A
Pattern of Embitterment
I will never be published by the elites:
I acridly muddied the water,
added
a vinaigrette du malaise,
said,
Did you even bother?
Were you on the rag?
Now
I force eggs and flour
and
olive oil and salt
to
take shape in my hands;
I
make something I can see,
tilted
here, on my good leg
in
the taut rigging of the shadows.
The
fascist male Right
will
not keep out of my womb;
they
rape, with the rusty awl
of
sophistry; they troop in
wool-bearing and on all fours.
I
drink the longest drafts of life
in
the opaque deeps of night.
That
is what insomnia is for.
But, dear editors, who
must I service
to make it over the
portcullis
of the heart-breakers?
Long
ago, so long past,
I
was engaged.
I
threw a lubricant across the room
and
the moon flinched.
The imperious, soul-heisting editors
so incongruously planted,
so incongruously planted,
their ineradicable roots,
the sperm of their whale.
My
pasta dough rests
as
it is decreed that it should
after
kneading.
At
three a.m.
this
is the only truly hopeful thing.
I
am not resigned.
I am saguaro-woman
she whose gall
infects the iconic.
Night
is a long train
for
the forsaken;
he
whom I love, the reticent one,
trudges
down dark furrows
and
first light opens the casket
of
the vanguard blue hills.
copyright Jenne' R. Andrews 2013
3 comments:
Jenne, do you write song lyrics? Because
Night is a long train
for the forsaken;
he whom I love, the reticent one,
trudges down dark furrows
is like a blues song with a Leonard Cohen twist. I can almost hear the harmonica behind it. I know you're a musician. I only ask because I'm a musician, and frequently a formal poet, yet I have absolutely no songwriting ability. But some people can do both. Perhaps its like being bilingual; I don't know.
Thank you, Dawn... my spells are less frequent. But out of it all comes something like music; your long poem in Beloit is gorgeous. xj
Sometimes I really do feel frustrated because I can't cross the divide between song and poem. I envy your ability to at least find a few chances of doing so. And thanks for the kind words about the poem.
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