A day off from hiking/writing has given me some space to work on some poetry - here's one that I've been tinkering with today with Veronica in mind ...STEAMBOAT ROCK (for JC)
Some of us cling
To life like lichen
On rock
Others barely hold,
Like moss loosely anchored
To stone,
A breeze could take you down.
You were still there,
A warm shadow
On the rock
You were always first
To get to camp
Or reach a summit
You never needed to wait
Because it all came to you
No one else knew
The roads you took
To this place
Broken by glaciers
And shaken by ice
Now you can rest
And let the eagles take
You the rest of the way
By Karen Sykes
Monday, October 4, 2010
Three poems
THE BANK
The doors open
Automatically
Inside
Women are counting mirrors
And filing them away.
Above them
Are paintings of cities
No one has ever been to.
People stand in line
Waiting to cash their checks.
Eventually the checks
Turn into leaves
And the people turn into trees.
Very late in the afternoon
The sun comes in
And covers them with wild birds.
Karen Waring
FURNITURE
Nobody lived there.
Everythinig died except the books.
They rustled like candy wrappers
In a dark movie.
The movie went on and on
And still the books
Slept,
Dreaming
With their mouths open.
Karen Waring
POEM BEGINNING WITH FOUR LINES FROM A VIKING POEM
“Hard it is on earth ….
Ax-time, sword-time …
Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls
Nor ever shall men each other spare ….”
Hard it is in our houses
Strange cars
Circle at dark
Hard it is in our houses
With our dreams and pills,
Phones that never stop ringing,
Digital devices tether us
To the housewives of
No place
And
457 things you can do
To prevent cancer
Strange hunters gather in taverns;
Bird-shaped men sit at the bar,
Their eyes do not blink.
Paintings and lost alphabets
Hang on ruined walls,
The bones of a dead child
Propped between dead continents
Paces in our dreams
This restless age.
(Do you remember the cold nights,
The sullen fires,
The ice that followed?
Do you remember the frosty paws of lions
Crossing Africa when pain was young?)
Hard it is on earth,
Hard it is in our lives
On long nights
When cars circle our houses
And the stars
Scratch in the dark
Like paws
Karen Waring
The doors open
Automatically
Inside
Women are counting mirrors
And filing them away.
Above them
Are paintings of cities
No one has ever been to.
People stand in line
Waiting to cash their checks.
Eventually the checks
Turn into leaves
And the people turn into trees.
Very late in the afternoon
The sun comes in
And covers them with wild birds.
Karen Waring
FURNITURE
Nobody lived there.
Everythinig died except the books.
They rustled like candy wrappers
In a dark movie.
The movie went on and on
And still the books
Slept,
Dreaming
With their mouths open.
Karen Waring
POEM BEGINNING WITH FOUR LINES FROM A VIKING POEM
“Hard it is on earth ….
Ax-time, sword-time …
Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls
Nor ever shall men each other spare ….”
Hard it is in our houses
Strange cars
Circle at dark
Hard it is in our houses
With our dreams and pills,
Phones that never stop ringing,
Digital devices tether us
To the housewives of
No place
And
457 things you can do
To prevent cancer
Strange hunters gather in taverns;
Bird-shaped men sit at the bar,
Their eyes do not blink.
Paintings and lost alphabets
Hang on ruined walls,
The bones of a dead child
Propped between dead continents
Paces in our dreams
This restless age.
(Do you remember the cold nights,
The sullen fires,
The ice that followed?
Do you remember the frosty paws of lions
Crossing Africa when pain was young?)
Hard it is on earth,
Hard it is in our lives
On long nights
When cars circle our houses
And the stars
Scratch in the dark
Like paws
Karen Waring
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