on a walk
from my pillow
on a hazy June night
I dreamed a grasshopper
regurgitated
your words
on my brown-stained
fingers
with little mandibles
knitting
like
knitting needles
without yarn
and a thousand eyes
each looked a
different way
everywhere
and nowhere
then I was the grasshopper
and you were the fingers
and I fanned
brown and yellow
wings
but not before the swat
and my legs poked
groundless spasms
until I became still
the grass tassels
waved
the black-eyed susans
dipped
and the flies
circled
with nowhere
to land
11 comments:
I love this poem!! I don't even know what else to say. I just love it.
I feel like I have been that grasshopper. Beautiful Jason. But then all your poems are :)
I think this is one of your best poems, Jason. The final stanza with it images of nature on the move, just like that grasshopper had been before it the swat, is powerful. The images of the flies circling is haunting.
Funny how I dislike all things creepy-crawly and yet I loved this. Charming is the word I'd use to describe it.
You've evoked it perfectly, Jason.
I have an instant memory of a summer field and I and my cat catching grasshoppers.
Grasshoppers! Amazing what you think of to make beautiful. Powerful words-amazing.
Loveable Homebody, very cool!
Tabitha, I do get the sense that you have.
Karen, I was just updating my index, and looking back, I enjoy my odd, quirky poems the most. I wanted to go in that direction again with this one.
Petty Witter, maybe it's the photo. I liked how it turned out. A very un-impressive picture became pretty charming with some art effects.
Bernita, and in just a few words, you've returned the favor with your image!
Oddyoddyo13, I've always found grasshoppers fascinating. Not as much as mantises, however.
this is just great, Jason!
i wonder if it is about a cat's snack, being insectivores, as they are :)
our cat keeps fixing her eyes on them and bang - and the poor critter is over.
this is so well captured here!
great poem!
looking nowhere and everywhere... that happens to me sometimes... how i love your descriptive writing, superb!
This one leaves me feeling uncomfortable. Instead of a lovely image from nature, I see sadness and a sense of loss of control. The grasshopper is powerless against the tyranny of "you". And, it's all meaningless. Knitting needles without yarn. No story to tell. Just the circle of life.
Hmm, sad pandas... :(
but brilliant!
Szelsofa, I like that image. The dark cat slinking through the grass. Ready to pounce.
Shadow, thank you! Are you back to blogging?
Aine, the tyranny of "you".... That's a great description! Probably the hidden sting is that futility is actually deep within the speaker. Not really outside at all. That's why the poem inverts.
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