Tuesday, February 15, 2011

alkali











The salt of the earth
is not known for a bedside
manner. Theirs is not for tasting
the white of an egg, but predatory,
sponged and purged, rubbed
in war wounds, blood-red
as Mercurochrome.

Why trade in such certainties?
Let them roll like Jujitsu, tumble
easy, as water off a duck’s back,
salting icy roads instead of tears.

I ask for a small portion,
like a cocktail olive
in a vodka martini.

It’s just a scratch.
Kiss it for me.



Tess Kincaid
February 2011



Would you like me to read it to you?

83 comments:

  1. LOVE the new look of the blog...and these intense words, perfection!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well this is lovely thank you- egg and Mercurochrome- I haven't thought of that in a while! what color! nice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm always moved when i visit here.

    yes, a small portion will do - so very often.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I absolutely love the new header.
    And the poem is wonderful...that last line is killer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I like your painted lady face header. It is so you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Tess: Recently watched the Channel 4 news from Buffalo where they showed the Lake Erie saltmines. I was suprised to know that one could be nearly barenaked and work in the saltmines. I have a salt lamp from the Himalayas that supposedly cleans the air. The foot kind detoxes the body. Just the whiff of the salty rock can begin to burn the nostrils. I don't know how they can work in that saltmine environment. It must not been too acidic rock salt. Maybe it is is..I love that word "Akali" Sounds mystic! Poem is salted nicely with just the right pinch of historic punch. Boy were our ancestors a salty salt of the earth types!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Willow, Love.....is that the best of Antiseptics or the deepest cut of all for which there is no known cure? Perhaps Mercurochrome will do the trick.....it is always available in the bathroom cabinet!!

    Happy Valentine's Day!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I see you're morphing again. Restless spirits we.

    Love this poem! I can't choose a bit I like; I like all of it!

    Kat

    ReplyDelete
  9. Love the poem Tess. Can't figure how you got there from the prompt but that 's a creative mind at work.
    Of salt - our inland Lake Eyre (a salt lake) is almost full for its once oin 25year flooding.AND have you read 'Salt' by the same author as 'Cod'. It's a fascinating histroy of......well, salt.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love the poem and LOVE the new look here!
    Happy Valentine's Day...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great image! I see you have been playing in the paint again! I so love having you read to me!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I wonder how many will miss that heart on the forehead and the one formed by the two hands. It's a stunning header!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have felt so terribly artless, but you always cure me.(I actually made an Artist's Date yesterday and made a Windows Movie of favorite photos....and actually wrote a post! OMG!!)
    Hope you are having a wonderful
    Saint Valentine's Day!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tough Love, well-expressed. Clever word-pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  15. love the new header. I want to know more about the picture.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I *heart* everything about this post! Love the new look. I especially like the poem--I have always been fond of both salt and Mercurochrome. I wish Mercurochrome worked for wounds to the spirit--hey, that's a good book title: Mercurochrome for the Spirit.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Totally cool portrait! It is fun. (but I will miss the Manor photo) This prompt has elicited another "I can't do this one" but I hope to rise to the challenge. ...

    ReplyDelete
  18. Beautiful header art and the poem is also perfect for Valentine day!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Dr. L, hop to it. "Mercurochrome for the Spirit" is begging to be written by you, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Oh that is so much more than I ever bargained for and yet I want more than ever a small portion. Salt of the earth what I admire the most in others but have yet to achieve in myself. It seems so effortless for those folks and yet when I try it seems contrived. I don't mean it that way but someone once called my niceness fake and my honest feelings bitchy. Perhaps it is my unknowing tone. I guess I can't hear myself. I have never gotten over that but I can tell you I try to deal in honesty as much as humanly possible.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Ode to sodium Chloride, reminding
    us that we slosh around with salt water
    holding together our carbon atoms,
    and your poem leaps like a catamount
    from past to present; love the line
    /rubbed in war wounds/. I guess
    the Bush administration must have
    used salt profusely for years.
    Which remedy stung more,
    mercurochrome or methialade ?
    Salt has been both seasoning and
    commodity for centuries, and the
    biblical references, including
    Christ's "sermon on the mount"
    are profuse; one of my favorites is,
    "let your conversation be always full
    of grace, seasoned with salt."
    Colossians 4:6.
    Your macro image is frightening,
    like a Celtic glass demon.

    ReplyDelete
  22. The face in the salt shaker jumped right out and and grabbed me. Yes, a Celtic glass demon!

    ReplyDelete
  23. The new look is fantastic... and 'Akali'... well, words don't do your poetic sense justice. It is the feeling created when reading something amazing, left with words unworthy to describe how you touch the heart.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Fabulous! And wonderful new header here--is that your work, Tess?? Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  25. ps
    Oh, jeeeeez, I'm a bit slow--I just now caught the hands making the heart, too. Wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Nicely done -- salt is so basic... and so universal.

    ReplyDelete
  27. There's a face in everything if you're looking for it. Sometimes this is not good.

    A poem as fine as a grain of salt.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Ahhh...near speechless.

    Alkali made beautiful. This pulled at my blood, like the sea.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Tess -- Great words -- Great Header -- barbara

    ReplyDelete
  30. tess this is awesome...probably best piece of poetry i read all day...no joke...and the header is frickin awesome...

    ReplyDelete
  31. blown away.

    love your new image too.

    ReplyDelete
  32. just a pinch will do-
    Your poem is brilliant.
    Your new look ....stellar.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Perfection. Happy Valentine's Day Tess. That blog header is just out of this world!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Oh, doesn't it feel good? To wear feathers and paint. To write a spectacular poem. Beautiful!!

    ReplyDelete
  35. all things are possible if taken in small portions... beautiful!

    i too, totally love your new look!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Your new header picture pulls no punches. It reaches out and grabs. Congrats.

    I always thought that Mercurochrome was a French thing. It gave me quite a buzz to see it here.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Of course I looked up Mercurochrome...
    I loved the 'roll like Jujitsu' and the line about trading in certainties.
    Love the new header. Gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Love the poem. And, that's a stunning image in the header.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I really like this, though its meaning eludes me tantalizingly — just like life I guess. As with the best poetry, just when I think I have wrapped my head around a meaning, it dissolves like salt, and goes off to flavor another possible one. May all your wounds be kissable scratches, Tess.

    Great new look, by the way(and great old look, by the bygone way)

    ReplyDelete
  40. Indeed great work salt shakers, are not known for their bedside manner..loved that

    ReplyDelete
  41. Nice, Tess, very nice! Your language and images are always surprising and fresh. It's one of the things I love about your poetry -- the unexpected.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Every line in this poem is a killer! Fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  43. the simplest care. not about kindness and all about healing. steven

    ReplyDelete
  44. This really soars! And I'll join you with that little drinkypoo..2 olives, please!!!

    ReplyDelete
  45. Wicked header picture - I see you! Also - I do not see a salt shaker, I see a triangular, pointed-chinned demon face. Do you see him?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Sorry, I just read back through the comments and saw that I'm not the first one to notice the demon. How disappointing! Or validating.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Wow, definitely a different head for you girl, and I like it. Love the poem too but I'm a salt fanatic so a little bit never does for me.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Salt of the Earth... so elemental. So vital to each,. Universal yet completely individual. Just like us.

    ReplyDelete
  49. 'The salt of the earth is not known for its bedside manner' - what a perfect introduction :-)

    ReplyDelete
  50. First things first:

    COOL header.

    And I see you didn't ignore the menacing face on that salt shaker...

    ReplyDelete
  51. Fine work, friend! Salt is in our blood and tears in the exact proportion to the womb and the sea -- our oldest most intimate element. Yet rub in the raw of the real and the pain is, well, awakening, maybe like a birth. I like my salt in pinches too, enough to make a poem squeal a little, like humbucker pickups. (some drunk always shouted "Play 'Salty Dog'!" from the back of the bar when I played in bands -- maybe I'm still doing that, on paper...)

    "'Minutiae: In the first stanza, "it" I think should be "they"; "alkali" as a title was a little abstract for the potent lines you then deliver.

    Yeah, and I like the new illustration too. Weird and playful and more inside. The Mistress of Willow Manor? :) -- Brendan

    ReplyDelete
  52. Blue, "its" in the opening line has been bothering me all morning. Glad you noticed it, too, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  53. I love the poem. And the title. Profound wording....

    ReplyDelete
  54. Salt of the earth and vodka martini's. Killer combination. It's why I love your writing.

    ReplyDelete
  55. What a fantastic ending! I like how the voice becomes edged with sarcasm. And I really like the image of "war wounds, blood-red Mercurochrome." Looking forward to following and reading more of your offerings!

    ReplyDelete
  56. What an interesting header photo. You do have such a unique blog. Salt in wounds is hurtful and so are many of the remedies for injuries. Why must the remedy cause even more pain?

    ReplyDelete
  57. Woman you have outdone yourself both with the poem and that new savage look!!!

    ReplyDelete
  58. I'll take that little kiss over mercurochrome any day! Definitely over merthiolate and iodine!

    Your blog is looking spectacular, Ms. Tess!

    ReplyDelete
  59. The soft art of well-tempered words might also purge the acid spewed by another and, to some degree, the emotional inflammation it caused in oneself.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Oh, Ann, I couldn't agree more.

    ReplyDelete
  61. My dear, I love the new look, is it MAC or Bobbie Brown? Channel or Lancôme? Or is it all of the above?

    They say to paint with all the colors in the crayon box...you've done that in spades, both with your image and your words.

    Brava!

    ReplyDelete
  62. I was so moved I threw some over my left shoulder. Beautiful...

    ReplyDelete
  63. Very nice, Willow, and the reading is excellent. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  64. Oops! That last one was me. I forgot to put my name in the box. lolol

    ReplyDelete
  65. This is a love poem. It forces out the salt of the beauty and pain which is our common lot.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Love this! And your header picture is breathtaking...literally. It took my breath away. Amazing!!!

    ReplyDelete
  67. wow!!! great new masthead - spectacular.

    ReplyDelete
  68. This is gorgeous Tess. Every word matters. Exquisite.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Beautiful writing...and awesome header...and kissing any wound makes it better...bkm

    ReplyDelete
  70. Seriously digging your new header. Nice poem too!

    ReplyDelete
  71. Why trade in such certainties?
    Let them roll like Jujitsu, tumble
    easy, as water off a duck’s back,
    salting icy roads instead of tears.


    LOve that section...why indeed? nothing is certain...let it all roll into sweet surrender.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Great! To me the bottle was reminiscent of a perfume one.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Willow,
    Salt, so basic to life and to love (like tongue to skin, to tears of joy and sorrow too) Without it life would be so bland.
    rel

    ReplyDelete
  74. Nice poetry! Salt, in any form is an important part of life and the world we live in.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Dear Tess

    Its wonderful work.. I enjoyed it so much .. thanks for sharing...

    ॐ नमः शिवाय
    Om Namah Shivaya
    http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/02/whispers-night-along-sea.html
    Twitter @VerseEveryDay

    ReplyDelete
  76. Nice! I really like this! Also, I love the new look for your blog! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  77. Love the juxtaposition of serious and playful. Your writing always gives me something to think about. Thanks for visiting my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  78. Whoaa..that was intense, Tess!! Loved the varied roles you have attached to this little grain.. and then the way you gave it the beautiful end it so deserved...
    Superb!

    And yes, I ADORE the new look of Magpie Tales!!! It's just plain yummmmmyyyyy

    ReplyDelete
  79. lovely header,
    fabulous poem...

    keep beaming like a queen.

    ReplyDelete
  80. This is a rouch and powerful poem Tess!....And love the new header to its Awesome! :-)

    ReplyDelete

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
― O. Henry (and me)