POEM — city without you

I went out dancing

drank red wine

I passed the time

I walked I sang

the church bells rang

through crisp December air

a thousand fluttering beating

hearts were everywhere

ah, distinctly, I remember

it was in the bleak December

and each separate dying ember

wrought its ghost upon the floor

eagerly I wished the morrow

vainly I had sought to borrow

from my books surcease of sorrow

the cosmic abyss

absent of creatures

rolled and thundered

in such sublime beauty

it cried for recognition

of itself

and first it started

with a terrible energy

without boundaries

and forged a skin

soft and supple

a powerful heart

with a circulating energy

the first contained

and so began all the senses

that spring from skin

and words came forth

to describe them

tiger, tiger burning bright

in the forests of the night

what immortal hand or eye

dare forge thy fearful symmetry

in what distant deeps or skies

burnt the fire of thine eyes

on what wings dare he aspire

what the hand dare seize the fire

and when the stars threw down their spears

and watered heaven with their tears

did he smile his work to see

did he who made the lamb make thee

even the fiercest things

can be very soft

think of tigers

and snow leopards

they pad over any terrain

hot

cold

wet

soft

they pad with nails

as sharp as knives

of the finest steel

imagine

soft on soft

flesh on flesh

before the cut

so deep and clean

the scream

is bliss

these are things I’m thinking

as I’m walking through the city

wondering when my love returns

and pray it won’t be fleeting

 

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Author’s Note:

Credits to Edgar Allen Poe and William Blake and note on why I used them.

Thx to Poe and Blake for verses of theirs that fit into my ‘city without you’. It wasn’t that simple or direct but they stuck with me and here it is, after many years – complété! I dare say I think I have visitations from some of my favourite and most-loved writers of the past but I don’t think that’s unusual, do you?

*

Meg Baird lives her life in a poetic kind of steam pot. Poems come to her as life moves her to protect her feelings and thoughts in words. She’s been writing in this way since her early 30’s. Her memory is what takes most people’s interest at readings. Everyone says how different it is to listen to someone who’s reciting a work. This is a gift she takes little credit for but hopes she is using to its full potential. She’s been published in a couple of hard copy books: Spring Pulse (2009), CV2: Poetry Only (2011) and in several ezines, including Yellow Mama, Apollo’s Lyre, Open Heart Forgery, Anemone Sidecare, Pracha Review as well as some dedicated artists compiled specialities such as Fluidity and Fourth Floor Images.