Ode to Church Bells

A Poem by Amorette Duvannes

They say the point of an ode is to argue something. Well, here is the antithesis of an ode. It's lost it's fight and it has nothing left to persuade. See author's note.

Hardened heart; the rush wicker,

Make it quicker, wide, asphyxiate me, my bronze:

The ephemeral bawlers pulverize their birdsong shriek;

My nose between your teeth, my blood beneath your tongue -

Hungry, press down hard enough to satisfy, mystify,

Your pleasure treasures my raw, numb misery, near-bosom,

Suckling at the silver trail I follow into my stagnant comatose

Through water-granite slapping the coral pavements

To get to you, monster of my wake, mare of my marriage.

I am going down. I am flailing two thousand sedimentary layers,

Salt in my lacrimal glands, sea in my pores:

The world rushes past, and I am dazed as day when night

Turns out it's fright and sheds a grey blaze, exhausting it's wooden might;

I am walking, or the world is running away from me, my feet

Tacked to the coral stance, my heart fumbled raw in the mist of your

Unknowing green hands, turning it over in your sleep --

The children cry out from church, singing doom, doom, misery and doom --

They watch me in my gait, sodden heels, walk past and die once again,

Crying doom, doom, misery and doom.

They startle silver, gritting their teeth

I stop, hot, and realise, like winter, like safety, you are gone.

I cannot love you light enough to stay heavy on my shoulders,

Adolescent dream, shame, and dreams -- I can't soften you enough to

Be something that loves me out of yourself, and if you are the gate-keeper,

I am not the twisted iron, wilting beneath your hands --

I am the kingdom, the heaven, the glory, still, rushing to catch up --

But being whole and governed by my insides, me. Cracked,

Oozing hazelnut, and finally, I am vapour, soldiered air,

Red, black, inside out, and knotted in. Finally, I am the

Victim of your meet-me-half-way love, in which the perpetrator

Never showed his still tarnished, still pristine little face.

For my innocence, my still growing childishness,

Don't leave - but if you do, love me a little.

Don't love me, then, but very much stay.

The Earth fay of my stomach try to give me a message:

My secondhand deciphers it, and I am deigned

To watch you spiral into streaks of black and white,

Whilst the spectrum of my childhood, still silver, still bronze,

Rains beside. They cry the war song of moving on,

And like Hell, I know the pain.

© 2014 Amorette Duvannes

Author's Note

See, I love the church bells in my town, and I also think I love something else. A few weeks ago, I went pretty mad thinking about all this love that multiplied into all this disappointment, all this loss, and all that it would mean for me in the summer when I leave school and move on and be something new. It isn't me leaving, it's everything else leaving me: but a few weeks ago, I walked the furthest I could in the shortest time possible and it rained and thundered and there were holes in my shoes and I squelched home and it hurt my heart but I was sodden enough to care more about how sore my feet were going to be, and that is either the most sensible thing I've ever done, or the most vain and shallow and meaningless, but I did it anyway and this poem, which I wanted to construct as an ode (thesis = how love is destructive, sending us mad - which is my initial thought on all of this, antithesis = acceptance of this madness, of sacrifice, of loss, of love, and conclusion = somewhere in between the struggle of the thesis and the passive acceptance of the antithesis - just taking it, because you can do nothing else, but feeling sure it is going to hurt, and doing everything you can to minimise that hurt.) And that's a break-down of everything I felt safe enough to divulge. Take care.

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A. Amos

Everyone can write but only few have that gift...that makes a connection with your readers and you my friend are born with such a talent to write and make your reader fall in love with your words and your work. I have to admit you are one of the most talented people I have ever met, its truly an honor for me to read your work; as I'm 100% positive there will be time you will have millions of people telling you they are your fans...I would love to be the first one!