ashtrays and wine rings
moonlight with father o’sullivan
By DIY Danna
After you kiss my neck goodbye tonight
the toilet seat impregnates me with twin thoughts
of a sailboat in the moonlight and you – and
treading sheets super-soaked with our love sweat.
We’re counting down the eye-drops to dilate
the perfect vision of us dancing four years ago
before I knew you were sorry
for always being wrong about my horns.
I filed them down for you, not that other guy.
And I was always wrong about your wings.
You clipped them to stay earthbound with me,
and not for that damned Ave Maria.
I sing for you like a choirboy tonight,
and you read me your latest holy epistle
about old lovers splitting hairs and
the glory of wearing gray crowns.
diydanna @ June 16, 2007
On reading this poem I was immediately struck with its beat and rhythm. I went back and counted 6 lines written in 2 syllable pentameter (10 syllable lines)–that takes skill. A lot of those measures were surely iambic with the stress on the 2nd syllable. To mix meter with modern poetry (as is the case here, I think) requires much talent and work…very John Berryman in a way…just don’t throw yourself off a bridge in Minneapolis (RIP)! Anyway, I am in awe…and the crows are saying “caw-caw”…for my catatonically astounded coma-corpse!
Religious symbols are often tough, too, to use originally and effectively…I liked the grinding my horns part which reminded me of Hellboy (new anime out, by the way). The 4th line: “…treading sheets super-soaked with our love sweat.” was an integral & genius addition to a concentric metaphor that also used “kiss” (often wet), “toilet seat”, “sailboat”, and “eye-drops”. Thx DIY Danna!