Find me in the still of 2am
lips parted in a welcome kiss
pupils fixed and dilated
no I in the eye
Come to me at noon
flowers and alum to mask the stench
maggots and blowflies call me friend
soulless in the sun
Son down
mother pulls me to the ground
come, lie here with your dead
who love you still
Ted Barrett 2010
I’m fine. I put my blackness into poems to get it out of me.
Hi Ted.
IMO, One of the very best of yours that I have read.
One of the most densely coiled springs I’ve come across for quite some time.
All the best and take care
Glyn
Hello Ted,
First, I always enjoy your poetry. Secondly, I usually have trouble interpreting poetry in terms of the authors meaning.
Not sure if you want to discuss this or just let it stand. In either case, I thought I would share with you where it took me. Both of my parents passed away years ago, needless to say I love them and miss them. Several times when I was in some kind of need, they have visited me in my sleep. These visions are more real than being awake and in technecolor. In your poem I read this and a mother’s call for a return visit at her grave. Hmmmmm, thanks for the thoughts and taking me there.
Warm Regards,
John
I do hope all is well with you.
I wrote the first line two weeks ago when I was awake at 2am.
The second line came a week later during another insomnia session
Last night I stayed up and finished reading Charles Yu “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe”
Amazing Novel!!
It’s about a son looking to connect with a missing father and a disassociated mother
He repairs time machines for a living.
His time travel is based on grammatical tense moods. Imperative, indicative and subjunctive. Especially the subjunctive (contra-factual e.g. If I were you - but I’m not really)
You can’t visit the future, only the past which cannot be changed - that’s memory.
We humans are slow memory (time travel) devices.
The speed of thought is slow - much slower than the universe around us. Conscious thought is much slower than unconscious (Benjamin Libet). - free will is the illusion our consciousness perpetuates to explain why we do what we do
We time travellers revisit the important days of our lives - almost all are relations to family
nothing changes
but occasionally, rarely, if we’re lucky - how we feel about the past changes
I finished the book at 1:30am this morning
sat down and finished the poem
it just came out
Still resonating, Ted.
Very Strong Work!
:emphatic nod:
Crikey. Relatively brief words but a BIG image.
“No I in the eye” - I like that.