Bird Nineteen: Kittens in the Road
Yes, there were kittens in the road.
And, no, I am not over it.
Kittens in the Road
And finally, it is the kittens in the road
that unravel you.
not the dead daddy or the nightmares,
scolding grandmother yanking braids,
the bruising step-father or his menacing,
molesting son,
not the angry markered scrawl on
the back of the bus seat, bathroom stall,
ringing punch to the jaw, lonely walk home,
not the Humbert-Humbert softball coaches
proffering wine coolers and weed, hair-flip
mafia holding court with scowls and scissors,
not the infinite trail of pressuring boys in
pickups, pastures, parking lots,
not the pale genius-stalker sketching,
stuffing poems in your locker,
not the war, the global warming, rats
in the attic, the toothless, pneumoniac
grandpa in the nursing home,
not the miscarriage, the failed marriage,
the stroke or its lopsided aftermath,
but the kittens in the road,
carpool mothers neatly
maneuvering their clownish SUVs
around a mewling, matted mass
recklessly pawing the air, limp sibling
lying yards away and mercifully dead.
And you are both of them and
you cannot look away.
Photo by longhorndave
10 comments:
Some strong images in there - enjoyed the read :-)
Very good images. Great flow too.
This list poem with the powerful images really conjures up strong emotions and shows how sometimes the small calamities or what really move us or push us over the edge.
Oh.
This is heartbreaking and difficult to read, but I love it. It is really well done and the last lines are the clinchers.
Powerful poem and wonderful/horrific imagery. Well written.
this is wonderful - you've used words so beautifully, such strong images too and that heartbreaking ending.
Woah! You know, like you were telling me: it may be hard to write and you may not write often, but when you do it is always amazing. Perhaps it can be compared to a dam/flow. Off, or geyser.
Anyway, I love this kind of poem - the kind that begins with something horrible, then tells you why it is even more horrible, in a kind of ranting way (not to minimize the craft, which is crazy good).
At first this poem reminded me a little of Sexton, but then it truly reminded me of one of my favorite contemporary poets Cathleen Calbert.
Two top favorites:
"pneumoniac" and the "miscarriage/marriage" rhyme.
I want to pipe up about one thing though: I stopped reading on "And you are both of them." BAM. Woo!
I did not want "and you cannot look away" because I felt it was 1. inherent (I can't look away from your poem and I wouldn't be able to look away from a pile of kittens in peril or the dead one) and 2. it eased the shock of the reader and speaker being both kitten peril pile and dead kitten.
Great work, as usual!
disturbing. i just wanted the kittens to be rescued. i once saw ducklings waddle safely across busy road with mom in middle of the night. i was their crossing guard.i saw your collage on readymade, very neat.
you sure can write
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I love all animals and I have a sincere fondness for cats. Reading this poem made me hurt inside. I would have been the one to stop sideways in the middle of the road, put the remaining live kittens in my vehicle, and burry the dead on the road side.
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