The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Mon 11/6/06)

[RetroLounge]

Tiresias

The black snake is dead in the road.
-----In the rising bands of heat, his head

is gone, or nearly, his body divided
-----by the flat print of tire. Already

the birds. I have left you and we are
-----running. What you will remember:

how the small chameleons broke
-----in my clasp, blood opening like an iris

as they fled the screen porch, shedding
-----cells, a slender tail. What you take

with you now is what you know of me.
-----Know everything. Know I never told you

because I wanted you to love me.
-----When you came upon your parents

in the drawn shade, the nest of their limbs
-----in love confused you. You stumbled out

onto the porch, waking the wasps beneath
-----the boards. They lit your ankle in a shower

of sparks, humming, tipped with gold.
-----I know the scar like a story. Tiresias

loved as a man and woman. What was left
-----for him but blindness? I don’t know

what has killed the snake as I don’t know
-----why I killed so many, or tried to,

or thought I did. I let the scavengers
-----take what they can. I am learning

nothing has a sex. I am learning whomever
-----we love, we are left this way, halved.

Alison Stine

***************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[reyd reid reed]

1. After a couple of reads, I come away from this

with something different. Sad...dark. Desolate. Lovely.

And my education continues. At this rate, you're going to have me writing the stuff pretty soon.

Thank you.

[RetroLounge]

5. Writing Poetry is a beautiful thing

Please do...

RL

[BlueIris]

2. Well. This is the most appropriate poem I could have read today.

Thanks, Retro!

[wildhorses]

3. like the imagery of this one

the many ways love leaves us...halved

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear Retro..........

As with all good poems, this one puzzles me, and makes me work to interpret it......

But I love the images it invokes......

Even if I don't know how to put them together!

Thank you........:hug: