Arm leaves

Cherry

By span

Sat, 12 Apr 2008
  • 1093 reads
3 comments
 

My mother dropped a paper in the sink
and all the stories sailed in on ships
billowing and billowing about how we fall down
and then get the grip of the rope under our feet.

Memory waits for you in the butchers
origaming ten pound notes
putting her fingers in slick sockets
cleaning out her pockets
she sits on chopping blocks
smelling sick but thinking of
oranges, pencil rubbers, garden moats
buckets and coke cans.

There are ways these things climb lists
fear debts sleep
lays cool onx abacus beads,
like mascara gobbed sheets
on wednesdays.

That dark clock has set the summer singing
but the sky is empty and all the paper facts
cut their context when the birds rustle their arm leaves.

Certificate U
Story
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by HaiAnh on
cor blimey guvna! I want your imagination and I want it now. You take the world, flip it over, shake it about a bit and hand it back to us as the most exquistely crafted and lyrical poetry. 'My mother dropped a paper in the sink and all the stories sailed in on ships' The opening is wonderful and I immediatly accept the world you're creating. 'Memory waits for you in the butchers origaming ten pound notes' These lines describe perfectly the way memory and associations are often where you don't expect them. The idea of these memories waiting for you is great. You could write a whole poem about just that. 'lays cool onx abacus beads' - beautifully lyrical 'cut their context when the birds rustle their arm leaves.' - could be a haiku. The only line I wasn't sure about was 'not quite that' for some reason it jarred as I read it and didn't seem in keeping with the rest of the poem. I can see how it is important for the transition of the poem at that point though, so you need it there. Exquisite poem. xxx

Submitted by markbrown on
Poem like music. Cheers, Mark

 

Submitted by tcook on
Can't think why this didn't get a cherry first time round - it's wonderful!