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completeaccident — The Desert Remembers
Published: 2005-05-30 23:05:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 1052; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 48
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Description
we do have local myths about the sun:she is a dim, benevolent grandmother
estranged from us, her daughters-in-law
by the machinations of her wicked sons,
the clouds.
But maybe I am a transplant
or a throwback to a closer generation, the
lizard-daughter of the sun, the youngest child.
I recognize her canny eyes, the ferocious gaze
when the clouds give way.
I prickle on the back of the neck and stretch.
it is the sky, the sharp, distant father
whom we fear.
and love.
She is my lifeblood. My heart remembers
the hot pulse of her womb,
the stories she told in the evening. My eyelids are tough.
we have local lizards, too:
they are pale, wet things
that live in dark places.
Watery hearts grow into new places, and settle. Clay
was fired: in the rain
it is only wet.
When the sun looks back, I will stand
to meet her and I will drip to her door.
I will shed my veil
and my white dress, and be recognized.
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Comments: 15
Wonderful poem. I really love the choice of words and the composition even though I didn't understand everything (I'm German). It has a beautiful flow and makes me suspect a poet who's deeply connected with nature.
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honestly, rarely do i come across good poetry
this is good poetry
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I really enjoyed reading that, it was beautiful.
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since everybody started with your layout..ill start there too
in a sense i get it..why the italics, why the separate graphs and indent. as you said it is to indicate a conversation.
the indents in a sense indicates the shifting...a bettter preparation for the change in mood.although confusing at first it is a refreshing move.
i love the words you've used..creating a more beautiful meaning...providing texture
benevolent
Wicked
distant
Lifeblood
Sun
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Hmmm. From the title, to the end of the poem, I am completely lost. I even went through the comments and am looking at the conversational bit... having done something similar in one of my own latest, I can see where you're trying to do it, but not quite why. *laughs ruefully*
But, I did want you to know I read it through, and it does have interest and appeal. The flow of it is quite lovely, and the feeling of the depth I could quite obviously dive in, if only I knew from which end to start...
Words are beautiful in all their ways... this I have always known. And you are working magic, that I wish I could better see.
Congrats on the unknown artist pick.
k
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i feel as the tiny windows in my mind that are usually ignored have just blown out by a wind i forgot existed. absolutely breathtaking.
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Thank you so much. 
That means a lot, especially coming from you!
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Layout definitely needs consistency and here's why: this poem kicks ass. I mean, the dripping at the end? OMFG! It needs to make its inevitable and slowish progress towards that moment and the layout needs to not bugger around with that. That it's a conversation is a suggestion not a fact, so you might want something more certain in the italics and the stanza differentiation (indentation, maybe?). Dunno. But, dude, the end. The end the end the end. You have a creep factor in your voice that is so gorgeously true and I adore it.
Small thing: the clouds, in the last line of the first stanza, are all alone and orphaned rather than wicked. If they get their own line (and why not) they really ought to get some white space under them or around them, some room to lord over so that they can look wicked. As it is, the comeback hems them in before anyeon can really soak in the intimidation. Or they should go on with the rest of the previous line do sneaky intimidation, which also works excellently.
It's 10 a.m. My brain is really working. Yay, Oxycontin? Am I annoying huh huh?
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I dunno enough about poems to crit...but...I like it?
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I utterly love all of the words. No critique there whatsoever. I wasn't huge on the layout though - thought it was unnecessarily complicated, and that this would have worked just as well all left-justified and no italics.
'My eyelids are tough.'
'lizard-daughter of the sun'
'sharp, distant father'
All these I love. All the rest of it too. Beautiful beautiful.
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I shall eagerly await the result.
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