Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The Big Water Trip


Being taken to the house never seen, but a friend knew,

a piece of Green Dolphin Street could be anywhere, is.

And it not yet the vernal equinox, cold clearness still,

a whipped-cream curb where snow folds like a rolled-up cloud.


I fear windstorms as much as penitentiaries, and snow like the hangman.

As nature falls, it exacts an inheritance tax on the animal body of me,

my debt for the memory of grandfather's grandfather clock

still wound and winding, found and finding, a brute distress.


When spring comes, and in the late spring when it follows

with the bump of settling waves, of chopping waves

taking on cloud-forms and blown air, sprinkles, no ice traces,

me, sailing fast as a catamaran to the Any Islands.


.

24 comments:

  1. The Any Islands. I think we all have versions of our own. Mine happen to be snow laden and I sail in a horse-drawn sleigh. I adore winter.

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  2. This is just a delight, TF. The description of the almost visceral dislike of winter, and then the escape to the Any Islands. Beautiful.

    And I especially liked "wound and winding, found and finding"

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  3. uma.a,

    Thank you! I felt good writing it.

    TFool

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  4. Tess,

    Yes. (I just responded to your most recent post and spread my fear of 'the white wet' that much farther -- sorry. I know some people just love wintery settings, and they are beautiful).

    TFool

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  5. Fireblossom,

    Good words from you to me -- I appreciate them.

    The dislike became visceral a few years back after a bad experience or two.

    The 'wound/wind, found/find' popped into the head when I thought about a casual comment I had made to someone about a clock not working. The rhyme and the 'meaning-fit' came serendipitously.

    TFool

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Trying again--I'm cursed with typos today.
    I read this yesterday but my head was spinning from too many shots of Wednesday at that internet poetry bar of which I am the barfly--wanted to be clean and sober before raising this poem once again to savor as it deserves.

    The thing I love most about this, beyond your perfectly expressed anti-winter sentiments (which as you know I completely share)--is the way you've worked your words and brilliant images (the whipped-cream curb, the rolled up cloud!)to make the most of the internal rhymes and stresses along with a few repeated sounds to convey the sensation of a more traditionally rhymed and structured piece. It's masterly and creates its own form out of thin air and the intelligent play of words.

    And Miles is the perfect accompaniment--I hated to stop writing and go before the song ended so I've managed to write quite the lengthy comment--still, all well deserved.

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  8. TF I am with you but I must admit Tess has helped me to see the beauty in the white stuff. Having lived in So. CA almost all of my life and moving to MO the shock to my fragile thin skin was a little more than I bargained for. Lovely poem

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  9. Any Island seems the best place to be - the images you've produced here are of the best kind!

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  10. "of chopping waves taking on cloud-forms" a rare line good to find.

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  11. Oh beautitful and taking one away...love your use of words and images throughout the piece the reference to the clock and inheritance and wound, found - winding, finding...and sailing away to Any Island...more than I can mention in this....your writing...inspires...bkm

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  12. i was sure you were " le bateau ivre " of Rimbaud,by the sea you will find your shangri la!

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  13. "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree..."

    Well done.

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  14. Joy,

    In honor of your first comment, I'll call this a typo, too, and let it take up electro-space.

    TF

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  15. Joy,

    Now let us call for the praise of poetry commentary at the graduate seminar level! Where'd you get your moves, gal?

    I haven't been taken so seriously since the third and fourth marriage proposal to that woman what's-her-name.

    Thanks for seeing things in the poem that I only hope to do and don't often think I manage. Most thankful for you thinking it works when I do also!

    Trulyfool

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  16. Kristen,

    Just remember that winter, to a So Cal person (both of us I guess ex officio) means maybe a morning or two of a light windbreaker.

    Thanks for your good words!

    Trulyfool

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  17. Tumblewords,

    Yes. Any Island is a place for images if they're shared and liked. Thanks!

    TFool

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  18. Arian,

    Thanks for close attention to the phrasing!

    I just went to your webpage -- good poetry there!

    Trulyfool

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  19. Barbara,

    Thank you. It's very satisfying to know that people like what I write. Some postings are -- you know this being a writer yourself -- better than others.

    This one had some 'legs', maybe because it reverberates with a style I've been easing into and finding comfortable.

    Great having you as a reader (and great reading your blog!)

    TFool

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  20. Isabelle,

    Rimbaud was quite a wild figure. Any 'getaway' I propose -- even in my imagination -- wouldn't equal his. And his poetry burned hard and quick!

    Trulyf

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  21. Tony,

    No journey is worth it, unless it's the 'main one' -- right, my friend?

    Trulyfool

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  22. Karin,

    Would that I had Yeats's lyricism!

    He wrote those lines in his 20s.

    I may have two or three from then that I'd still read and show anyone.

    It's a trick, talent that can show itself young and remain. He's a great. That you would find any echo of him in me, flatters me.

    Trulyfool

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