Monday, November 25, 2013
Heavy
Your gut is the harbingers twin
Slowly roasting feelings, incubating parasites
Like rock candy on crisp twists of twine
Clear and sweet tumors of intuition
Your father had a feeling, face reading becomes art
And the bricks tumbled and not into place
Rather in a pile that obscured big picture revelation
Three pall bearers when you needed six
Some burdens take a toll on a man's spine
And the hunch makes walking uphill easier
Than stopping to breathe, love is responsibility
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Yep! Love is responsibility! I really like the way you have paired seemingly unrelated things in a way that makes sense: roasting feelings, sweet tumours and took it to the next level in the second stanza, with the image of one walking uphill with a bent spine. Powerful imagery, and a damning description.
ReplyDeleteman that's what happens when you hang out waaaayyy too long on big rock candy mountain.
ReplyDeleteStriking imagery here, Corey, and a cold feel in my own gut reading--the compressed style, no word wasted, adds to the mood of heaviness, of the unwelcome weights we can;t choose or refuse.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I hate parasites. Just saying. This really wonderfully creates a heavy mood, real and figurative.
ReplyDeleteheavy, powerful writing, wow!
ReplyDeleteBit of a gut punch here, but the emotion doesn't overwhelm the writing. Damn fine stuff.
ReplyDeleteYour opening line is especially fantastic. Harbinger's twin. I, too, like the image of the bent spine going uphill....the weight we carry.
ReplyDelete...intuition, a feeling, a hunch ... Do these things make the steep hills we must climb easier? Do they lighten the load on the pall bearers? I would believe that if your words and phrasing were not decidedly heavy and plodding from straight backed to bent by poem's end. Sometimes the thought of a dear one dying is just that heavy. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteYour gut is the harbingers twin...love that. If the gut speaks we should listen. Love how your ending brought it back to the beginning...So many things swirl in one's mind when faced with death....sometimes there is sense in what doesn't seem to make sense.
ReplyDeletelyrics - maybe one refrain is "some burdens take a toll on a man's spine" ~
ReplyDeleteLove, indeed, is responsibility. Good work, Corey.
ReplyDeleteK
An intense and beautiful poem, reminding me a bit of Robert Bly--the terrible limp that all life takes on. Thanks. K.
ReplyDeleteHeavy and wise.
ReplyDelete