Welcome, One Stop One Shot Wednesday visitors. This week I'm sharing a poem I, er, LC posted on Sunday. I will let it speak for itself.
Write a poem about the first song that POPS INTO YOUR HEAD IN THE MORNING. It could be your favourite song, or your least favourite song, or a song that keeps replaying over and over again in the breadbox. This is called an all-day EARWORM and you need to find a good dewormer. It is music in the making and over ripe for writing a poem about.
Lemuel insisted on writing this one, and he has given you a sonnet:
Gulfsong
By Lemuel Crouse
On salty sands where once we played in light,
Slick shadows crawl, as I, now still for good,
Lie mired 'neath the spewing, endless night.
Gulfsong: “Forgive…forget…not sure I could.”
For good…a ghost-laugh leaps from withered throat
At such a backward phrase, for evil wrecked
With zeal my birthing beach, then paused to gloat,
Some years before his well unleashed the dreck.
The dreck, this crude effusion cov’ring all
That once was home to life and hope and bliss,
Now clings and lingers deep inside my walls,
Consuming, burning with its lethal kiss.
The ghost-heart silent ‘neath my carapace
Will ever be “not ready to make nice!”
(Image courtesy of AP; for the relevant Dixie Chicks video, click here)
A wonderful, wonderful sonnet. The rhythm and the imagery are excellent, and the poem is a solemn reminder of what humanity's greed and recklessness can do to the world.
ReplyDeleteSuperb.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
ReplyDeleteGhost-laugh, ghost-heart..creepy
A beautifully constructed sonnet. The "slick shadows" typical of many telling images. A post you read more than once, and every reading discovers something new.
ReplyDeletelovely sonnet...especially that last piece...great rhythm and flow...nicely played!
ReplyDeleteBoth clever and beautifully crafted, Dave is right, superb!
ReplyDeleteA lovely old-fashioned poem and I mean that as the highest compliment.
ReplyDeleteI tip my hat to you for allowing the image to live with you long enough to generate such stellar poetry. I can't bear to see the oil-soaked/covered/decimated wildlife that are victims to the spill. What mankind does to God's creation is utterly sinful.
ReplyDeleteIncredible beauty! hats off :))) wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteSo tragic...and so beautifully expressed.
ReplyDeletevery well executed sonnet
ReplyDeletenot my forte
thanks for sharing with One Shot
moon smiles
Very, very well-crafted. I like the controlled fury of it.
ReplyDeleteit was wortht he read again...i think i would call this a beautiful sadness...thanks for sharing this with one shot...
ReplyDeleteThis is how I scream...although, in keeping with the undaunted spririt of Natalie Maines, I think an F.U.B.P. t-shirt might be in order (stands for Freedom United, Benefitting Politeness, of course ;-) Actually, I thought it important to hear the turtle's voice. We can spread the blame amongst ourselves, point fingers, shout and curse. But what do we look like through the eyes of the turtle? I'm not sure how long I can leave this up, how many days in a row I can look at it, at least in terms of the photograph, but thank you so very much for coming by and reading the poem!
ReplyDeleteDear Carolina Linthead: Powerful! "Gulfsong" a fitting carpace of all the guilt of glut; a crude and cruel joke played on as the Dixie Chicks sing the Oil Slick Video (was that made prior to the BP Gulf Oil spill?). "I ain't ready to make nice" either! (Expletive Deleted) BP!
ReplyDeleteParticularly love these lines;
"Now clings and lingers deep inside my walls,
Consuming, burning with its lethal kiss."
Wonderful imagery and very current. Masterfully done Lemuel Crouse!
Dear C.L.,
ReplyDeleteJust lovely. And I love the sonnet form, like you. It can do so much.
The Gulf. Louisiana going down, one more time.
Ann T.
chiccoreal: Thank you, and thanks for driving the bus!!! The video was done several years back, and I think it's supposed to be ink, not oil. Anyway, the song was on my mind for different, job-related reasons, so that's why I picked that prompt, but then I watched the video and the black liquid looked so much like pure crude, and I've been so very upset by the pictures from the Gulf, knowing they only show the surface of the ecological disaster, so this is what spewed forth Saturday morning. Great prompts! See you on the bus!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ann T. Yes, yet another in a string of disasters for such a beautiful and vital state and region.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this oil spill won't be forgotten any time soon. Makes me wish I could ride my bicycle everywhere I need to go.
ReplyDeleteSeems like there is always so much and so many sacrificed for each lesson we have to learn...I pray future generations learn from it as well so the sacrifice was not in vain....very nice write...bkm
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting the Dixie Chicks link. I haven't been plugged in for a while, and didn't know the song.
ReplyDeleteThe elegance of your sonnet which ABSOLUTELY captures the spirit and the rhythms of their song contrasted to the calamity on our amazing Gulf beaches. Kudos to you--an amazing, excellent poem. Thank you for sharing it with me. Gay
This is wonderful. And so sad. I feel so badly about the turtles. We humans have done so much to endanger them.
ReplyDeleteThe construction of this poem is almost flawless. You are a true artist, so much so that I kind of hate you a little.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
"mired neath the spewing, endless night"
ReplyDeletethese six words expressed so well, in such spine-chilling, creepy, horrible, doomsday tones what it must be like to be a creature in the gulf. Mired - great verb - perfect choice for this subject.
I loved this sonnet.
a superbly written piece..that proves you worth as a poet my friend.. excellent and thanks for sharing with one shot..cheers pete
ReplyDelete