painting of chet baker by debra hurd
Gabriel’s Riff
Another awkward awakening
from a deep sleep,
jerked into a jagged miasma, grappling
with the conflicted joy of visiting
the garrulous ghosts of family past,
all much younger than you, yet impervious
to the ravaged pockets of time, a sharp
carbolic taste of tar on your swollen tongue,
your heart doing the shuffle-step stumble
with each ragged inhalation, several
hallowed faces still lingering large
without haloes or horns, just loving eyes smiling,
their sins shouldered long beyond yesterday,
their warm arms still wrapped around you
in a bucolic bruising embrace,
their unabashed affection actively seeping
into that nether-space between
dreams and waking,
death and honor,
recall and the veil.
Sitting up, the sleep-scape images were still
vibrantly extant until that old companion
of aphasiac consciousness began to erase
the synaptic links to your REM journey,
and the urgent need to urinate
usurped the need to remember.
Glenn Buttkus
September 2012
Posted over on flipside records
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6 comments:
That painting is gorgeous! And I love these parts of your poem:
"jerked into a jagged miasma"
"a sharp carbolic taste of tar on your swollen tongue"
"your heart doing the shuffle-step stumble with each ragged inhalation"
"still lingering large without haloes or horns"
"sins shouldered long beyond yesterday"
"and the urgent need to urinate
usurped the need to remember" ... Love your ending. :)
Thanks for writing, Glenn.
Glenn, this is just a gorgeous, incredible tumble of words. You have used them flawlessly. This is my absolute favorite:
"impervious
to the ravaged pockets of time"
Oh, time as "ravaged pockets." Goodness. That's fantastic.
de
whimsygizmo.wordpress.com
the urgent need to urinate...woke me up! Loved this frolic...fantastic voice for those AMAZING works of art you've been sharing...always awesome, but really, REALLY enjoyed this one.
lol luckily i am not to the point that urination wakes me up yet...nice use of language in this sir, nice flow and great pic to accompany it
four.
You made my day! And that picture is awesome!
swirl it round and round
Glenn, this is one of your best ever...and there've been so many good ones. The painting makes me want to drag out my paints and the poem captures that awakening moment so clearly. Loved it!
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