Believing comes
in first-day covers,
sincere blue kisses
after the first row;
dazed like a bird that soars
headlong into a closed window.
Ink-traced hands are prayers
that end with laced pinkie fingers,
promises that know no distance.
You wonder where I keep the bread.
They settle new and hungry,
wordless with the milky awe
of pictures in a childhood bible
in olden days; when wishing still helped.
That poem was MADE to be read aloud! I actually felt envy and jealousy...'let me curl those 'L's around my tongue I begged to no-one of course! The sounds were soft and rolled,but the poem said something gritty, real and true. Lovely irony in the end, can't find exactly the right word. Irony closest in mind now, but not quite right.
ReplyDeleteThank you Pirate...poetry is meant to be heard...Mr. Stainforth delivers beautifully...
Delete"sincere blue kisses/after the first row;/dazed like a bird that soars/headlong into a closed window." I simply love that...
ReplyDeletelovely - especially the second verse- Thanks Tess!
ReplyDeleteevocative writing, Tess....everyone thinks dif. belief...great!
ReplyDeletesincere blue kisses
ReplyDeleteafter the first row;
dazed like a bird that soars
headlong into a closed window
I had witnessed once a bird that crashed into a closed window. Sadly it didn't survive. Here dazed after the the first few quarrels but made up gave a semblance of care. The reading every time is the icing. Great write Tess!
Hank
Beautiful....love the ending
ReplyDeleteBeen a while since I dropped by the old Mag, and read one of your wonderful poems; congrats, by the by, on the second chapbook! This poem has the earmarks of Kinkaid virtues; sweet, romantic, while remaining strong & somewhat enigmatic. Stainforth is still reading well without a smoker's hack; good on him. I like the line /promises that know no distance/ for those are the best kind.
ReplyDeleteThank you Glenn...it's always nice to see you at Magpie...
DeleteI was for many years the dazed bird who had soared often into closed windows...thinking (believing) each time that the outcome might be different than heretofore.
ReplyDeleteTESS, you are so GoooD.
I have in front of me a milky childhood picture from olden days...and yes, I am in awe of that--it's my two sisters and brother and ME!
"Ink-traced hands are prayers" luv that line, i didnt link to the Mag this week, yet reading a few posts;
ReplyDeletehttp://myblog-lunchbreak.blogspot.com/2013/11/1326.html/
much love...
Thank you for this message in a bottle.......
ReplyDeleteA delicious read.
ReplyDelete... 'promises that know no distance' ~~ what letters represent, I love receiving hand written notes, letters.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to drift with the current of this poem..... I think we've all smashed into a window or so..
ReplyDeleteI think this is one of his very best reads of all. It was a delight to the ear.
ReplyDelete=)
Oh my! So beautiful!
ReplyDeleteLovely. Youth holds bread and belief in the same box. Today they reside in memory and words...bkm
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteTess...you are...damn, you're....sooooooo goooooood.
But...what else can one expect from a renaissance girl?
Tess,
ReplyDeleteWish you had two blogs, one for us non-poetry folk.
I used to enjoy the old Willow Manor blog, but congrats on being published and carry on doing what you love.
Quick daily blurbs of literature, art, music, food, and pics from Willow Manor on my Facebook page Moey...
DeleteThank you!
DeleteYour poem is lovely read aloud.
ReplyDelete"...promises that know no distance" is a line I took right into my heart. This is one of my favorites lately and the reading more than did it justice. Beautiful, both.
ReplyDeleteLydia just expressed what I was going to say . . .
ReplyDeleteof pictures in a childhood bible
ReplyDeletein olden days; when wishing still helped.
I so identify with those lines because that was me once. Beautiful write Tess!
Your kind comments mean so much to me, dear readers...thank you...
ReplyDeleteDear Miss Tess. I hope but doubt that some distant time, a course will be taught about the art which still evades definition. It has been years now since I named it, social media art. I imagined a new genre, unlike any other. With the same soul, depth, complexity, pain, love and mystery of all her sister forms--dance, song, painting, poetry, literature, a wonderful stage performance, a simple sitcom stunt done with perfect timing--but imbued with something else. For simplicity, let's just say Facebook has changed everything.
ReplyDeleteBut I swallow Willow Manor with such fondness it is difficult not to weep over the supreme magnificence of the whole. At first we want to congratulate the person standing on the "x"--whether Michael Jackson, Baryshikov, Hemingway, Anthony Hopkins. Then we realize "we" are the beneficiaries. In the final analysis, art is for an audience. We are elevated, made whole, stand in awe of this odd distant relative of nature.
I've read all the comments and even followed links to obscure doorways such as Ned the Ostogoth, philosophers of deviant art, et al. And the strangest thing happened on the way to Grandma's House.
I realized that even without untangling all the mystery, from the basic story told of ink and palms (clever twist that one), the poetry stands as one of the best I ever read. It does what some comparable performance does to me. Makes me tremble, causes me to go blank for a minute and forget myself except as some consciousness within some consciousness, wanting a mirror or explanation for what we find after passing thru timeless warps, blackholes and the wonder of existence, coupled with humaness--the how, why and wtf of it all...
Then add the dimensionality of the new genre, first a beautiful envelope stained by expert hand and Indian ink, then comments and traces of something altogether different than our newest of new forms, probably the art which will define the 21st century. Others choose to hear and watch Mr. Stainforth and lose themselves in his expert ability. Altogether this theater extends beyond any critics ability to judge, but lies there, unimpeded to withstand any viewers unsolicited gossip.
I think the message is ever expanding and the bottle has been broken and I extend my warmest congratulations.
Ah, I love these lines - "dazed like a bird that soars
ReplyDeleteheadlong into a closed window.
Ink-traced hands are prayers
that end with laced pinkie fingers,
promises that know no distance."
They capture the excitement of receiving a wonderful (love) letter and the quality of the person receiving it.
Lovely Tess. That's almost a poem for Sepia Saturday. Now there is a challenge for you and your Magpie group.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love the line "laced pinkies, promises that know no distance" I still do pinkie promises with my bestie and both my daughters. :) Wonderful poem.
ReplyDeleteLovely images...
ReplyDelete