Turns out I may not end up at AWP after all; there is a large snowstorm moving in tomorrow night, and the forecast for Thursday (when I have to go up the Interstate in a rickety bus) is not yet set. I’ll see how it looks tomorrow, but I don’t fancy the idea of riding through a blizzard. It would certainly be a wonderful treat to get there, though. We’ll see.
With snow on the mind, here’s a quick piece for We Write Poems, who wanted natural images without “the”, in the hopes of (presumably) making the elements more personified. Thundersnow has always confounded me, a little bit. I don’t go for that sort of thing. A little bit of Kay Ryan channeled into this one, maybe. A very little bit.
Some Blood
Snow and thunder
should not mix.
At least with summer storms
you know some blood’s beneath
tall clouds gnashing
their rainswept teeth.
But this contraption of dusk,
catching streetlights with its
rapid whirl, striking
every heart dumb
with distant, muffled dynamite–
well, it just won’t do. To come
so coldly beautiful, to
slow time to a crawl
and the world to one’s liking,
you know, it won’t do at all.
This is beautiful – I particularly liked the idea of “tall clouds gnashing
their rainswept teeth.”
You did use one “the”, but I’ll forgive you for it all made a lovely poem
I hope your weather fears are not realised.
Nice tone in the ending.
Great description of an eerie combination!