Love is a basket of snakes
with a rose in the middle.
Hooded gifters
sway as if they were
love notes in a medium breeze.
At last,
no smile moves me.
Clocks are calm.
My bed in the ambulance bay rots sweetly.
You, child, appear with your flute
and say,
"There it is, that lovely basket woven
from beauty and perfection of motion."
You suppose me cold--oblivious
to my body's mosaic
of half-healed crescents
and their poultice of old poems, stupid with shock and palsy.
______
for this.
Those opening lines are he best hook I've ever read! I love the "At last", when clocks are calm. Yes. Finally. The "poultice of old poems...." How do you do it? Wow.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, Shay. You are some kind of genius.
ReplyDeleteyep, genius!
ReplyDeleteOh my, your word craft is spot on in painting this picture and the ensuing expression is powerful and bitter in equal measures.
ReplyDeleteI loved this:
"...oblivious
to my body's mosaic
of half-healed crescents
and their poultice of old poems"
Wonderful. I love your take on this too sweet prompt. I love this: Love is a basket of snakes with a rose in the middle....not the usual sappy love is...well done fren!
ReplyDeleteInteresting as usual from a curious title to curiouser and curiouser
ReplyDeletebrilliant. as usual.
ReplyDeleteOne becomes wary/weary with age.. or Cleopatra-like with serpents.
ReplyDelete“Love is a basket of snakes with a rose in the middle” - now there’s a line that hooks you right in. Brilliant, Shay!
ReplyDeleteMy,that third stanza, with its calm clocks and skewering last line. You blend so many elements in this, like a cake with a thousand ingredients,yet each metaphor has its own taste which lingers on the tongue. As I've said so many times before, Shay--no one writes love poems(or post-love poems) like you do.
ReplyDelete