I know this week’s post was supposed to be about an image, but I completed last week’s post. Something new for me. Let me know what you think.
Happy Poetry Thursday.
Caravansary
Verisimilitude: their arrival. A patriarchal caravan toting lovely wives dressed in
silk dresses, children suited in tow. A legal separation from the western world.
Anachronistic: a feminine train. Heads low, their little girls like miniature dolls
swallowed by the weight of their inherent ineptitude.
Capitulate: no divorce. clips her husband’s heels, chokes on the bald man’s
smoke. Dust rolls over her thinly veiled feet in sardonic play.
Licentious: licking her lips. Maternally professed dirty habit. Beaten by a
husband for licking in the market square. Lips now chapped and raw.
Ineluctable: this man fortress. Her daughter tugs her finger, wants to whisper in
her ear, neither of them move, eventual wetness, dripping down the little leg.
Pilloried: their arrival. Pissy and pissed. Ignored, until she screams. Octaves
shattering the pistons of daisies in the courtyard. There she was buried while the little lilies wept.
7 Comments
March 22, 2007 at 9:38 am
Wow, very… strong? Powerful? A word turned around and beamed on a fact that makes us squirm. The words as definitions are harsh, punishing and dismissive.
I like your words, they suit.
March 22, 2007 at 3:25 pm
This was really interesting. I liked the form you used throughout. I got all these different images and I was trying to piece them together as I read.
March 22, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Punishing and dismissive? I think I like that, Brian.
Emily, did the pieces come together??
March 23, 2007 at 5:23 am
I like the form here and it’s a very thought provoking piece, that also reads well as poetry, which is a difficult balance….
March 23, 2007 at 10:40 am
Very powerful, strong words.
gautami
Soul
March 24, 2007 at 3:57 am
I bet you could cook a gourmet meal with only two ingredients. That’s what your poetry is like. So much with so little. So much flavor and experience with the fewest possible words. I love that about your writing. It makes me want more – to see you do it again. I enjoyed this piece. “by the weight of their inherent ineptitude” was my favorite line/imagery combination. I love your work.
March 24, 2007 at 11:03 am
Crafty, I have been trying to play around with different forms and different arrangements. I am heartened that you found this one successful.
Guatami, thank you for stopping by this week. I couldn’t manage to fit “tergiversate” into the poem, but looking back, I’m really glad I did not.
And Dennis… how do you always manage to make me blush over cable modem from a bazillion miles away?
That line is also one of my favorites. I like “this man fortress” too, though I’m not sure why. Thank you as always for your comments.