A BLUEBIRD IN EIGHT WAYS
~ After Wallace Stevens
I
A poet is a bluebird
who drizzles the sky
with indanthrene songs
II
I am making words
out of the bluebird’s tongue,
littered on the paper
like a rejection letter.
III
The bluebird looks at me
with its reticent eye -
wants to sprinkle lies
in the blackbird’s ear.
IV
I have no time for cheats.
Bluebirds are full of infidelity,
wagging their sweet
little tails at the worms.
V
I know a fine song
if it licks my heels.
I smile and my breast heaves
at the fortissimo.
VI
When the bluebird flies away
the chicks’ chasm-jaws
snatch at a stopped watch.
VII
The snow dusts the blue wings.
Makes snow angels on the ice.
I fall, my womb a pomegranate.
VIII
I never did fit in a box.
Too big dreams for a small forest.
No blackbirds with carbon plumage.
I want diamonds.
Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022
Wallace Stevens, (1954), 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York. Random House.
Images by krstnwatts0 and Johnny Gunn from Pixabay
Tag: love poem
Tears
Tears
Don’t want to write
A sad poem,
But my eyes
Refuse to cooperate
With my
Polite smile
And weather worn
Bravado.
Feelings are seeping out
Of closets
Where I thought
I had sealed doors with
Art and beautiful music.
Thinking I had grown beyond
The tears.
But I hadn’t.
And haven’t.
I saw a homeless man
Yesterday.
His face a map of pain
And dejection.
And today the black girl
On TV,
With eyes that
Sold a charity,
And broke me.
And my tears feel like
Insignificance.
Like a first world indulgence.
Privilege.
But I miss you.
Sarah Drury, March 2021

