poem: Note 4 Penned for a Friend at New Year's: Maybe in February

January has slammed into place, full force;

like an iron girded oak castle door,

she shakes the rooms of our lives-

everything inside vibrates

and I hold my breath, waiting

for delicately constructed handiworks,

to fall into disarray

on her cold, unforgiving floor.

 

There is a reason we say dreams get "shattered,"

for we build them of such stuff

as fragile as hairthin strands of spun pyrex

in fantastic formations

and light them from within

by the fires of our own faith

however weak or strong she burns.

 

And tonight I stood still under cascading lights

blue... a mellow, glowing LED ice blue

for it is of you I am feeling

and missing- you- the greatest secret

of my life; you, my yet hidden delight

and dubious owner of

last January's destroyed treasure.

 

It shimmers still like a pile

of so many uncut sapphires

on the lovely hard tile floor

where I have not yet sorted them all-

I'd like to polish one, at least

as a single perfect gem to wear

somewhere in the space above my heart.

 

I stopped looking through them

when I feared I would find they were all flawed.

 

You can only reach out so many times

before you think

doors are always going to be

unceremoniously and inexplicably, denied

or you will just always show up

at the wrong damned castle;

you try to put into words

attempts to fill empty spaces,

unfinished rooms-

and I fear this particular

blue crystal masterpiece

as beautiful as a star wrought 

of unbelievably delicate human desires...

 

is perhaps the world's most

gorgeously appointed prison

and today has locked me, Hard,

inside this room-

and my hope then is to be salvaged again

by crimson or azure or even purple

but maybe in February.

For better or worse, I realize,

in tonight's claustrophobic atmosphere

this January belongs to you.

 

 

Author's Note

"and even though it all went wrong/ I'll stand before the Lord of Song/ With nothing on my tongue/ but 'Hallelujah'"-

L. Cohen

Reviews

[Corset]

I think Hallelujah just about covers it. This poem is incredible, sometimes I think we make our own prisons just so that we don't have to go out and face that all humans have flaws, big ones, little ones, ones that wiggle and squirm, but however flawed, something makes us lock the door with ourselves inside, from the inside and I think that something is a fear of a failure of some sort, of making a monumental mistake, or worse ...we might even find ourselves happy? who knows what could happen then, who knows what to do with happy? How many people actually find happiness? true bliss? Surely something would happen to ruin it later down the line and then the pain of that might end us...it's safe inside the prison, no chances taken, nothing lost either...but is that living life to the fullest?

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Corset. I like to think there is another way to look at prisons we freely choose. Saint Teresa wrote about an interior castle, the path to the soul. Each room in each manison leads inwards, and each holds a special challenge or prayer or lesson on the path to the soul. Some must be visited more than then once, and some we must stay in a while for contemplation. In 2009, I got stuck in the room for divine love and grace; I had no idea how to even begin imagining that felt. A series of lessons to help me throough my blocks started, and sometimes I still need to sit with it sometimes. There are prisons, therefore, that we build to to keep ourselves locked away from opportunity; and others that we construct to keep the world out while we give ourselves time to process some things while we mourn, remember, and rejoice. Hallelujah, then, in every sense of the word.

[Georgia Gypsy]

I can't for the life of me figure out anything to say that hasn't already been said....so I shall leave, but wanted to let you know that I visited....:)

[Marie Anzalone]

Your simple act of kindness and witness is very much appreciated, GG. Thank you.

[Larry Dyson]

hmmm..how many "Januarys" can you count that love you as much?

[Marie Anzalone]

a few, I think :-)

[Marie Anzalone]

I am pretty sure this one does...

[Tree]

I enjoyed reading this poem. Shaped and forged by a powerful experience it was tempered with perspective, so there is something to be learned here. I liked how each stanza held its own treasure. ''January has slammed into place, full force; / like an iron girded oak castle door ...'' those first couple of verses certainly locked my attention into place. ''There is a reason we say dreams get "shattered," /for we build them of such stuff as fragile as hairthin strands ...'' and so it went.. And like every good poet seems to do consistently you close the poem down with the most subtle but potent statement of the entire poem: ''in tonight's claustrophobic atmosphere/ this January belongs to you.'' ...evocative. Poetess you are truly hitting all the right creative ''notes'' /this New Year.

P.S Loved the author's quote by L. Cohen, a good choice here


DPaz

[Marie Anzalone]

I don't know any modern poet who expresses the complexity of modern love as well as Cohen in so few words... by coincidence, I am listening to "Chelsea Hotel" right now, a song that always breaks my heart in sheer recognition. We have so many poets who express the profane in the cynicism of love and beauty; and so many willing to dwell in its exalted clouds, but only there- and so few willing to take on or consider the marriage of the two that occurs daily in real life, by necessity. It is that ability again to hold two opposite truths in the same space and accept them. Kind of where I was trying to go with this; the pain but the gladness that I at least once had something so beautiful to mourn. Saturday I was doing fine then inexplicably broke down crying; upon inspection, I was still grieving a few things from last year that I thought I had put behind me. Your review feels like a much-needed hand on the shoulder across space, and I think you sincerely.

-Raquelita