Blue Moon
blue moon
by pj mendoza
A kiss by any other, or if I crossed my sevens
like sometimes when I tell you I won’t ever, never
meaning to do it again. But I do.
When the tread slid, or the door ajar cracked
the tea cup’s lip wider, I cut my tongue
beneath this roof which drums a clay heavy rain
on crimped tin. A vein lit up our sky
your gray stare, gone slate, sharp jaw
slipping its reef–that neck & the violet
my mouth bloomed
on your pulse. Sick flutter of the dog’s
seventh and last year, crossing
soft, a cold rattle, the grave kiss.
O sack of bones, you.
O how I wear–so thin–
over your chalk form.
Even though language struck me as conservative/Romanitic emulative, imagery was vibrant. This is what i was talking about the other day with the more traditional poetry vs. modern and how this kind of poem eludes me more. As for me, i would rather strike out on my own borrowing ideas rather than language from the Romantics/Victorians…thus the experimental…but i think emulation is a necessary step in a poet’s perspective, or even just an end to itself if one sees the world in those terms (i know i once did and then turned modernist in a hard sort of way). I’m not ‘dissing’…and i’m not saying that a poem has to have ‘atomic’, ‘futile’, or ‘bukowski’ in it either. i’m just observing different merits with the various forms is all.
i long to walk on Mars, to conquer it, and thus be conquered.
For this kind of poem, i think capitalizing beginning of every line would look cool. i still was really impressed with the composition and enjoyed the read. Thx Mr. Mendoza!
It’s my understanding that caps had always been a typographical default? I only every use them sparingly and deliberately–I mean, there’s something about a capital letter that makes the eye and breath stop, y’know? And when I want that kind of… subliminal spatial/visual hiccup I stick a cap in there….
Curious you should mention Romantic–and then Victorian too? Hmm… maybe it’s my 17-19th century Women’s lit class seeping in. Or perhaps it’s that tea-cup I mentioned that prompted the association? Something very Victorian about teacups, I s’pose (tho–I was referencing Auden and his lovely morbidity–“a lane to the land of the dead…”)
I *do* enjoy & greatly admire forms, but particularly when they’ve been perverted or manipulated in a provocative way (i.e. Olena K. Davis’ ‘shattered’ sonnets). I’ve yet to complete anything in strict form–but I find it’s a good way to kill a rut.
I’ll see what the caps do… and I’m also thinking of changing “which drums” to “drumming” to smooth out that line. It kinda catches a little there, no?
Thanks for the comments, ‘preciate them muchly.
–paula.
p.s. O, and it’s Ms. Mendoza(-Hanna), btw.