[Moon-dæg] A West Coast Yawp

Context
West Coast Yawp
Closing

{Some beeswax, taper candles. Image found on Waxing Lyrical.}

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Context

Today's poem is one of several "yawps" I wrote while living over in Victoria, BC. Like this majority of these pieces, this one combines two of the larger hurdles of that experience: the weather and the burden of grad school.

In true yawp-like fashion, it might not make perfect logical sense, but logic isn't so much the point as is putting out words that stir emotions and produce strong images.

As always, you can leave your own thoughts of the poem below in the comments.

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West Coast Yawp

My eyes hoard the written word
And pass out its meaning like a
Miserly king
On the verge of becoming a dragon -

Ready to flaunt his draconitas
In the trick of his new found tail.

All the bone-houses and heart-thought
Of dead poets and buried heroes:
Now no help to me.

Scholar voices bound the crenellations
Of my cranium
And pipe up treble loud
when I place my nose into a book;

Something has gone out
Some spark or other has snuffed it.

More light,
More light,
Lest the West Coast wind
Topple my last lit tapers.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a search through the sins of The Convent for part Four of Shocktober.

In the meantime, check out tomorrow's Latin ("Dum Diane vitrea") entry and Thursday's Old English (Beowulf) entry over at Tongues in Jars!

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[Moon-dæg] Some Lines about Laity?

Context
Child in a Church
Closing

{The sort of chancel that a child might run up to. Image found on chancel.org.uk.}

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Context

A poem that was written a few months ago, and that is based on some lines that came my way one day.

I can't say what, if anything, directly influenced this poem, but I had the image of a child walking up to the front of a church and just let a pen finish the thought. Maybe it's got deep resonances with modern day religious situations, or maybe it's just a configuration of words that sound pleasant together - after you read it, leave a comment to let me know what you think!

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Child in a Church

There is a child in a church
Raising and felling eye-sized feet
To claim further carpeted ground.
Before the front pew now,
An edge more shear than a fall from grace.

She turns back to titter and gibber at
Parents seated
Where only she can see.
Then back to the front and further stalking
But no more footfalls.

Giggles
As unlined hands grasp without cross
to reach the wooden table
From which her sight
Slips to the smithed cupboard lock
set as high as her apartment.

No man in any dress all of one colour to stop her,
She clamours to the ground floor of that ceiling scraper,
But begins to cry when no doorman smiles the wooden entrance open.

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for a search for what's truly scary in Leprechaun in the Hood, and on Saturday for Annotated Links #21!

In the meantime, head over to Tongues in Jars for my dead language translation posts on Tuesday and Thursday.

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