artwork image by Jinny Nieviadomy.
Blackbird Blues
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night--take these
broken wings & learn to fly.”--the Beatles.
Winter froze the moonlight into knotted braids
of pale rope that swirled in the icy blasts,
oscillating their shadows, so it appeared
that the landscape had become a piano
keyboard & a laughing lunar invisible pianist
plunked out a wind waltz, creating a woodwind
musicale out of the dancing black & white keys.
On this night, the leaden skies of ebon evening
turned into red weeping blood, a startling
stigmata, throbbing with some unknown despair
as a solitary raven swooped through the sticky
thermals, its feathers growing heavy with steaming
plasmaic mist, only being clearly seen as it
winged sadly past the moon, on the hunt, predator
not trickster, cawing in its mina bird tones:
“All is madness--dystopia has descended upon us
& stupidity was the worst virus we endured last year.”
Blackbird flying in
darkness with lunatic grace--
searching for the truth.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub
16 comments:
I crave a world that's not built upon lies... honesty is leaving like a black bird against a blood-red sky... We need the new beginnings..
I feel transported into a landscape painted by Salvador Dali or some surrealist artist, where nothing makes sense any more. You describe this disorientation with your customary tough grace.
I really don't know what to say. This work took me on a journey. I loved the ride.
We need to search for the truth ~ I specially like the imagery of:
woodwind musicale out of the dancing black & white keys.
Oh, Glenn. I've missed your work. Just gorgeous.
It is very surrealistic, very imaginative. The raven is taking wing for a new horizon.
I like the way you used everything possible from this painting, transforming a still picture to a moving film...at least for me.
Oh, wow. How beautiful:
"Winter froze the moonlight into knotted braids
of pale rope"
"a solitary raven swooped through the sticky"
"Blackbird flying in
darkness with lunatic grace"
The last year was indeed insane
and the raven worries me as darkness swoops the land
the mad man at the keys, now that is scary
I've missed you way with words...
A lot of symbolism here, and the satire so appropriate...the October or November surprise kept a lot of us quiet for awhile, but we have to express our frustration and you did it beautifully with pale moonlight, a wind waltz and invisible pianist...hmmmm.
The last line struck me especially....lunatic grace is genius!
A lunatic grace ... is what we all will need to get through what has been imposed on us by the powers to be.
"On this night, the leaden skies of ebon evening
turned into red weeping blood,".......may this is the world we'll be soon into....
there is so much here, I can't pick and choose right now. The symbolism swirls around my head, and what I thought began as a nightmare, turned out to be a promise of hope (in your poem) You used the term "Trumpian thermals' in a comment, and that opened it for me. That was also brilliant as is your poem.
Jane (Lady Nyo)
I am so late to the reading........apologies. As someone else said, so much to absorb here...
"red weeping blood, a startling
stigmata, throbbing with some unknown despair
as a solitary raven swooped through the sticky
thermals"
The idea of a stigmata is a powerful one....when I see the painting I see the world in the red and the dripping white...and the lone bird. We are in a world that has been traumatized...and there is a lone blackbird, lunacy afoot.
This I think, is one of your best, Glenn. Someday, I would love to see or hear your thought process. The imagery conjured is astounding...but the thoughts that go with it even more so that they can be writ in such a powerful way.
Feels epic....like it could be a ballad....love the 'startling stigmata' and the idea of moonlight turning into knotted braids. Such visual imagery!!
"On this night, the leaden skies of ebon evening
turned into red weeping blood," ~ouch. So much truth in this piece.
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