The House-Bound Ventures Out

she prepares for days hoarding
energy / fireflies in a glass jar /
examines clothing for marks
of wear / a hole in the knee / buttons
cracked or missing / missing / stains
on the embroidered breast / amulets
in the pocket / earrings 
finger rings / key ring

her eyes widen / she can feel the lids
stretch / at the distant horizon / far
mountains / clouds / the river
high dark fast / pulling / at its banks
trees bent down in the water

a drive through the neighborhood
of biography / victorian towered flats
the hall of a bed / bath in three rooms
claw-foot tub / pedestal sink / time
cracked / old porcelain

cottonwood flurries at the windshield
out-of-season seed-storm / wide-winged
dark-tipped osprey / young-one
gliding in the still air

boarded storefronts / bowling alley
gone / in its place modern cantilevered
apartments across from the slumped motel
where once she lived husbanded / loving /
loved / daytime soap operas the drama
of housewifery punctuated by books
physics / philosophy / poetry

she buys new fish for the slaughtered pond
tiny shells & silk cord threading through narrow
street after wide avenue / this old woman /
green maples and ash trees


MP3 File

Comments

[niki]

WOW! Really nice, Sharon. I could visualize the whole journey. Really love the first lines. All of it! Haven't seen a poem for a while. (PS:But you are NOT OLD!)

[sbpoet]

Hey! I just posted a poem less than a week ago. Heavens to Betsy!

And, a reminder that one must not assume that the speakers in my poems are me.

Even if they are, now and then. Like, in this one. But -- you would know that, wouldn't you?

This illness makes one feel old, not much difference, really.

[anny]

An excellent reading, congratulations,

Anny

[Anthony North]

That's quite a journey.

[Marinela]

Lovely thoughts Sharon :)

[Nicole Nicholson]

I like the language in this poem and the images it conjours up. Good write.

[Dana]

Sharon, I love this piece, especially the way you use the forward slashes to create smaller units within longer lines. That's very Alice Notley and is something I've also been working with, using double colons as my "rest" within lines.

[James]

I enjoyed reading this slowly, letting the images sink in.

[Andy]

Yeah, nice piece of poetry, the line 'a drive through the neighborhood of biography' sums it up for me.

[wayne]

nicely done i really enjoyed reading

[sbpoet]

Thanks, Anny. A bit out of practice, I fear...

[sbpoet]

Oh, I'm so glad -- that's exactly what I struggled with. I must go read Notley, as I don't remember seeing the slashes used this way, so I thought I was, maybe, pushing the boundary a bit too hard.

Love the double colon idea.

[sbpoet]

Thank you all for reading & commenting. My major concern, the use of the slashes to indicate smaller 'pieces' in the lines, seems to have worked ok for most of you.

I really appreciate the feedback!

[Mark S.]

I really like this. It's very well done. I could 'see' it.

[gautami tripathy]

I like the way it goes from the concrete to the abstract.

x-y-z: all three axes

[Joanne Merriam]

This is really lovely, especially "cottonwood flurries at the windshield/out-of-season seed-storm"... nice!

[Ruth Liam]

Fantastic poem. I`m putting an internet poem collection together and I`m wondering if you would be interested in taking part in it. Some contact info would be appreciated. Thank you.