Monday, June 8, 2009

A Few More Foldout Postcard Sonnets - 6/8

For your morning diversion: the next in sequence of my 1996 sonnets. I do expect to be posting again, tho, probably mid-afternoon out here in spacious Mountain Time.

Hope you enjoy it.


6/8


Marlowe at 1-something a m on a worknight’s
like a typewriter with a case of yellow fever
a ‘56 Chevy Bel Air rusting in
a humongous ice rink

like a cigarette butt with hepatitis B a
rheumatic 2-slice toaster clogged with
poached eggs & who crammed the
poached eggs into the slot

In the dream Marlowe’d rather have for breakfast
he tells Charlotte all the relevant stuff
like a wedding band made of lips

like a peach crate come down with textbook melancholia
& Spring is springing like nothing off a trampoline
in a wood-paneled rec room

John Hayes
© 1996-2009

6 comments:

  1. Not ignoring you here, John - just reading and reading, thinking and thinking. Fevered dreams, chills, nostalgia, difficulty breathing, light-headedness - altogether a very uncomfortable poem, if I'm reading it correctly. The poached-egg-in-the-toaster image is almost too vivid!

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  2. Hi Sandra:

    I know what you mean about the poched eggs! Yes, some of that sonnet sequence are a bit rough. That was a difficult time in many ways. Thanks for giving it a read.

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  3. Ooh! This is dreamy and gritty at the same time. Great similes, certainly unexpected. I haven't read back far enough to know Marlowe, so I need to look back to see who he is. I have a feeling he's the cat? the dog? your alter-ego? Whoever/whatever he is, he's
    "like a cigarette butt with hepatitis B" and that's enough to know!

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  4. Hi Karen:

    & thanks! Marlowe=alter ego+

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  5. Oh, no, John. I wasn't intending to be critical - I meant quite literally that the poem sounded like a fevered dream with all its attendant symptoms. Sorry if I mis-typed (and/or misinterpreted).

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  6. Hi Sandra:

    Not to worry, I didn't take it as critical-- having been in the poebiz MFA wars I think I know "critical" when I see it! When I said "rough" in response, I didn't mean in terms of technique etc. but more in terms of "where the poems were coming from."

    All the readers here--definitely yourself included-- are amazingly supportive, they really are!

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