Friday, January 7, 2005

   Nuther poem... This time it's a dada poem The Street Lamp Said
My mom wrote this and it's based off of Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T.S. Elliot

Hard and curled and ready to snap
a broken spring in a factory yard
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that running along the quay
She smoothes the hair of the grass
and through the spaces of the dark
so the hand of the child automatic
the lamp muttered
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
the bed is open; the tooth brush hangs on the wall
Who hesitates toward you in the light of of the door
That cross and cross across her brain"
whispering lunar incantations
Put you shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life
A washed out smallpox cracks her face
The moon has lost her memory
smells of chestnuts in the streets
and female smells in shuttered rooms
a twisted branch upon the beach
the memory throws up high and dry
as a madman shakes a dead geranium
trying to peer through lighted shutters
the street lamp said "Regard that woman
which opens on her like a grin
an old crab with barnacles on his back
her hand twists a paper rose
and devours a morsel of rancid butter
I could see nothing behind that child's eye
I have seen eyes in the street
gripped the end of a stick which i held him
and a crab one afternoon in a pool
and all its clear relations
the smells of dust and ean de Cologne
twists like a crooked pin"
She winks a feeble eye
held in a lunar synthesis
is torn and stained with sand
the street lamp sputtered
a crowd of twisted things
and you see the corner of her eye
the street lamp muttered
the little lamp spreads a ring on the stair
dissolve the floors of memory
you see the border of her dress
with all the old nocturnal smells
and cocktail smells in bars
the reminiscence comes
beats like a fatalistic drum
its divisions and precisions
here is the number on the door
the lamp sputtered
as if the world gave up
she is alone
along the reaches of the street
"regard the moon
Memory!
eaten smooth and polished
and cigarettes in corridors
half-past two
the last twist of the knife
every street lamp that I pass
of sunless dry geraniums
The secret of its skeleton
mount
Half-past on
and dust in crevices
La lune ne gaide a ucune rancune
Midnight shakes the memory
Stiff and white
she smiles into corners
half-past three
the lamp hummed slips out its tongue
TWELVE O' CLOCK
the lamp said
four o' clock
you have the key
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