Post by Ammie on May 12, 2013 17:39:32 GMT -8
Okay, so, a long time ago I used to be a poet. I wrote a bunch of them, back in said day, and some of which were published, and then I stopped.
I had a few lines rinning through my head today that I had to get down, but I feel like crap today so I pretty much hurled them at the page and said "sit here, you three or four pretty lines, amongst this seething pile of aweful, until I can come back later and transplant you into a real poem."
I was trying to do a form - one that worked really well before - and upon failing a lot with it, I decided to look at the other on I did to that form for tips on what the hell I was doing wrong. And as I was reading the old poem, it suddenly dawned on me how well it sorta fits the TSW flavor - especially if one were writing it while on assignment in Egypt.
So I'm gonna put it up here, for people to love or hate, because I haven't posted any writing in a while and I'm feeling nostalgic for those days. So. Poem. Deal with it.
20 Steps Through the Desert
The wind blew across the sand dunes like the breath of God.
Blind mice built tiny houses from bandages in the dust.
In a flood of dirty yellow, the abrasive sands cut deeply into my flesh.
Howling like a mad dog, the sands fill my mouth with the taste
of the most ancient sea floor,
and my nose with the decay of the lost and the subsumed.
It fills my breath with the taste of the sun and wind.
Jacques Cousteau could never have plumbed the depths
of the sand ocean Sahara.
There is no wind here.
What blows here is alive – not wind at all.
Bulwarked from fertilizing the world with ruin
by the rubber of distance.
Because I linger here, I must be seeking ruin.
"The wood-shed's a-callin'", my uncle would say.
The biting lacerations of love used to act as a sandstorm.
And after, I was as vibrant as long buried tombs.
I swam up and away from here through the ages of sand,
breathing in each layer for life as I went.
Sport wasn't one to hang around.
Sport knew he didn't have to "take it like a man."
He will walk the world. He will find others willing to follow
the invisible roads of the Sahara, and trace them.
Colored rain would restore him,
and the black wind would be always at his back.
And there will never be a day which falls to ashes by his lakeside.
"Du bist mir verliedet!" he has often said, in moments of peace.
And the sandstorms will part for his passing.
Bowing to him, and stripping off his outer layers of pain.
The wind is his breath.
The storms are his hand.
The Sahara his body,
and here in the turmoil shall dwell his soul, forever.
Amen.
I had a few lines rinning through my head today that I had to get down, but I feel like crap today so I pretty much hurled them at the page and said "sit here, you three or four pretty lines, amongst this seething pile of aweful, until I can come back later and transplant you into a real poem."
I was trying to do a form - one that worked really well before - and upon failing a lot with it, I decided to look at the other on I did to that form for tips on what the hell I was doing wrong. And as I was reading the old poem, it suddenly dawned on me how well it sorta fits the TSW flavor - especially if one were writing it while on assignment in Egypt.
So I'm gonna put it up here, for people to love or hate, because I haven't posted any writing in a while and I'm feeling nostalgic for those days. So. Poem. Deal with it.
20 Steps Through the Desert
The wind blew across the sand dunes like the breath of God.
Blind mice built tiny houses from bandages in the dust.
In a flood of dirty yellow, the abrasive sands cut deeply into my flesh.
Howling like a mad dog, the sands fill my mouth with the taste
of the most ancient sea floor,
and my nose with the decay of the lost and the subsumed.
It fills my breath with the taste of the sun and wind.
Jacques Cousteau could never have plumbed the depths
of the sand ocean Sahara.
There is no wind here.
What blows here is alive – not wind at all.
Bulwarked from fertilizing the world with ruin
by the rubber of distance.
Because I linger here, I must be seeking ruin.
"The wood-shed's a-callin'", my uncle would say.
The biting lacerations of love used to act as a sandstorm.
And after, I was as vibrant as long buried tombs.
I swam up and away from here through the ages of sand,
breathing in each layer for life as I went.
Sport wasn't one to hang around.
Sport knew he didn't have to "take it like a man."
He will walk the world. He will find others willing to follow
the invisible roads of the Sahara, and trace them.
Colored rain would restore him,
and the black wind would be always at his back.
And there will never be a day which falls to ashes by his lakeside.
"Du bist mir verliedet!" he has often said, in moments of peace.
And the sandstorms will part for his passing.
Bowing to him, and stripping off his outer layers of pain.
The wind is his breath.
The storms are his hand.
The Sahara his body,
and here in the turmoil shall dwell his soul, forever.
Amen.
Weighs the same as a duck.
