Tag Archives: poem

epilogue :

epilogue

I imagined tenderness
sweat and agony
the new pain of straddling
another destiny
and the roar
of monsters chained
at the end
of the last cavern where there are only bones
a fable of conquest
with ample evidence that it did not appease
that mythic hunger
but required instead a surrender
far more ultimate in terms

I glimpsed horizons
of need and canons
the knocking
of a breeze off the ocean
a tide of admissions
wet as envelopes
seals and confessions
a cursive front
a borne rhythm on and on
the easy lapping of War ships
when there is no enemy
and the end, the end
I longed for

I wrote backwards
an enduring alphabet laid
out to dry, as fitting
on a short line
a fleet of armies and arms
wanting to hear your last serenade
a flag on the island
in the wind, what was only natural
but the jungle is sold
and the last wildness is in your eyes
still I wish I could meet you again now
for the first time
and explain everything from the beginning

Copyright © 2018 · Elizabeth Ganot · All Rights Reserved ·

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straw :

hot infant bright spark of a kindling birth
on a starlit night amidst sin on earth
in a poor pagan pinch of salty time
past a modern ritual lost in rhyme
of god’s dark decrees for a kingdom bright
for your near escape from an endless night
where you swore to abandon your wicked ways
you swore it forever on innocent days
as if inside a dream of straw and gold
we only dreamt before we grew too old
where fanatic salvation set us free
with tart knowledge from a defiant tree
in a jungle dense of mystery missed
on the face creation so feverently kissed

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COLIN (meloy)

the clang! of wind down American flagpoles
is the twang of victory, flapping eras of battle hymns
is the shifting of a continent by more than an inch
our unfounded fathers bickering at the unemployment office
and the country of receipts walking across the parking lot
in somebody’s pocket
on a keyring that unlocks every withheld freedom of life
and your own apartment sometimes when you are lucky
which you are, which you are, which you are
especially to feel the cold harsh bite of the wind
you are as ridiculous as a cranky infant howling
who has their whole life ahead of them
who knows nothing about presidential elections or having a lover
or cab fare or free verse or algebra or debt
who is so lucky to have no capital punishment to chew on
answers learned without
questions in a construction site requiring a hard-hat for safety reasons
whatever medicine you minister and administer
whatever gospel you determine and predetermine
whatever promises we made together to get her
skirting marginal history as if it were only his story
suspender poetry over the shoulders of Time’s castaways and cut-outs
a soundless filament waltz of progress which
is your squarefoot broom bristles
is your thumb on lightswitch replies
is voices out of hand missals, flouting maxims of relation
holiness like a kindly wrinkle from lives in the blink of an eye

the bang! of powder to make-up our lives in stages
is the slang of our ancestor’s brogue docking
is the promises at the bottom of a riverbed in the summertime
that you’ll not feel the drowning
under the record needle of haystacks in neighbouring towns
one good turn
of early morning like topsoil blown over
eardrums like canyons, open for visits, faithful to form
which you are, which you are, which you are
with patriot eyelashes like bushels of desert grass
batting a corn colored crop rolled out of beds
you are the one who is taking a bow
who is sweeping out of sight
who is weeping for wagers
or fables or morals or the nameless
who remain uncertain of their independence
or the hazards
that belong to the ground, as you stand it
whatever clover is reserved for lovers
whatever accordion shores offer more concord
whatever material is now immaterial
sunset promises you want to last forever
and a horizon that is a library of words on the shelf
untranslated, with the last of your concentration which
is a noisy prayer on the makeshift altars of victory
is the time at hand we pause to lament
is all the proof you need through the night
like someone’s name scrawled in the cement

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ANDREW (bird)

asterisk black, castaway drafty
tangles of Grimsey, finglerlings jangly
the first poem betrayed, strays down the stairwell
lacking canter, yawning Zinfandel
brimming his whims, swimming hymnals
buried Valkyrie cries, furious symbols
swallowing quotients of scattered rattle
a valiant tangent of flat-out battle
clenched bouquet rhyme, morning glories
plucked from the last of our very first stories
when with swollen emotion
I stole your devotion
on emigrated floorboards, homeless soupçon
whistling all this with nothing to stand on

but the first poem is never poetry
and you should not waste your time
not for a flowery word or two
let me save you from that crime
it’s Manhattan prattle bat out the window
to chap patter flat out there on the street
and you must not fall for these diverting antics
because you think you hear a beat
it’s just a trick of a fickle meter
solvent run off with another line
do not let it run into your arms
I have cast it out of mine
as our lives are in wingspan, soaring out of view
in the physics of psalms, flighty as you

around the time my only heart broke
sometime before the last time I ever spoke
or mentioned ascension, the sonnet twinge
isochronal grammar, the orchestrated fringe
captured in letters, signed love and a thing
but free as a Bird in lines you could sing
all in effort to inhabit plumed compositions
all in good measure, but lost in auditions
days made of joints to digress and describe
marrow graffiti, bare bones of an outline
you had some glockenspiel to forget me
and find yourself along the way
a body of work
for everything else I could never say

which was fine for a year exactly
in a flood of organs, riverside khaki
until you suggested rather matter of factly
– if you think there’s something else
Well, you’re right.
There is.

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ERNEST (hemingway)

put your cigar out, let me gypsy your hands
away from gripping stories, trains, rails
I am wearing your worn aviators
with impressions taken from your face
so let me buy you a new jacket
and let me pay for your past taxes
let me write off your wars

come on, down this old-fashioned
errand of feasts removed as I remember
I have to run with the bulls in Pamplona
I have to leave a trail in the dust
I have to mail Dylan some boots

You are me at my best end
I am as horrible as you ever started
off headlong into wrestling icebergs
away from the end of the line
apprised nobly, in cold fiction

every one of them thinks
they could have been your friend
you and I know those unborn promises
the length of a life where everyone is your lover
had or having no time for the great depressions

I was your unclaimed and nameless imagined friend, Ernest
and I am your friend now
the phantom outside your door
who beckoned you to step forward
who beckoned the future with its blind cruelty and
merciless farewells
to my own birth in arms

to the future that was waiting
past sunshine and also roses
where I remain nameless without you
burrowing up the last beauty as a beast hoping
in a lost generation
I can save you at least

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(stephen) FRY

Rosso Corsa in your midday complexion
you spoke no names for the bones in your hand
fire engine dashes, notes bled in the margin
out of hand, on the town, siren brain scan
like some bottled Venetian, whistling rages
you waited there like a red tea kettle
you waited in your unread paper pages
sipping rooibos, writing, tense, plural
‘life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom’, you sigh
noble o’er a vermilion keepsake
on the same day you find out you are like Fry
it’s in your bones and it’s a lucky break
toasting Sangria, there’s nothing to rupture
and you speak no names for the brightest colour

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(shawn) BEAUVILLE

on tour- out on the towns- left for invoking
old smells of someone you once loved, or love
still, or never had the chance to really love
in the way you imagined real love
to feel- a highway collision you passed

down the same handle- you stir- a firm grip
upon a mystic country ladle that
brews the salt grime gumbo magic of life
in a giant cast iron pot with a fire
underneath that smokes out demons for dinner

you kick- away clutter on the table- a gnawing sound
(a 1914 Indian V-twin electric start, you make your way)
calling hungry gods in with debut whispers of a sinner
(and you are better when you are not just spinning your wheels)

I hum your asphalt chorus- when you move across
small kitchens to span living rooms, life spans
waft, I write about you with Eternity over my shoulder
you shake the hands of every clock, and I am watching
you decipher everything from neon signs on the wall
and name every colour before you blackout on fire escapes
as you climb small bars to the top
to find a place of articulation, all with
a name you made up, or are making up
still, a different answer every time you are asked
-where did it come from?

a crack in the sidewalk the whole world grew out of
(a 1968 Les Paul custom electric, you break your way)
supplanting cities, America under your fingernails
(and you are better when you are stringing me along)

in the growing- body of a nation- globally adolescent
for a bite, let mortal tongues awake
I can hear you sing this country
in a blind taste test to win a future
I could convince you to have, or can convince you
still, that our human fruits are the salt of the earth
I said to you- We are going places

but there are no winners for solving life at all
it’s there to seep into our limbs, a secret ingredient
a fricassee over broken bread or a holy whine
life! every name we made up in the book
-it doesn’t matter which you heard!
no one has the answer for the chew
Life!- where did it come from?
Some place old. Some place new.
You said to me- Places are never the same.

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epistolographer

Elizabeth Ganot · Letters from Islands · Poems and Seasons

Tag Archives: poem

epilogue :

straw :

COLIN (meloy)

ANDREW (bird)

ERNEST (hemingway)

(stephen) FRY

(shawn) BEAUVILLE