A Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire of a Child in London, by Dylan Thomas

Just three sentences here. The syntax of the first is hard to follow, but logical: "Never until ... shall I ... ." The poem has a primal feel, and I think it is Judaeo-Christian. The last line, to me, says that on some level this is about the fall of man. The tragedy of one is the tragedy of us all.


A Refusal to Mourn ...

Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child’s death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.


Unspeakable

No, Popsickle by Gabe Gudding

I hardly know what to say. A case of nonsense and anthropomorphism: The popsicle as a resilient child. The popsicle as a metaphor for not giving up. Maybe Gudding didn't mean that. But I love the sounds and the craziness of it. It's delightful to me.

No, Popsickle

No, popsickle: stay.
Don’t be eaten. Remain in the freezer, the
super market, lodge in the long
far-traveling fridge truck—Be convoyed: indeed
be conveyed for a Dakota
a Missouri—but when the truck arrive
at its depository
—or store—at the end of what hot bridge in the dim forenoon,
stay, little bulb of colored cold,
far in your cozy no-no.
I say chill, be a child, popsickle, refuse.

First appeared in Court Green

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Blue Tattoo, by Mitchell Metz

Voice seems often lacking in contemporary poetry. Not here. The poem's voice jumps with a hip sweetness and cavorts by linking sounds. I see the speaker in a college town, hanging out in a cluttered coffee shop. His hair's probably hanging down in his eyes.


Blue Tattoo

Thanks for attaching the pic
of the dragon tattoo on your tricep
Downloaded just fine. Can't say I've fashioned
a strong opinion on the tat, except that it looks like a seahorse
Which I suspect —
and I don't know much
about body art, or mythical creatures
for that matter — is not the effect you're shooting for.
Couldn't help but notice, though,
that there seems to be a woman
lurking beneath the beast.
May be wrong. Been wrong before
about girly lurking. But I think I see
some flesh and the strong presence
of no blood & some meat — the meat
that is you, peeking. Definite sinew.
Are you pale, or what? I knew
you were. You told me. White as a wafer.
Didn't figure you'd make it some kind of sacrament
in a new sect. Christ,
you're almost transparent!
White that wanes past itself
cannibalizes into blue. A blue needing. A blue
needing to be eaten by the suggestion of shadow,
of me. Speaking of me
speaking of shadow, I'm, yum, all over
your lack of cleavage. That pretty hint of not much
is about the most feminine thing I've ever not seen.
Your tits are double negatives,
baby, and I'm turned on
by bad logic.
Oh, and those stray curls
that fall from frame's edge to
kiss the rise of your shoulder?
Never used the word tendril before.
Consider this a first. Consider it tender.
They're gray!
Blonde, yeah. But gray, too.
Screw auburn and platinum, henceforth
blondeyeahbutgraytoo's the best color curls
could possibly be. I said best,
which brings us to the show stopper. (Sure,
I understand that your seahorse is the star,
the marquee act in our peek-a-boo drama,
so fierce and manifest and full of intent
blah, blah, blah ...),
but from the wings
a bit player steals the scene.
She's a swan; the luxurious longitude
of your neck's tendon. Bold. Fragile.
Plunging provocatively
to the shadowed grotto, the shallow pocket
where the sternum bolsters throat, that very atrium
of flesh responsible for ... severe over-writing.
Point is,
it got me going.
And thanks for that.
I like the pic. Not bad.

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