The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 10/31/07

[BlueIris]

"All Hallows' Eve"

A mouse
gnaws a hole
in the white grain sack of sky.
Night spills everywhere.

Small ghost
racing for a hiding place

but only fields loom up
wide and starless and low.

Knotted tight
at wrist and neck—
the dirty bed sheet

she will have to live in
for as long as red leaves fall.

And what costume
is he wearing this time—
Raphael, Lucifer,

father? Tall as the balding
moon, he splits
a doll's face

as he steps near enough
for the flames
stitched into sour wings

to scissor
their golden tips deep
into his daughter's
lamé skin.

—Mekeel McBride

[BlueIris]

1. McBride wrote the following about this poem in "The Best American Poetry 1992":

"A friend of mine and I are talking about how terrifying Halloween really is. You put on a costume and suddenly you've taken your interior and made it visible. My friend locks the door, turns out the lights, and hides in the back of the house, because he can't stand all the demons coming to his door. I keep getting a picture of this kid running down a road all wrapped up in a filthy sheet. She's supposed to be a ghost. But the costume turns out to be real, and it isn't, after all, Halloween.

This poem, originally four times as long as it is now, shows up in my journal for about a year in various versions. It takes me that long to figure out who is running and why. It also takes that long to pare it down to what is essential."

[BlueIris]

2. Kick.

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.

[BlueIris]

4. Geeze, I never thought this would bomb so huge.

:nuke:

[BlueIris]

5. Kick.

[Rambis]

6. A friend did this one

They’re Afraid of Nothing

I thought I’d woken up, but it was just another layer of the dream. Steam-filled, the
passenger’s head was in the clouds. Cheap seats indeed. Light-hearted and heavy-lidded, he
left the circus for the zoo. It’s all over for the barking at the shadow’s haunted ghosts.

And yet they respond that they’re not afraid of anything:
Nothing ancient,
Nothing emotional,
Nothing violent.

In the near distance, unmissable, there is no kiss quite like futility’s. Phones once had bells.
Heredity’s fingerprints maze and flicker on cold, black glass. Helicopter victims resurrect,
strum, and sizzle with a short gray wisp.

And yet they respond that they’re not afraid of anything:
Nothing bureaucratic,
Nothing artificial,
Nothing dictatorial.

Contempt for knowing is worth nothing. Fast thoughts flurry though snow seldom douses:
acres gone, pond dry, a dark form swings in the barn door. Seamed containers hold their
contents. Well, for a time.

And yet they respond that they’re not afraid of anything:
Nothing chronological,
Nothing communicated between relations,
Nothing like sex with the lights on.

They lied.

[BlueIris]

7. Kick.