.
Two Windows (New York, New York): photo by Jim Rohan (LowerDarnley), 8 March 2013
So is it the thin
sliver of light, slicing
through the curtain
from the window
of the person confined
in the equally dark house
next door
............that puts
the dread
of the lid
being closed
being closed
over one
into the mind
without a word
being said
across the slender divide
narrowing alley
crack of brightness between
still
solid masses
of trees, converging
of trees, converging
overhead must be
even darker down there
in the shadows someone
absent
who wanted to speak
The Summer Sun #2 (Lower Darnley, Prince Edward Island, Canada): photo by Jim Rohan (LowerDarnley), 18 October 2013
eating rats: photo by robert holmgren (menlo), 16 October 2013
As always, a powerful poem, and I love the mix of poem/photos. That's such a dark and apt description of feared darkness: "the dread of the lid/being closed over one" . . .
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, Nin -- or more accurately I suppose I ought to say, now that you mention my mentioning it -- I guess that is not exactly the sort of image that generates a great deal of festive heat under the old mistletoe. (The cobwebs, however, seem to be fine with it.) But Christmas does bring out the Grinch in the agéd and infirm, I suppose. Even Bob Cratchit may have ended up a morbid old social problem, scribbling gloomy, illegible-in-the-morning notes to himself, with a failing ballpoint, on the backs of spent bus transfers.
ReplyDelete(Seasonal defective disorder?)
When I opened this, at first I thought it read "Silver," which matched my perception of the light. Then I re-read the title, read the poem and took in the other images. Robert Holmgren's Sicily photo is extraordinary, but the power, order and insinuating implications of the entire piece is really fine, seasonal defective disorder (which you should really trademark) and all. Curtis
ReplyDeleteNo humbug here,
ReplyDeleteI fear.
There’s even a good laugh to be found in here sometimes: “Seasonal defective disorder.” Good one, bub. The poem puts me in mind of the indefinite self, and other permutations on chance. Down the hatch! Great post.
ReplyDeletefor a sliver it's still brilliant Tom, once again
ReplyDeleteGrim... the painful... the poignant. The years for moving on somehow back in a dark age. Us in a separate dark age.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteI too first read "Silver," then the "thin/ sliver of light" brought me back to a recalibration of that first word, "silver" and "sliver" "across the slender divide" which separates the position of one letter from that of the other, one person from another, from here to there.
in the shadows someone
ReplyDeleteabsent
who wanted to speak
This is a season for ghosts: other selves in closed off light.
Scrolling down on that first image, it took a while for the eyes to adjust.
Yes, it's funny -- hard not to think (type) the word "silver" for "sliver"... so easy to make that slip, in fact, that lately the slightly bruised neurotransmitters have come to always expect the slivers to have a silver lining. But that may not have been in the playbook,
ReplyDeleteA season for ghosts indeed.
So many bloodstained parkinglots to cross, enroute to the underworld.
Styx