Rattle Road
As mist clears
the dirt road shows up
by the window sill -
tearing a bed
of wild roses in halves that
never meet, unless
it's pitch dark out
and the road is a diamondback
flicking the tongue
Chi Chi Chi - jaws taut -
in one straight line, ready to
shoot venom into splits.
Rain can kill. Roses die.
From the window the dirt road
bends into the sky -
pocked with footprints,
tire marks, pebbles, gold dust
residues from spring.
Rattle Road
-
Michael (MV)
- Posts: 2154
- Joined: 18 Apr 2005, 04:57
Re: Rattle Road
Hi IC,
As I read this, 2 Emily Dickinsons poems surface; see below.
The last 2 stanzas are strong; yet workshop suggesting --
Rain can kill. Roses die.
From the window the dirt road
bends into a sky
pocked with footprints,
tire marks, pebbles, and gold
dust from spring.
^^ Are both "residues" & "dust" needed?
Like the title, too - and I'm also hearing based on the phrases "road kill" & "road rage"
Road Rattle
"In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum
Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome" -- lyric from "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2
Michael (MV)
I like to see it lap the Miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop—docile and omnipotent—
At its own stable door.
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
As I read this, 2 Emily Dickinsons poems surface; see below.
The last 2 stanzas are strong; yet workshop suggesting --
Rain can kill. Roses die.
From the window the dirt road
bends into a sky
pocked with footprints,
tire marks, pebbles, and gold
dust from spring.
^^ Are both "residues" & "dust" needed?
Like the title, too - and I'm also hearing based on the phrases "road kill" & "road rage"
Road Rattle
"In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum
Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome" -- lyric from "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2
Michael (MV)
I like to see it lap the Miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop—docile and omnipotent—
At its own stable door.
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.