mirrors

[eclipse]

 

I was sleeping on a mirror, dreaming about

my drowned son when the tide came in

carrying me out to sea. Finlay woke me

knocking on the glass, was it his reflection

or the tattoo of his face on my back that he

saw?. Finlay appeared again in the glass

at the top the tree he used to climb, he held

a mirror with his face turned away in which

his reflection was drowning, then the tree became

wax but the fruit was real and vice-versa. angels

climbed branches of frozen lightning placing synthetic

tears on leaves helping me to rehearse this senseless

grief, angels left a letterbox without a door and on my

son's birthday the after-draft of wings flows lifting the

letterbox to reveal Finlay's eyes.

[Tinker]

Hi Barry,   This somber piece captures well a dream sequence, disjointed and in some places bizarre.  I was touched by 
"helping me to rehearse this senseless grief"   this line made me feel incredibly sad.    I thought your choice of line breaks in the latter half of the poem might have dulled my feelings a bit as I read.  It was my 2nd read that connected with the feeling rather than the first. 

~~Tink

[tonyv]

I enjoyed the progression and lyrical characteristics of this piece, how the the speaker asks the question and how the poet leaves it unanswered for the reader. The speaker doesn't know the answer, neither does the reader, nor should he.

Also striking is that Finlay held a mirror "with his face turned away." That image says a lot. For some reason it causes me to make an association with a line ("She has drawn her hands away") from a lovely poem by Hart Crane called "A Persuasion." Slightly different subject matter, almost similar texture and mood.

And I, as Tinker did, liked "rehearse this senseless grief." Nice submission, Barry.

Tony

[David W. Parsley]

Very moving, captures the sense of displacement and alienation experienced in the face of incomprehensible loss.  Like Tony and Tink, I feel that the poem seems to draw its converging lines to the stupefying irony that the inability to come to grips with the tragedy is like a sequence of "rehearsals" - devastating, startles with the affirmation of helplessness. 

I agree with Tink that some of the internal and line-end breaks could be reconsidered.  But my biggest problem with the piece is "senseless grief", which brings a glaring bromide into a highly original poem.  Perhaps a phrase more akin to "ritual" or "motions" would work better here.

Thank you, Barry.  (I think!)

Dave