Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Graveyard by Elizabeth MacDougal
The Graveyard
They are quiet now. Cold frost cannot nip colder toes. Dead heads of last season’s grass grows thick with the white precipitate. And heaped over still-standing stones in the wall, drifted tall against the slanted slates so old, the snow will inundate the solid turf in time. But now the winter scene that plays upon a stage which should be so serene, does not tell of future thaw–nor does it tell of death.
My life has always been an animated thing untinged by the solemn bodies below the overgrown curvature of earth which composes the grave yard’s bed. Observing now the locust trees grown tall and thorny in their age among the last age’s life, I can recall little foreboding in their imposing form; more memories of them are tense from the dread of discovery as I crouched behind their rough trunks in a neighborhood game of manhunt. The effect of the Dead beneath my feet was no fresher then than now, and the symbolic grievance of the graves seemed a thing unnatural in emotion, yet natural as a response. The yard to me is a human construction that I know to be a cry–yet cannot hear. I have noted, sure, the growth of the stones as the dated centuries changed, as though the deceased feared each other’s fate, and tried to reach high from where they lay. I knew they were no more. As I looked out the window each morning, though, or left the house, catching sight unconsciously of the long cemetery, the tombs became a familiar presence, rather than the tags of absence.
Frost has now obscured the scene, and where I have just pressed my warm palm, its print still dripping, a different churchyard is visible. Hundreds of graves, this time blank, attest to unknown death. In this absent note of absence, I am reminded for whom the bell tolls.
They are quiet now. Cold frost cannot nip colder toes. Dead heads of last season’s grass grows thick with the white precipitate. And heaped over still-standing stones in the wall, drifted tall against the slanted slates so old, the snow will inundate the solid turf in time. But now the winter scene that plays upon a stage which should be so serene, does not tell of future thaw–nor does it tell of death.
My life has always been an animated thing untinged by the solemn bodies below the overgrown curvature of earth which composes the grave yard’s bed. Observing now the locust trees grown tall and thorny in their age among the last age’s life, I can recall little foreboding in their imposing form; more memories of them are tense from the dread of discovery as I crouched behind their rough trunks in a neighborhood game of manhunt. The effect of the Dead beneath my feet was no fresher then than now, and the symbolic grievance of the graves seemed a thing unnatural in emotion, yet natural as a response. The yard to me is a human construction that I know to be a cry–yet cannot hear. I have noted, sure, the growth of the stones as the dated centuries changed, as though the deceased feared each other’s fate, and tried to reach high from where they lay. I knew they were no more. As I looked out the window each morning, though, or left the house, catching sight unconsciously of the long cemetery, the tombs became a familiar presence, rather than the tags of absence.
Frost has now obscured the scene, and where I have just pressed my warm palm, its print still dripping, a different churchyard is visible. Hundreds of graves, this time blank, attest to unknown death. In this absent note of absence, I am reminded for whom the bell tolls.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Fisher Girl by Elizabeth MacDougal
Fisher Girl, to Herself
Ever continual's the sucking sway,
Rude serf indifferent,
To which it is the human wont to go.
Do not be led astray.
Come, two persons, many days, to know
How like two minds can be
How in concern, and humour, care and way,
In wiles. When like they go,
Hope's cell, the memory's tenement
Will make of nature signs, and see
With artifice, a glowing globe from dirt,
(Words, from the earthen lineaments)
Which overlooked is not itself, but stays
Infected by persistent memory
Who will not recognize, will not concede
That she is not creator, no,
Nor can in cadent crests restore
Old company.
Repent.
The current waves care not for your lament.
Fisher Girl, II
Brother of bones
broken
No good, but
broken
Broken
Will
Would he but out,
Quit the house
Stop with his company
Debauchery
Hungry mouth.
Comes home
choking
Tongue sputters,
choking
Choking
swill.
Fisher Girl, III
They rust white on weary shores
The organic caskets
With their leather strappings tattered
None wonders but once where they're off
to.
Fisher Girl, IV
It is not good
To live near a drawing mouth.
We harvest from its excess.
It harvests of us.
Fisher, V
As a rock, I would climb out of my ocean socket, if I had one, and leave it to the clams.
Off to Nevada.
Rather than be ground away.
Fisher, VI
how discrete
a pink
drowning anemone
Ever continual's the sucking sway,
Rude serf indifferent,
To which it is the human wont to go.
Do not be led astray.
Come, two persons, many days, to know
How like two minds can be
How in concern, and humour, care and way,
In wiles. When like they go,
Hope's cell, the memory's tenement
Will make of nature signs, and see
With artifice, a glowing globe from dirt,
(Words, from the earthen lineaments)
Which overlooked is not itself, but stays
Infected by persistent memory
Who will not recognize, will not concede
That she is not creator, no,
Nor can in cadent crests restore
Old company.
Repent.
The current waves care not for your lament.
Fisher Girl, II
Brother of bones
broken
No good, but
broken
Broken
Will
Would he but out,
Quit the house
Stop with his company
Debauchery
Hungry mouth.
Comes home
choking
Tongue sputters,
choking
Choking
swill.
Fisher Girl, III
They rust white on weary shores
The organic caskets
With their leather strappings tattered
None wonders but once where they're off
to.
Fisher Girl, IV
It is not good
To live near a drawing mouth.
We harvest from its excess.
It harvests of us.
Fisher, V
As a rock, I would climb out of my ocean socket, if I had one, and leave it to the clams.
Off to Nevada.
Rather than be ground away.
Fisher, VI
how discrete
a pink
drowning anemone
Monday, November 15, 2010
Every Man, A Holy Man by Lucas Olson
Every Man, a Holy Man
Every man, a holy man
and every book, a bible.
For no man thinks himself as evil
or as the other, liable.
Every soul, a perfect one
and every spirit wholesome.
For purity, a subjective thing,
though subjectivity, loathsome
For is any man as pure,
in the eye of the beholder,
as when the eye's his own,
his thoughts his own to shoulder.
Evil isn't personal,
its a matter of the world.
Though however right they are
internally, its pearled.
Every man is doing good
but some may do it wrong.
Even if intentions pure,
it may be sad, the song.
For, Every man is a holy man,
no one man can do ill.
By his own rights he is perfect
but his ego, he can't fulfill.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Prompted Prayers by Sarah Zuidema
Prompted Prayers
The day was bumbling to an end.
The horizon became a taut blue line along a fast darkening ocean.
The sun's fleeing rays cast eerie shadows along lengthy sidewalks and glossy windows.
After the the day's buzzing white gyration,
The cooling fingers of a green dusk seemed to smooth the vicissitudes of life,
and wander through the city with an air of enthusiastic exploration.
The moon rose swiftly as one wide, ecstatic grin,
dragging with it the wearisomeness of night;
which ravenously consumed the gale of hysteria,
left behind by the now shattered golden sun.
Darkness, the abyss of ages,
covered the coast in a heavy molasses cloak;
stretching a somber silence throughout the once bustling city.
Somewhere in an alley, a match was struck.
The tiny flame sliced through the syrupy blackness,
revealing the faintest traces of the riotous colors of civilization.
A breeze weaves behind the towering silent giants,
its current nearly visible in the leadened air.
The small flicker shudders in virtuous recrimination.
The silent oppressor, agonized by indecision,
finally retires over the pink cliff,
plunging toward the ocean,
and leaving the stifling pollutant of disinclination in the street.
Merely by way of baffled commonsense does the math burn on,
permitting its master a glance at the sky above.
Even the stars struggle against the choking weight of darkness,
succeeding in naught but an opalescent speck here and there.
The tiny light wavered and twitched,
rapidly approaching suffocation.
Daylight leaves yearning for night,
But night's unyielding pressure bring fearful chattered prayers.
The day was bumbling to an end.
The horizon became a taut blue line along a fast darkening ocean.
The sun's fleeing rays cast eerie shadows along lengthy sidewalks and glossy windows.
After the the day's buzzing white gyration,
The cooling fingers of a green dusk seemed to smooth the vicissitudes of life,
and wander through the city with an air of enthusiastic exploration.
The moon rose swiftly as one wide, ecstatic grin,
dragging with it the wearisomeness of night;
which ravenously consumed the gale of hysteria,
left behind by the now shattered golden sun.
Darkness, the abyss of ages,
covered the coast in a heavy molasses cloak;
stretching a somber silence throughout the once bustling city.
Somewhere in an alley, a match was struck.
The tiny flame sliced through the syrupy blackness,
revealing the faintest traces of the riotous colors of civilization.
A breeze weaves behind the towering silent giants,
its current nearly visible in the leadened air.
The small flicker shudders in virtuous recrimination.
The silent oppressor, agonized by indecision,
finally retires over the pink cliff,
plunging toward the ocean,
and leaving the stifling pollutant of disinclination in the street.
Merely by way of baffled commonsense does the math burn on,
permitting its master a glance at the sky above.
Even the stars struggle against the choking weight of darkness,
succeeding in naught but an opalescent speck here and there.
The tiny light wavered and twitched,
rapidly approaching suffocation.
Daylight leaves yearning for night,
But night's unyielding pressure bring fearful chattered prayers.
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