
before we espy the
sun peering through those
bare branches, spindly and austere
in silent disapproval
The Orchestra Tunes Up
discordant tones merge into
one seamless melody, the
pitching strains
woven together tightly, stitches
in a jumper, head pushed through
the neckhole as if being
born again, hair askew, tempest
tossed as if blown by sea
winds, the melodies borne
along by night air, buffeted
and shaped by darkening clouds,
rough to make smooth
Herringbone Dyed and Spun
flecked with the colors of seafoam and
darkening skies, herringbone dyed and spun,
capacious pockets that held
sweets, before they were scattered, like
rain, for grandchildren to find (what wonders that
coat held) redolent of pipe smoke twisting
up on chill afternoons, fragrant-sweet,
blue furled up to cloud-thick skies.
buttons, like eyes, glint, a
winking as he walked the miles to town, hard
to keep up with his long stride, though
they did their best,
fabric tightly woven, stamped with orb
and cross, edges bound fast,
shield against cold and damp,
surely magical, even in frightening the
scavengers of the field, this
scarecrow in his Sunday best
Mirrored
perched on an indigo banquette in a
mirrored corner, a neat figure
is reflected multiply as
she peers into the oval
of a smoothgold compact, sees the
strangeness, the sleek whorls of
a new coiffure, medusa-like, heavily
lacquered, and jewellery
jangles as she paws through
her handbag for match and
cigarette, inhales, exhales,
looks through the looking-glass
into worlds ever receding away,
distant reflections, so many of
her, so many it tires her,
it tires her,
the same face, the self-same words,
over
over
over
may I take your order?
Heel of the Loaf
smeared with clots of
blackcurrant, riven by
silvered flash of butter
knife dragged across
this odd endment, the
heel of the loaf, least
preferred of all, square
of sustenance, staff of
life, give to us our
daily
bread, not the stones
we choke on, or those
beneath thin-soled shoes,
navigating the gravel of a
driveway as the music
dies down, picking steps
carefully in moonlight, belle
of the ball no longer, the
clock gone twelve and
that ancient moon looming down
Billet-doux
bundled into a packet,
ribbon-tied, my worn edges
bump up against some neatly folded
patterned squares of silk
I imagine unfurled,
knotted round her neck,
a thin (but surprisingly warm),
barrier against the cold.
I warmed her, once, on the
coldest days she endured, her
eyes alight as they traced
each word, whispering them
aloud so that I, too, could
hear them, the sloping scripts,
the twists and curlicues in
black on white as ink
on snow and my words wait,
for her,
forever
Golden Apples
three golden apples gleaming
on their silver bough
weigh him down, lighter, still,
than his usual, worldly burden
gods or men, the
tasks set to us are
to be completed, even
as we fly straight for the sun,
slaughter some beast, or
navigate some pitching sea, you—
tossed, a cork upon
waters thick with trouble—what
can we do, sometimes, except make
burnt offerings of the dinner and
light candles the next day?
Free As A
bird on a wire
chirping cheerily, oh
so cheerily through
the morning routines
espied through her
beadlike eyes glittering
over the yellow ribs
of the bus-tops gliding past
broken branches, the
sedans streaking past the
STOP signs, grinding against
the first frost—
with a free leg and a
fine day
shanks mare into town
Green, In Spite Of
at the edge of the
boneyard
green grows up,
unimpeded
unencouraged except
by occasional rains,
dew damping down those
stringy roots, the
shoots reflecting back
dullness of oxidation, redbrown
as bloodstains
vigorous, thickening, seeking
out the rays of the
sun, spreading out in
rude health, thriving amidst
a steady decrepitude,
breaking down, dying
all around, signage worn
away to a tracing, sun-
bleached
Turn the Page
turn the page and there
he is, eternal wunderkind,
all mouth and no trousers, in
a four-color spread tipped into
the Sunday magazine,
declaiming over his collection
of antique silver salad forks, Adonis,
he of the chiseled brow and
blue eyes, head yet unbowed
turn.the.page
here she’s been since
six, juggling those golden apples
in some sort of circus act
approximating life—shot through,
like a Swiss cheese, Peckinpah-
style. she uses the streams to
write everything down, an
undercurrent of voice below the
others, narrator
keeping everything aloft in spite of
(because of?) her increasing
invisibility (her next power) as
she sees all
she hears all
and
writes it all down
Light on Bloodorange
light strains through
a pane onto the
bloodorange, smoothed
wheat colors, sleek grains, sun
magnifying head through
transparency, and we
ants under the curving glass,
enlarged, our mandibles
grasping and reflexing over
crumbs, watching the play of
shadows (while
one wrenches one of their six legs off and
uses it to beat another,
all the while howling “I
am the most virtuous ant
of all!) grimacing at the
most recent stain upon the
sidewalk, hoisting glasses to
our lips, brushing a spray
of sandy sweet grains from
wood bleached pale
and he calls her by the name of another
and she starts and says—yes,
love comforteth like sunshine
after rain and light
streams
in silent confirmation
Plain Oatmeal Porridge
(Not Oatmeal Deluxe)
half-cup measure old-fashioned
cut oats, one tablespoon of
fine white sugar into the steaming
copper-bottomed pot (one cup water)
splash of milk
stir-STIR-stir,
brisk tines beating through
the thickness of it,
crown with brown
sugar to melt into
puddles of sweet
one once penned
an oatmeal poem—
creating a woman of
the stuff—I have not
his mystical
magic, alas and alack,
with cereal grains
but mine will yet
warm the core, to
be sure a
coarser trick
Mudlarks at Midday
incidental music of cutlery
upon china, we trawl through
our meal, speaking of the
history buried in riverbeds,
thick sediments unearthed by
mudlarks, the particular resonance of
some items, some
words,
reverberating within the
hush of just-afternoon,
white-aproned waiters preparing
for the caterwauling evening
to come, everlastingly arranging glassware
(chink, clink, chink)
each memory an artifact
safely stowed away, a
polished stone, the green jagged
glass, the dagger obscured
by rust, the curved tab from a
fizzy drink, fit to slice a finger
gleam of silverware against
hemstitched squares in the half-light,
condensation beading upon the glass, the
insistent writing upon the world, I,
once was here
A Withering
too soon, too soon, the bloom shrivels
on the bough,
icy breath of winter
sending a chill down
the spine, longing for
the warming green of
long May days entwined, sinuous,
heat of June wreathing
round, the conflagrations
of July compete with
fireflies darting
through the sweet fug of
honeysuckle thick along
the road, fragrance, in memory,
forever, though
the flower withers
What Words, These
what words, these, emblazoned
upon cardstock or upon
muslin, framed and hung
what happy we, what
thankful we, holding
hands beneath garlanded
tables, unseen, surprised
by joy, shocked at that
this world may yet reveal
In Every End
in every end some
beginning, the boots forced
across the threshold,
hayfoot, strawfoot, all
the way into town, the
trees receding behind
one until, in caverns
of brick and cement
an end plonked on
a chair, better to
survey the scene while
coffee-drinking,
words thrust through the
air as arrows, some
missing their target
entirely. No matter.
in the end what will
remain of us except the
rapid-fire of synapses, one
after the other, an endless
looping of recollection
Source:
http://mccarra--poetry.blogspot.com/2019/12/twenty-poems-november-2019.html