4th March 2009 Options

[Guest_Ishmael_*]

And in the nights to come the sky will empty
The stars will leave the mourning to rusted moons
Lowering their eyes and coughing as they go
In early twilights breezes glowing guilty
Fiddle with leaves and all the brittle coffins
Lie scattered beneath a single trembling bough

Forget the lies of a vengeance still to come
Whispered by plumes that rise in fretful ribbons
Nothing stirs the covens they stand without shame
Consumptive figures of fun with all their claws
Raking the flaccid clouds and when the rains
Do fall the witches gather them up for oils

And who’s to say when the urge might strike again
To leave the gate for misery’s herds ajar
So lie right here my peach where the husks are blown
And lonely ghosts can watch us night after night
Damping down the dust with trickles of nectar
Let ravens scrape the sky with their broken wit

[Sekhmet]

Good morning Ishmael - A Gothic, 'hall of cracked mirrors' poem; crammed with startling images, many of which creep up behind one, and deliver a sharp dig in the ribs.
Your imagery is inspiring - startling even; yet reading this poem is like playing a pin-ball machine.
The mind bumps into an obstacle, a light flashes, bells ring - and then the reader is pitched, protesting, back to the beginning of the sentence. And all because there is no punctuation to block their backward flight.
Please, just to help those of us who are not privy to your mind, give us a little more punctuation.
Most of the members here are willing to worry at a poem, with the hope of finding hidden meanings; but the poet has some responsibility to aid the reader, by leaving a few signposts.
Having said all this, I so enjoyed your poem as a piece of poetic imagery - I just wish that I had managed to extract all the juice. The fault- in all probability- lies with me.
Leo