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Hurricanes revised (7th)

by seanfarragher 

Posted: 25 September 2005
Word Count: 532
Summary: Revised to exclude three stanzas that may not be part of the poem. What do you think?


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Hurricanes
Sean Farragher

I have lost my mind in this terror of trees rocking ever so faraway
out of the breeze. I wait for the quiet stillness to pause and retch
upward to the mercy held in a golden cup I can no longer feel.
The dead are unsuitable as we stumble with them out of the eye.
We kick one, trip. We dance another and gray lips fail to echo.

No one can count them. They disappear from one iris to another
out the blown windows and into the heart: dull blue skin rots
on the margins of waste. Cats and dogs swim endlessly blind
out with the waves and in with the tide.

In the race to death to the pedestal of the cliff we stagger dance
with every corpse by art of physics; we are the blood painted glare
of cesspools adorned by the pallet of Francis Bacon.

After death, we pronounce the city lost; in silence
we are dressed-right-dressed on military charts drawn
in lines cursed from elbow to sharpened elbow.

If I had lived in New Orleans on the second day of September 2005
I would be dead: no oxygen; no breath; no mercy. My wheel chair
would have spun out to sea and the sludge would have completed
my throat until my vague eyes peeled back to my hallowed skull.


XXX



-----------------------------

Older version with included lines

Hurricanes and Serial Murder
Sean Farragher

I have lost my mind in this terror of trees rocking ever so faraway
out of the breeze. I wait for the quiet stillness to pause and retch
upward to the mercy held in a golden cup I can no longer feel.
The dead are unsuitable as we stumble with them out of the eye.
We kick one, trip. We dance another and gray lips fail to echo.

No one can count them. They disappear from one iris to another
out the blown windows and into the heart: dull blue skin rots
on the margins of waste. Cats and dogs swim endlessly blind
out with the waves and in with the tide.

In the race to death to the pedestal of the cliff we stagger dance
with every corpse by art of physics; we are the blood painted glare
of cesspools adorned by the pallet of Francis Bacon.

After death, we pronounce the city lost; in silence
we are dressed-right-dressed on military charts drawn
in lines cursed from elbow to sharpened elbow.

I have majesty in the art of the loom pressing letters damn shibboleth
in throats of the liars who pretend they are sacred and not malice.

Ten years ago I wrote about serial murder as if it were sacred crime
preserved as glory and realized as fiction for unlawful survival.

Vulnerable, my personas clawed at chance without safety ropes,
or the delusion that somehow we would live without change.

If I had lived in New Orleans on the second day of September 2005
I would be dead: no oxygen; no breath; no mercy. My wheel chair
would have spun out to sea and the sludge would have completed
my throat until my vague eyes peeled back to my hallowed skull.


XXX






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Comments by other Members



crowspark at 18:45 on 26 September 2005  Report this post
Powerful stuff Sean. I particularly liked, "The dead are unsuitable as we stumble with them".

I was uncertain about,

"Ten years ago I wrote about serial murder as if it were sacred crime
preserved as glory, perpetuated as fame and survival for Laurie Fallon.

Why is memory so easily confused?"

Great writing.

Bill

seanfarragher at 21:29 on 26 September 2005  Report this post
You are right about the last line. See how i changed it. Thanks for your comments

crowspark at 12:52 on 27 September 2005  Report this post
Yes, a better fit I think.

Beanie Baby at 22:04 on 28 September 2005  Report this post
Hello Sean.
This contains very strong imagery and utterly illustrates the hell that must be New Orleans! You were obviously very touched by the horror of it (as most of us were) and it will take America a huge amount of effort to overcome such a disaster.

Very well captured, atmospheric and haunting.
Beanie

laurafraser at 10:58 on 30 September 2005  Report this post
i like the rhyming of 'trees to breeze" feels as if you are rockinfg yourself in it

this is powerful sean
it feels like a quiet ocean when it is completely flat before a storm and one gets the impression when they read it that when that storm does unleash, woe behold any who are near...!

The o nly thing that i dont like is the opening bit. It seems a little too forlorn and a bit self pitying, which i think is wrong, because this poem is not about the tragedy of N.O.

I THINK IT WOrks much better as "I lost my miind" - that for me is far more. to poach a word of Beanies, 'hauntng' it lures me on and makes me want o explore more.

But a wonderful, strong and disturbing piece

xx L.

Elsie at 00:24 on 15 October 2005  Report this post
Hi Sean, you know I struggle sometimes with your writing, but this makes more sense to me. One bit though sticks out as an irrelevance - the two lines "Ten years ago I wrote..", and the next two that are linked. Is there a link in your mind between a natural disaster and a story you wrote?

In the last line I wondered why 'our eyes' when you are talking about what would have happened to you?

And, 'scuse me for my lack of understanding, what is this stanza about:

I have majesty in the art of the loom pressing letters damn shibboleth
in throats of the liars who pretend they are sacred and not malice.


(I don't mean that in a contentious way - I am trying to understand - I've been reading a bit of Prynne recently - and i don't understand that either!)


seanfarragher at 09:12 on 15 October 2005  Report this post
Elsie, you may be absolutely correct. I have excluded three stanzas and changed that personal pronoun mistake. I would appreciate your reaction. As I see it I dont miss those three stanzas, and, therefore, they detract from the poem. This poem requires clarity and I think I have it now. Thank You.

Elsie at 22:47 on 18 October 2005  Report this post
Sean, for me, much better.


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