New Poem

It's been a while since I posted a new poem. Since publications are less inclined to publish someone that's been on a personal blog, I have shied away from the practice. But posting my work is something I have always enjoyed doing. With the November PAD challenge just around the corner, I can't think of a better time to start.

No guarantees how long the poem will remain posted.

Feedback always appreciated. I have received the approval of my Intro to Poetry class, so have at it!




For the Couple Kissing at MoMA


What was it about Salvador Dali’s
The Persistence of Memory that
made you kiss each other so passionately
time stopped in the middle of a Monday afternoon
amidst throngs of tourists and art students,
parents with teething infants, and the lone clouds
drifting from peak to valley, clocks flaccid
and spent, dripping like tongues?

Why not kiss in front of Klee, Pollock, Kahlo,
or Monet’s Water Lilies,
which expands and shimmers at all angles?
It was all too surreal, even for me,
too much beauty under dimmed lighting
grazing the scuffed wooden floors.

Why not van Gogh’s Starry Night
which makes me sadder every time I see it,
that feeling of losing a dream again and again,
the night howl of stale air—which happens
when you discover the world was never yours,
never the way it’s supposed to be.

You treat midlife tightly pressed
against each other, sealing something between you
like two pages in a threadbare book, lips folding over
and under, filling the space around you and between you,
your bodies impossible with want. You are a work of art
standing against the cosmic force of love,
drifting out of this world and into your own.



Comments

Unknown said…
This is an exquisite moment captured exquisitely.
Maureen said…
I like this a lot. The tone is lovely, the moment is real (I've had the same experience of seeing a couple in a gallery suddenly kiss passionately), and the images within images (what we know about the paintings and how we carry that knowledge inside) work beautifully. How you describe Starry Night is wonderful.

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