Yamada Rōshi Says, “Even the Sky
must be beaten” and I think of a blue
without fracture, a blue lost in every-
thing like the blue in the song on my
player, “it’s the rhythm of” such a blue
ache, her fingers in darkness, rub of steel
and wood, the blue in this pen that has much
to say so I let it write, blue on the cover of
James Merrill’s Night and Day – he’s dead
now, but the words breathe when I tongue
them aloud in the cab of my truck, driving
West – but my truck is red – then everything
falls away – I’d thought the sky to be
empty, I was wrong, it was full
3 comments:
I loved this, Sam. Thanks for posting it.
uayvmdeThis starts like a Petrarchan sonnet then goes free verse with too many awkward enjambments for my taste, not to mention the subject of blue has been done more than Lorca's green. Finally, was the poem cut off or is it supposed to end there? Seems like it was truncated: "I thought the sky to be..."
I hope criticism is not unacceptable in blogland if it be honest, especially since I have published a fair amount of criticism and instructed many students in this art or sullen craft. ;-)
Thanks for the read Suzanne and C.E.
I welcome all comments. Hey, a draft is a draft. All my poems here will be "in-progress".
The ending is how I drafted it, but the final line is "empty, I was wrong, it was full".
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