Ars Moriendi As Steam Heat
Let the cool lake of your body rise out of itself—
the drip in your wrist become creek,
the sheet wrinkling steam
like a backroad after the summer rain.
Let your damp breath fog the window
at 3 a.m., the salt marsh of sweat
pool on your collarbone. Become
a county you cannot map.
Your body made faster and moving away—away
from the named things:
toward the unroofed night,
the crickets stitching heatsong.
And become the frisson waves of heat mirage—
that shimmer above the highway
where all shadow thins beautiful and black,
then vanishes. Become the static
between radio stations,
the buzz warp in the fluorescent light.
Let you become
a wildness slipped from its chain lead—
water finding a low point in the gully–
light bending around hillock and pavement–
up. And going.
20 thoughts on "Ars Moriendi As Steam Heat"
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Vivid sensory images put me in the heart of your poem, Shaun. Wild and freeing:
“Let you become
a wildness slipped from its chain lead—
water finding a low point in the gully–
light bending around hillock and pavement–
up. And going.”
Thank you! 💛
Gorgeous!
“Let the cool lake of your body rise out of itself—”
Wonderful, from line one all the way through— All of this body moving, becoming, “And going.”
Wow.
Thanks so much, Michele
Gorgeous beginning:
“Let the cool lake of your body rise out of itself—
the drip in your wrist become creek,”
and you are off and running!
wow! “where all shadow thins beautiful and black,
then vanishes. “
Thank you, Pam!
ohhhh i love this. beautiful diction and imagery. thank you for sharing
Thank you for your reading, Carter.
Exquisite writing, Shaun. I truly hope you take many of the poems you’ve written this month and create a collection/chapbook. Your range and style are impressive.
“Become
a county you cannot map.”– Damn right. I love this.
Thank you so much! I was adding them into a document and I was a little surprised with how cohesive the subjects are lol
Beautiful and vivid … “the crickets stitching heatsong” — is wonderful.
Thanks Bill. I appreciate your kindness!
You detail the art of dying with beautiful, natural imagery and feeling. You take us along the process, the changes, the waiting, and the release. Just beautiful.
Thank you, Virginia!
Really impressive use of metaphor to describe the way summer heat dissolves us into so many fluid, ephemeral things. Good stuff.
Thanks, Kevin. I find the hear so oppressive and wanted to find a way to twist that thought
also love the tone of invocation/benediction–almost like a mantra–shaped by the “Let”
Thank you! I saw someone else use that directive tone this month and loved how it welcomed the reader right into the poem.
Wonderfully sensuous! Perhaps you’d like to join my collaborative artist sensuous chapbook project sometime.
very sensuous and worthy for a chapbook collection,