I am ill-starred, legs above the water,
breath still held. For mewould you stand bareheaded,
scattering wildflowers on the shore,
or am I just driftwood in a sea of fragments
of what was or could have been.
My breath is still held for you,
my bearings, my ballast,
my scattered wildflowers on the shore,
the star that I can point down to,
the dial that seems to spin in its case,
pointing always in the same direction,
my bearings, my ballast,
the sky I never grabbed two-handed,
you, the star that I can point up to,
the arch of waves that defines me,
the bubbles, I can no longer hold,
bursting with what could have been.
The sky you grabbed, two-handed,
standing unbevereaved, bareheaded,
the arch of waves defining you
are ill-starred, legs above the deep.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I just finished reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. This poem is rather heavily inspired by the end of it, you know, when the ship finally sinks. Some folks put on their lifebelts upside-down and ended up floating with their legs in the air. The author referred to them as "ill-starred" and I got really excited and decided that this should be a poem. I meant for it to be in pantoum form, but that just didn't quite work out. So it's pantoum-ish. Pantoum lite. Confused pantoum.
I’ve been seeing some interesting things driving the kids to and from school. The other day it was some kid (and by kid I mean an adult at least a decade younger than me) dancing with a sign that said “Hungry” and other things. He was very enthusiastic and I was creeping through traffic on 45th with nothing better to do than stare. He had a dog on a leash, one of those belly-draggers with stubby little legs. Caught up in the excitement of his/her/fur master, the dog rolled over on the ground, legs in the air as if the dance had resulted in premature death. I laughed so hard, I almost drove off the road.
That was one ill-starred dog.