17 November 2010

Beautiful Surrender

Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm
"Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm".

Imagination overfull of places in the heart
That once were safe, and always warm

Sundown and the early dark, chill seeping
the bones ache and rattle like leaves in the yard
music leaking from a radio, dripping down the shelves,
flowing across the floor to wrap around cold legs

that push against an unforgiving floor, trembling weary
body melting into cushions like granite floss
the grit scratching and abrasions forming, it won't stop,
because the pain seems more real than real, right now

fingers fluttering, fists clenching, heel of the hand swiping
at Prince Rupert's tears exploding from eyes gone wide
and molten to hear the words, know that vanished love
was nothing less than a beautiful surrender

---
Passages in bold quoted from "Shelter From the Storm" by Bob Dylan.

6 comments:

  1. You pick just the right words Irish. And string them together in ways that wrench my heart.

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  2. "Shelter From The Storm" is such a good song. Oddly, when I was young, I hated Bob Dylan's music. I think it was his singing, and that unfortunate harmonica. But now I swear by him.

    Your poem has such a well drawn sense of heaviness. "body melting into cushions like granite floss" Stop showing off, Irish! :-)

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  3. Wife: What's wrong with your skin?! Your covered with bumps!
    Me: It's Irish Gumbo again. My gooseflesh has gooseflesh.
    Wife: Ahhh.

    :D

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  4. I love the music leaking down the shelves.

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  5. Ahhh Dylan. Nothing better to listen to then or now.

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"Let your laws come undone
Don't suffer your crimes
Let the love in your heart take control..."


-'The Hair Song', by Black Mountain

Tell me what is in your heart...