{"id":2691,"date":"2010-04-17T07:22:21","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T12:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenpickering.com\/?p=2691"},"modified":"2010-04-17T07:43:06","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T12:43:06","slug":"new_original_poem_called_mays_river_part_two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/17\/new_original_poem_called_mays_river_part_two\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Poem | “May’s River” (Part Deux)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Illustration by Stephen Pickering. "May's River" (cc) 2010. painted on iPad using ArtStudio, with added figurines using Picnik online graphic editor.<\/p><\/div>\n

You tore on past the river’s flow.
\nNow I know, now I know.
\nYou walked from the house’s door into the snow
\nAn instinct to let go, to let it go.<\/p>\n

The menagerie\u00a0fortress tower
\nlooms larger by the hour.
\nTalking to the morning’s vestigial crops
\ninto the elevators’ chop, chop, chops.
\nAnd disturbing them like making rings
\nOutward bound as the sunshine morning sings.<\/p>\n

You of the potato patch’s mouth, mouth, mouth
\nhave grown up too early to shout, shout, shout,
\nand now you’ve got trouble in the military man’s
\nhouse, house, house
\ngiven way to your sacred gifts’ sound
\ndown South, South, South.<\/p>\n

All the Milky Way’s a stir
\nwith the blasted World,
\nof the strange gifts at night when two strangers eyes meet
\ndown by the wharf with fresh cod to eat
\nand malted whiskey to drink.
\nThey drive back on one tire
\nAs a family waits by the hour
\nFor some vestigial return at least
\nFor some reason to leave the porch and heat.<\/p>\n

‘Twas you that rounded the edges and fastened the ties,
\nsoaked the oars in morning dew butter
\nbefore the wind in the\u00a0hollow’s current died?
\nEach moment a little more dishonest, and a little piece of you tries,
\nA little piece of you dies.<\/p>\n

Dies to the factories making crap
\nfor the kids churning and drowning in the school’s cyndricular vat.
\nThey reach for the elbows of the crow’s soaring flight,
\nbut their hands seem too tiny in the subliminal sky.<\/p>\n

They do not sing beyond it’s beauty.
\nThey come home and sink their little heads into the factory pillow.
\nThe hawk haunts the sky, and the ducks huddle under the willow.
\nAll morning long with a fever blistered pitch
\nThose sculpted cliffs dive headlong into the ravine’s ditch.<\/p>\n

Could you shower up for morning sup
\nAnd return fresh and green like a planted cup?
\nWe’ve made winter soup and duck.
\nWe’ve made sauces in planters and pink strawberry wine;
\nAll of this and more from the edge of some perennial vine.<\/p>\n

You will come to the forest edge when it’s time.
\nThis we know from the story book rhyme.
\nYou will pass through the walled garden’s oval arch
\nIn time to escape the troops’ Kaiser’s Day march.<\/p>\n

We will gather for a picnic ’round Robbins’ Lake.
\nTake a turn north just before Haliford’s gate.
\nBe sure and set the case of our dozen forebears down.
\nSo that she may rest without soiling her satin white gown.<\/p>\n

Two minutes into her eyes:
\nthe inter tube by sunrise.
\nBack by noon for a surprise.
\nSmoothed over by gems from the boogie nights.<\/p>\n

The Queen you ask, the heat of the midsummer Sun.
\nAye it’s her, that’s the one.
\nHold her in your diary secretly until the pressure of emotions
\nLifts the gold of the ancient Spanish wreck.
\nMay the two of you bathe in doubloons
\nNever leaving your room.
\nNone are good enough to fly into this sacred space
\nthat all of eternity’s changlings cannot erase.<\/p>\n

But before you leave if you could do only one thing:
\nPick up that dial, call the complex, and let it ring.
\nThey and their party will have gone to the beach for the day.
\nThis will give you time to think of what to say.<\/p>\n

She wants a little house deep on the other side of the woods.
\nWe know she talked on and on about the city and her friends,
\nbut some lies are understood.<\/p>\n

Go wait under that shed and close your eyes
\nblasted even as it is by flashes of the darkening sky.
\nDon’t you think she would if she could?
\n(I mean turn around and stay. Of course, she would.)
\nBut the dancing goes on all night at Park Place.
\nYou’ve done the right thing to leave without a trace.
\nThey won’t remember anything not even your face.
\nAll this time you thought that one memory couldn’t be erased.<\/p>\n

Ruby lights throb chaotic motions from the room.
\nBlue, crazed, and wild, they lay out lines for the glowing Moon.
\nThe jeweled lights never cease
\nto point toward the balcony’s deserted seat.
\nYou come down a golden flight of stairs.
\nThe company has arrived, waiting down there.
\nUp from the bottom and flopping onto the beach
\neven she comes up from 20,000 leagues.<\/p>\n

You turn the corner and walk up the street
\nThousands of children are at your feet.
\nHis majesty HRH has just flown in.
\nNo one met him at the gates for the parade to begin.
\nInside even the cells of the carpet nubs couldn’t withstand
\nThe pressure of a human being freaking out the light barrier
\nAnd so dragged the little shanty of a house back in time.<\/p>\n

Passed out by the celebrations you left in time to climb the ocean cliffs
\nleaving alone the flowers she brought you to bob on the tied up skiff.
\nParsing weed, bushes, trees, and vine
\nyou’re bruised, scared, and knee-scraped by the sheer climb.<\/p>\n

The circled gate
\nOpened not a minute too late.
\nAnd there further than the mountains dotting the African shore
\nlifted the hand of the one whose eyes gave birth
\nto an opening in the middle, between Jason’s clashing rocks,
\nof the Universe’s sacred door.<\/p>\n

Sent from my iPad<\/p>\n

(cc)2010. Stephen Pickering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You tore on past the river’s flow. Now I know, now I know. You walked from the house’s door into the snow An instinct to let go, to let it go. The menagerie\u00a0fortress tower looms larger by the hour. Talking … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,33],"tags":[70,71],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-poetry","category-poems","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}