I'll Call Him Art
Art is undone. His chair's askew. His eyes,
his eyes are locked with mine. His look is raw,
mascara running, caught by small-town law,
the bible belt, bewildered parents' sighs.
Art is a man-child boy-girl compromise,
sitting between his farmer maw and paw,
here in the sheriff's office, Satan's claw.
Art holds the Word of God, holds back his cries.
I'm helpless, Art, to save you, where we are.
I try to say all this with one quick glance
before I go. Let's both go, shed the scar
of twisted stares. Let's cut and run. Let's dance.
You'll tell me all about it in the car.
Coyote-howl away the circumstance.
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I almost didn't post this one, partly because it was discussed so recently in TDE, and partly because I have a couple of minor problems with it. It got under my skin, though, and in the end I couldn't not post it.
This poet drives me crazy sometimes with her metrical intolerance; she often seems to place too high a priority on sound at the expense of, well, everything else. The payoff is that her verse has a songlike quality. This poet contributed the only poem on the
Lilt website that's written in iambic pentameter. This one lilts, too, and between that and the pathos -- the "raw" look in those mascaraed eyes, that heart-tugging "I'm helpless" -- it's burned itself into my memory. This despite the fact that I hate "shed the scar" and am not crazy about "circumstance." I think it's the overall effect that matters.
[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited June 21, 2008).]
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