© Steve King
All rights reserved
The clockface called it morning,
but without sense of newness,
nor of a moment pregnant
with light upon the world:
time enough to count the hours backward.
My sigh rolled across
a clutch of gathered blankets,
ill wind coursing on a naked peak.
My shadow fell across the emptiness—
stormclouds close upon a fallow field.
A new poem for The Poetry Pantry
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/
Sometimes mornings are not so much a fresh start but a reminder of what we need to still deal with from the night and day before - a very resonant poem
ReplyDeleteIt's disheartening when clockface calls it morning and not the sun....
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling, soon the mornings will be dark like night.. the clock is a liar, a beast,and the blankets will not bring warmth to my shivering soul.
ReplyDeleteWell, goodness. You had me right here:
ReplyDelete"The clockface called it morning"
This is just a fantastic phrase. And then that "clutch of gathered blankets."
Wonderful.
Time is now...forget the hands on the clock and the earth spins counterclockwise...tick tock..tick tock...
ReplyDeleteI so like "ill wind coursing on a naked peak". I so know the feeling of not wanting to get up, but my dog insists.
ReplyDeleteThe third stanza - oh how many times I have lain shivering in so called comfort...wonderful lines. Spencer is kanzensakura
ReplyDeleteLove those closing lines :D
ReplyDeleteOh such apt words for those mornings we just want to pull the covers over our heads....
ReplyDeleteI've felt this way--exactly--before treatment for depression. Your words: backward, sigh, ill, naked, emptiness and fallow ring so true. That "clutch of gathered blanket" can be a life raft at times.
ReplyDeleteThere is the heaviness of certain days here but also, I thought, so much wordplay on the body-- as it seemed to me to be the geography described-- that I couldn't help smiling. Maybe that was not intentional but I feel like the body is so much our landscape and I found that aspect just so clever and right that I hope it was (intentional). Hope all well, Steve. K.
ReplyDeleteThis is so well crafted. It's almost as if you were looking out my window today, although there seems to be more barrenness than just the landscape here.
ReplyDelete"The clockface called it morning"...but not the sun, not my body wanting to stay under the warm blankets....
ReplyDeletePerhaps because I myself like to include metaphor, some double-meaning in my own words, I always read the works of others wondering of the thoughts behind the writing. And perhaps because I am feeling my age more of late, when I read your words I can almost see reflection on the same. Or perhaps on this gray morning, I am just projecting! Love this piece Steve. Brief, concise, and perfectly worded.
ReplyDelete