If It's Thursday, It Must Be Poetry Thursday.

Damn, it's Thursday already? Thank the heavens (and some groovy chicks) for Poetry Thursday. Since I first discovered it, I've made it my mission to write a poem every week. I don't always emerge with a keeper, but I attempt it.

This week's work, "Harbinger," came from a combination of sound and old memory. While I was lying in the bathtub on a windy night, I heard a siren's wail bend, as if someone had his finger on a vinyl record while it played. I recalled the sirens that woke up my husband and me one winter near Christmas. We'd just returned from Connecticut and were stuck in bed with the flu. We didn't even get up to open gifts. Sometime during that illness, our neighbor's house went up in flames. I don't remember what caused it, but I did write a City Paper essay about it, changing the neighbor's name to protect him. I remember a particularly nasty letter about it, which dwelled primarily on the fact that I didn't take the time to get to know his real name. (I believe there was a disclaimer in the piece.)

After I wrote the poem, I posted on a local poetry forum and got some good feedback. I noodled and diddled and tweaked this for hours the day after I wrote it, but the crazy alliteration in the beginning remained. I just couldn't part with it.




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harbinger

on wind the sirens bend.
birds tucked in don’t stir
as the low warped moans
of warning wend our way
and stop outside.
now the night’s a puzzle
a code tapped out by vigilance
dotted with yellow slickers
dashed with rubber hoses.
a tapestry of flame stitch fingers
claws the chilly stars
while we swap sleepy yawns
and awe with passive speculation:
kerosene or Christmas tree?
candle’s lick of curtain hem?
cigarette ash in sofa cushions
dropped in Late Night doze?
boring old pot on the stove?
an insomniac arsonist house finch
avenging her baby’s death by cat?

before the soggy loveseat
and bombed out shell of television
and remnants of a so-so life
are piled up on the lawn
before we learn what barbecued
our neighbor and his house
the birds will stir and twitter
will tell us without judgment
even the tabby who mews
amid the ruins
that it’s time for all to rise
and face afresh this day
no matter what
the wreckage of our lives.