Sheila and the tumulus

the first poet of pain.

 

 

 

But mostly hurt is cordial,

polite to introduce you to poetry on a dirty road.

In a room with a baby, a ring on a shelf.

Yes, in that matrimonial, fixed order.

 

When they find you there with palms of mercury,

they want it remembered like the names of each foal,

capable of intimating the new shapes; the gaiety

of a hemisphere of birds.

 

That jocund fellowship of moons that begs the god of

Liberace, he of twinkling light and periwinkle.

The tea party of play and make-believe. Love.

The little chairs

 

for pain to sit, shows up subterranean and beautiful.

The newer Sevres, those of tulip patterns, dancing

to the Beatles on the record player. The mad love

of Paul and his hair extensions attached to something else.

 

Rosicrucian wisdom of s**t and death that leads

to enlightenment. Packing the poem

like a suitcase to Georgia with lighter clothes

and overwhelming.

 

True story: To hell with horses not free range

to hell to their low tones. The way they will stand on the cliff edge

but will not jump. Young women will pray, then jump

and fathers will call it the brightest ceremony. In

 

two hundren years my wish is to unearthed by a farmer

planting corn in the copious richness of earth. He will

scream to his wife standing by the fence,

 

"The plow just ran over some bones! I think they may be

those of that most improbable witch.

And it was horrible".

 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

and by those bones, in the bones of those hands, she holds a book of her verse...and is finally discovered, after the hard life she has written about.
you are amazing, Dana..
damn, you are.

[Adam Whitworth]

I need to read this SO many more times; the exact effect most wanted from great poetry! Just discovered it- can't comment yet. Thankyou HD!!

[Corset]

dayum. dem dry bones, unbelievably wicked they are, someone one told me that, that all women are evil, I think it's true, and blue like my heart.

[K. Louis]

i feel close...there are so many layers. Not everyone is capable of seeing beauty. great use of language and imagery...in the first few reads this really started moving for me in the third stanza..and after a few reads I learned not to avoid the beginning. I'm reading you moments before I have to go sit with a group and talk about life; my nerves have calmed down. Thank you. Hug

[W.k.kortas]

Tfhe language in this poem is intimate, conversational, almost crazy-guy-on-the-A16-bus-route monologue...but the breadth of the damn thing is downright sweeping. I don't know how you do that, but man oh man, it certainly works. It's a crime more people aren't reading you.