Thursday, August 10, 2006

POETRY THURSDAY (Unsaids)



OCTOPUS

Your see-through faces have
run together like watercolor
on oatmeal pages
all my lovers buried alive

I never said goodbye
never knew how
I stored you up instead
in this cluttered attic

inside my head, in a
brown box rough with dust
and tied with barbed wire
for ribbons

one bound creature
of several shadowed hearts
and many limbs
all your vanished words

your brown eyes or blue eyes
all of you locked
together
like a bunch

of mad or hunchbacked uncles
hidden away
who grind their teeth
in my sleep

.

14 comments:

Sea Dream Studio said...

Gorgeous work! I strolled around your blog.Wonderful writing. Haunting images.
Take care~dale

Cyn Bagley said...

Wow.. wow.. I am impressed.

wendy said...

I threw all my creatures away...in a manic moment a few years ago!!I wish I hadn't. The visual imagrey in stunning,and unexpected. Your brown eyes or blue eyes..I love this line..I dont know exactly why so much. But it thumps me. The last line will haunt me.

Tammy Brierly said...

I loved this poem :) I'm picturing all these guys pounding on you wanting out of your mind. Great imagery!

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

No wonder my head aches....

mareymercy said...

Love the language, the internal rhymes. Terrific as usual.

Emily said...

I especially liked the "hunchbacked uncles" Well done.

desert rat said...

Your see-through faces have
run together like watercolor
on oatmeal pages
...that got me from the beginning.

Also liked:
one bound creature
of several shadowed hearts

Anonymous said...

Man, you really know what you're doing. Your writing is incredible. What I love, love, love about your poems is I never know what word or phrase will come next. Your poems offer such surprises, so many discoveries.

Deb R said...

Whoa, the imagery in this poem is fabulous! Love it!!

January said...

Great poem. Love these lines:

"I stored you up instead
in this cluttered attic

inside my head, in a
brown box rough with dust
and tied with barbed wire
for ribbons"

Thanks for sharing this poem.

GreenishLady said...

Just have to echo - Wow! What a poem! Wow!

Unknown said...

I just love the ending over the last two stanzas! Those "hunchbacked uncles" have echoes of the "madwoman in the attic."

Kay Cooke said...

That is such powerful imagery there.
The tentacles reaching everywhere - unsaid, but implied - and that is always so much more powerful.