Skip to main content

Water or Fire

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #201. Come to the poetry parade!


You can see it in the eyes -- the path is falling away.

Behind the walker, a world has been crushed back
into the primordial: water or fire.
And still, the camera remains on the motion
toward the viewer. 
As if you were solid ground.

You see them everywhere, now.
Walking away.

Turn into the subdivision, which lies quiet
under a sky glorious with sun and lilac clouds;
even here, someone is walking away.

We have watched them so long
there are images in our history books
and in our televised memory. 

the walker comes without expectation
without possession, without expression

The screen bleeds fire. 
You stanch it with laughter.
A fiery scab forms 
in the back of your mind. 
Solid ground, magma into islands.

Eventually, you take off your shoes.

I keep starting this over: my brain is in overdrive and it's been a little while since I was able to walk through the local park and just breathe. It's a good alternative to screaming, although neither accomplish very much. 

-- Chrissa


Comments

  1. Carrie Van HornMarch 5, 2022 at 7:50 AM

    I can feel the deep emotion this holds Chrissa. Sometimes the ground we stand on can feel like it is losing it's foundation indeed. I hope that regardless of the need to scream that you have some peace and the joy of your lovely furry friends around you to make your day pleasant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. indybevMarch 5, 2022 at 3:12 PM

    May your feet find solid ground and your soul find peace! Blessings

    ReplyDelete
  3. HelenMarch 5, 2022 at 4:19 PM

    Frightening to consider: islands of magma that morph into islands ... separating us, we lose touch with other humans, the end.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ms_liliMarch 5, 2022 at 7:34 PM

    The chaos is difficult to shake at times. Nature does help but not always.

    ReplyDelete
  5. qbitMarch 6, 2022 at 3:47 AM

    That is fantastic. This especially: "A fiery scab forms / in the back of your mind. / Solid ground, magma into islands." Damn that's good. And the poem itself forms up as it bleeds.

    ReplyDelete
  6. kaykualaMarch 6, 2022 at 2:07 PM

    Love the reminder Chrissa to try back part of the old normal on our own. Been a few years
    now. It's being healthy to be out in the open again !

    Hank

    ReplyDelete
  7. TruedessaMarch 6, 2022 at 4:43 PM

    The reader can feel a helplessness when reading these lines. The images of the refugees come to
    my mind...lost and homeless. Not sure it that is where you were going but, that is the message that connected in my brain.

    the walker comes without expectation
    without possession, without expression

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sherry Blue SkyMarch 7, 2022 at 8:45 AM

    This morning I am watching the walkers, trying to flee, being ruthlessly gunned down in the streets as they clutch their babies and dogs. Absolutely unbelievable for soldiers to behave this way.

    ReplyDelete
  9. SunitaMarch 7, 2022 at 8:52 PM

    So much power in your poem, Chrissa. A strong emotion flows as I read every line.

    ReplyDelete
  10. purplepeninportland.comMarch 9, 2022 at 4:46 PM

    "The screen bleeds fire.
    You stanch it with laughter.
    A fiery scab forms
    in the back of your mind.
    Solid ground, magma into islands."

    Your writing is unique, and vivid. We are all watching, but its not enough.

    ReplyDelete
  11. .March 11, 2022 at 4:04 PM

    This touched me deep.
    They walk, with nothing... not safe at all.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn Away

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse , for #193. Turn away, like the moon, listening... Listening to the planet that rumbles with a hundred million slaps. All the feet, all the rockets, all the  pistons in the cars on the asphalt over the chasm where the veins run deep, blue in sunlight, black at night. Running over the chasm.  Once or twice they ran to you. Once or twice they ran by. Greetings and salutations. The sky is an entertaining shade of concrete yellow as the rain promised earlier in the week makes good on its arrival. It's a disturbing bright sallow sky, the kind of sky that puts you in mind of old movies and degraded film stock and the pops and crackles incidental to the main story.  Several years ago I made a resolution to journal more and last year I came across a video that suggested I actually re-read those journals, at least those of the previous year, at the beginning of each new year. Technically, I have kept the journal resolution, making daily notes in...
15 comments
Read more

The Soul and The Spine

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #195 . Come and share! When it blew out the candle, It began to speak, voice low,  eyes dimmer than flame. Jenn believed, once upon a childhood (she's still there... but it's waning), it inhaled fire. Spines, tonight. Gears ladder bones and metal and plastic, all that lived, rungs to heaven. Heaven is a level of space where you can't breathe  so they used to send the dead. When the flame goes, it takes our memories with it. But not bot files. Maybe it believes  she'll sleep easier if bots go breathless, too. It continues murmuring and she pretends she's hearing a confession in a box Like the song her mother plays when the dark stretches  between signals We can handle shocks. She can handle the dark, the small  not-flame of its eyes. It's finally winter!! Which means bitmapped frost on the roofs, cold mornings, and a table full of succulents that are pretty much glaring at me because the kitchen window isn't the same as full su...
14 comments
Read more

A Single (Terrible) Poem

 I did not buy the poetry book whose sample Was page after page of essay and praise. I'm not following the trumpets. Today I follow the ringers-- Huzzah and call out the streets! Lift your arm, swing the bell; Call out the quiet, call out the neat Call out the loud, call out the bold Call out the wrong, call out the wise We remember the bells We shiver the skies.    This isn't about...anything. It's not about nothing. It should go without saying that a poem shouldn't need an essay or a textbook to be what it is. And I'm not sure why, with a stack of poetry at hand to be read, one silly Kindle sample (and writer's block and anxiety and...) would push my buttons so badly. But seriously. Where is my parody book full of fake blurbs that runs for 50 pages and ends with a single (terrible) poem?  -- Chrissa
11 comments
Read more