February
By Canonette
- 2527 reads
Dismal windswept month, I’ve been dreading you coming,
I fear you leaving, because then I’ll be set adrift:
living hand to mouth and cap in hand.
I’ve been keeping one wary eye on the news, like when
I was seven, watching the Daleks from behind the sofa.
Awaiting savage tempests and sudden squalls,
fearful of sinkholes; the ground falling away,
cracks opening wide enough to swallow me.
Like a dream from my childhood, when my nights
were stalked by the Black Panther and fierce goblins,
with sharp teeth. The one where we were standing,
like a family in a portrait, a crevasse split the earth
and we fell one by one, into the abyss.
My sometime, when he feels like it, boyfriend
said I have Sad Dog Syndrome. You can spot a sad dog
by the way they cower in corners and shiver under tables.
The way they flinch at the clink of belt buckles,
and brace themselves for the blow; the sting of leather
on soft haunches. Pavlov’s dogs were trained
to salivate at the sound of a bell. Sad dogs learn to run;
to weigh up a situation and scarper before it happens.
Maybe I’m not sad at all, just sick of winter:
wading through puddles, soaked to the skin;
face licked by car spray, glasses
speckled with mud-tainted spindrift
from the wake of passing lorries?
Perhaps I’m just tired of waiting
for the rug to be pulled from under me?
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Comments
Such alot in here (and you're
Such alot in here (and you're refreshingly confusing/vulnerable) but I'm crying out for you to enjoy growing, because you are. Yes. poetry's a blessing.
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sad dog, yeh, sad humans.
sad dog, yeh, sad humans. Pavlov got a few things right.
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If I were some Californian
If I were some Californian guru levitating above Santa Fe I would say what is the worst thing that can happen to you, remove the rug yourself, dive into the cracks between the paving but I would never dare do that so like you and the reader we hang on. The poem plays with that fear, how bad is it? how good/bad is the sometime boyfriend. What would it mean not to make an uneasy truce with unhappy things and where would that take us? Are we just creatures of climate? Coldfronts waiting to happen
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All these goblins, Pavlov, a
All these goblins, Pavlov, a crevasse - themes set, themes carried, you carry it beautifully. You make them matter so deeply to your reader that it hurts the back of the throat. For me, anyway.
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I like the immediacy of this
I like the immediacy of this poem and of your crowds of images, daleks, sad dogs ..You jolt me out of my conventional expectations about poetry on the times and seasons of the year . Elsie
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I keep thinking its march,
I keep thinking its march, for some reason, so I understand what you mean about wanting to jump out of the state we're in. Unusual poem here, in that it's rather like a story, but there's nothing wrong with that, in fact, it just makes it so much better.
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I like winter -(usually) but
I like winter -(usually) but this one has been depressingly wet and sink-holey scary. You've picked up on that enveloping feeling of doom and fear felt in the face of uncertainty. I'm with you every step of the way on this one. Great poem and very fitting, too.
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Cracking poem, which is far
Cracking poem, which is far from how the weather has been this winter, as you so eloquently state here, in such a Canonettish way
Much enjoyed.
Tina
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