Is it a Sunday afternoon
when toys start to fade
whitened by the fog
of age
… is it?
There is a music
familiar to the ear
and yet
it is just the composer playing
with our fake memories
By ten, you need to be in bed
is it on a Sunday evening
when the reassuring sounds hush
and particles of darkness
cover the shifting core?
At ten, you need to be
ready for eleven
when the dollhouse screams
abandoned to the dust
then rests -
you feel the growth in your limbs
oh the heat!
on fingertips, window opened
looking for the freedom
of forbidden air
eleven comes
wafting on wind
oh the resilience
of fighting lungs!
There is a music
that doesn’t fear
the repetition
petitioning dreams -
all of a sudden unfamiliar
feeding fears
questioning soot
Is it on Sunday afternoon
water drops on the paint of days
diluting the pain of boredom –
white walls, Carrara marble
stairs lead up to unknown floors
iteration, second, third, fourth
climbing, erasing, estranging
the minimalist music of loss
There is a _
and it doesn’t _
familiar to the _
playing with _
/
and the veil comes down
and the veil came down
down to drown
loss
lost
[sitting still in the staircase
unknown voices and noises]
until the light scatters
through the haze particles.
Instilled within are the song and dance of the days that profoundly haunt our minds of those childhood memories...novel poem Axilea! I can so relate to this~
Christine
Since I can add nothing to what Peter and John have written,
I'll simply say that this definitely one of your best poems
to date. Never cared much for Sunday afternoons when I was
a boy, metaphorically or otherwise. -gene.
a universe in flux--time rolling in and out like the surf--objects de- and re- materializing. through it all flows the senses. is this the cause of the fear, the shattering scream? or is it the consequence? the only certainty is this--is--a masterpiece.
Is Sunday, traditional day of worship in many dispensations
when materialism, toys of the week, is meant to be pushed aside
the day we turn to more and more as we age and fade and move
toward the end? We are good girls and boys, we obey, but we seem lost
and don't realise what living has covered us with.
Those blanks, and i read them as blanks, in, "...There is a _
and it doesn't _ familiar to the _ playing with _"
are our loss of words to articulate what we are, what we go through,
what is. You show us no mercy, Axilea, nor should you.
This i save.
John
Reviewed by D. Vegas (Reader)
Reviewed on June 16, 2011
Axilea, "and yet it is just the composer playing
with our fake memories." Memories or are they fractured
memories. Excellent, Axilea!
I read this and for some reason an image of a run down Southern plantation house came to mind, a lady either deserted or widowed of love and the ability to return to a life she once had. Very nicely done indeed Axilea.
fee
Spectacularly inlaid with meaning, Axilea.
This is pure poetry!
Christine
Reviewed by Gianetta Ellis (Reader)
Reviewed on June 16, 2011
There's nothing more I can say that hasn't already been said, Axilea. This is exquisite poetry.
Reviewed by Peter Schlosser (Reader)
Reviewed on June 16, 2011
this might be your best poem ever and there are certainly a lot of them. one has to really pick apart every line for meanings behind meanings behind meanings. kind of what i get out of this is a general questioning of all subjective experience, of life, tying in sundays as the traditional holy day for some, a day where we "are supposed" to be spiritual (whatever that means), yet struggle with the emptiness, the true existential battale which rages below the surface, this feeling of: why am i on this merry-go-round, what does it mean, and WHEN DOES IT STOP??? and then down comes the veil and we scatter into infinity, soot, haze, not really conscious at all our entire lives. it's almost the paradox of: until we awaken, we'll never become conscious; but unless we become conscious, we'll never awaken. this is amazing poetry!!!!!!
Sunday's always find us wanting to do something new but we weekly face a rut of routine that's hard to get out of. I'm sure this isn't what you had in mind when you wrote it for it seems to go much deeper than my thoughts. You bring the veil down and then seem to wait on what's going to come around - some fresh new musical sound??
There are those particles of light again--only here it's the light sifting through the haze. The power behind this piece is amazing. I can actually hear the static in those open-ended blanks. It reminds me of the opening scenes in the movie "Contact" starring Jody Foster-- all those radio voices of the past weaving in and out of each other, meaningless really, but familiar all the same, and radio static as the young girl reaches out to contact...well, life on the other side of that veil.
Beautiful alliterations and rhymes are embedded in this poem and keep it moving: "Sunday...fade...fog...age"; "music, familiar, yet...playing...fake"; "by...be...bed...cover...core", and so it goes, culminating in "the veil comes down/ and the veil came down/ down to drown" and "loss/lost" and the sursurating "s's" in "sitting still...staircase...voices...noises...scatters...haze particles".
The sweet thing about all that alliteration, is that by now we know you well enough to know that you do that without even half trying. Your words create harmony, and it's a beautiful thing. But what are words anyways, if they are not particles of language--of light in a hazey puzzle of meanings? I enjoy the light in your last phrase. Let it shine through. --Charlie
The songs and art in this book are about our collective emergence after the pandemic and trauma of the last few years - comprised of 5 collections: World as Refuge, Where We Live, In Our Hands, Rhythms of Change and What We See & Sow.
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Christine
Regis
I'll simply say that this definitely one of your best poems
to date. Never cared much for Sunday afternoons when I was
a boy, metaphorically or otherwise. -gene.
when materialism, toys of the week, is meant to be pushed aside
the day we turn to more and more as we age and fade and move
toward the end? We are good girls and boys, we obey, but we seem lost
and don't realise what living has covered us with.
Those blanks, and i read them as blanks, in, "...There is a _
and it doesn't _ familiar to the _ playing with _"
are our loss of words to articulate what we are, what we go through,
what is. You show us no mercy, Axilea, nor should you.
This i save.
John
with our fake memories." Memories or are they fractured
memories. Excellent, Axilea!
fee
This is pure poetry!
Christine
db
Beautiful alliterations and rhymes are embedded in this poem and keep it moving: "Sunday...fade...fog...age"; "music, familiar, yet...playing...fake"; "by...be...bed...cover...core", and so it goes, culminating in "the veil comes down/ and the veil came down/ down to drown" and "loss/lost" and the sursurating "s's" in "sitting still...staircase...voices...noises...scatters...haze particles".
The sweet thing about all that alliteration, is that by now we know you well enough to know that you do that without even half trying. Your words create harmony, and it's a beautiful thing. But what are words anyways, if they are not particles of language--of light in a hazey puzzle of meanings? I enjoy the light in your last phrase. Let it shine through. --Charlie