(Juliane B.)
To waltz in place with you as a strangled lily,
in vertigo, is pointless.
Your diction’s purr laced over Victorian textiles;
a rorschach’s stubble in a voice box
each plot number counted
is watered by a scotch
turned to bleach.
A nerdy teenager faints in your graveyard.
I waited for you in the Sacred Heart,
a treehouse of bitten apples,
slimy second chances.
Your shadow fell in crooked
solitude, but never shone
through the stained glass
organ I played for you.
The snowbanks are bitten
with bile, and the room
for shadows is now
open on the starry canvas.
Now your sleep is the cocktail
a silent few sip,
laid out in neon,
the same old script
for after hours.
Comments
I truly enjoyed this poem. It
Wow! I truly enjoyed this poem. It was exciting to read and filled with arresting, original imagery and wording. I am truly startled, and awe struck by the line,
'A nerdy teenager faints in your graveyard'.
it is like a dream, and so, so vivid. I think I saw it so long ago. Was it me?
People here will probably tell you its nonsense, it isn't, its wonderful. You possess an original voice and that can't be learned. Thank you.
I agree with K.
The imagery is powerful. I hope you will consider joining Stan's upcoming workshop on imagery. Your input would be valuable..
Thank
you guys very much. No, never put this up before, this for a very superior poet who just died named Julianne Buschbaum. I'd recommend her work to anyone.
collage
I love the words and images, but as a collage of separate ideas.
My emotional response to these various images.,,the nerdy teenager, the snowbanks bitten with bile, a tree house of bitten apples...each of these create an emotional reaction but in the end I just really don't know what it all kinda meant...it all becomes gift wrapping but the I can't find what's in the box. Is it just the shock value of these unconnected images which create the meaning of the work? Like music of John Cage? Sadly I just don't "understand" this type of poetry, like looking at most abstract expressionist art...what is my reaction to composition of colors and shapes..."I like the reds and the yellow...?"
I will look up Julianne Buschbaum, and will continue to try and absorb the type of poetry you are presenting to me.
You have to
know what you're reading about, Eumolpus; one of the first things we should do as poets and writers is read faarrr and wide. I anticipated a response like this.
If you haven't read her work or don't understand that style of poetry, of course you're going to be lost trying to read it. That's not my responsibility; sometimes I find your poetry overwhelmingly plain, but take the trouble not to say it every time you write another one. Are you plain just for the value of being safe and monotonous, never expanding your use of language or deepening it? I doubt it, but a person could wonder.
"let there be commerce ...
between us" said Pound in his famous poem about Whitman, whose poetry he hated for the same reason.
To me it is easier to be vague and abstract than precise in meaning. Plainess" is why Collins, Frost, Oliver, Moore, and even Shakespeare are read, and will always be read.
But as Pound said....
It is much
easier to crank out banal notes than it is to paint a picture; writing a plain poem with a theme and the rest of it is easy as can be. Trying for something else, more challenging, is extremely difficult.
Agreed.
Writing a poem is easy. Writing a good poem... not so much.