Because we all want to write more poems.
safety/glass
Leap.
There is nothing in front of you.
Oh that? Yes, you’re wise enough
to see a glint of something shiny
from the corner of your eye.
That’s glass. Just jump through
to what you can see on the other side --
that empty space. You can live there.
Don’t look down, don’t see
the tiger’s mouth, open and waiting below,
the waves that will catch and not release you,
the dark. It will be okay.
The opposite is true, of course.
The tiger will tear you to pieces.
The waves will pull you under until your knees scrape the gravel of a cold lakebed, your feet get tangled in the seaweed of the Pacific, your head comes to rest
gently against the smooth concrete at the bottom of the swimming pool.
The dark though, the dark will hold you like you’ve never
been held before, sweep through you, become you.
Your eyes won’t even work any more.
You won’t remember that you have them.
You won’t remember what light is.
Don’t believe me?
Jump.
All will be revealed.
Or you could just
stay where you are.
The tiger will keep sleeping
if you leave it alone.
The waves are content without you.
The dark? It will live on, too, elastic, velvet, silent. It will wait, like it’s always waited.
They don’t need you.
You need them.
- Jennifer Dixey's Shared Poems
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Comments
Benjamin Gorman
March 14, 2013
Permalink
You need them
The last line sends a chill. Lurve it!
"The dark ... elastic, velvet, silent ... like it's always waited." Mmmm.
I was thrown by the glass metaphor. I anticipated a shocking poem about a child flying through a windshield and was prepared for horror followed by grief. I'm having trouble connecting the two. On reflection, it seems to me the safety/glass is whatever normal, healthy fear we have of the proffered terrors; but the glass thread is lost, or incomplete somehow. I wanted a neat wrap. Am I anal-retentive or what? The temptation part of the poem is working, though I want more of it. Make the yawning abyss luridly attractive!
Uh, time for me to write....
Clayton Medeiros
March 14, 2013
Permalink
Trippy
I like the indifference of the "other", the natural world of waves and tigers and the sense of choice as a responsibility.