The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 4/4/2009)

[RetroLounge]

Farewell Do

There are the sweet cakes, the streamers,
the flush-cheeked children who think today
is about the sweet cakes, the streamers.

There is the beautifully aloof, heartless sunshine;
likewise the bare-armed hills, crowned in azaleas
like extrovert brides; the city's thin, quiet streets
their safe-choice grooms

and all of us standing around, throats
stoppered with a hot knot,
a hard thought that's locked there

hands loose and empty, no casket to carry,
of course it's not as bad as all that,
yet when we wave and call "goodbye, good luck,"

the car doors' thud, thud-thud,
their soft somber tom-tom,
fills our backs and arms with a slow ache:
ghost of love's last, awful weight.

Emma Neale

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Emma Neale is the author of four novels (Night Swimming, Little Moon, Double Take, and Relative Strangers, all published by Random House) and three collections of poetry (Sleeve-notes, How to Make a Million, and her latest collection, Spark, out from Steele Roberts). She works as an editor and creative writing tutor in Dunedin, New Zealand.

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:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. yes

:donut: :hi:

[RetroLounge]

4. ...

:hi:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear Retro...

Oh boy

Beautiful, delicate, sad...

Thank you

[RetroLounge]

6. ...

:hi:

RL

[blueraven95]

3. ...

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

7. ...

:hi:

RL

[Chorophyll]

5. ...

:(

[RetroLounge]

8. ...

:hi:

RL

[Xipe Totec]

9. The Hour Glass and The Scythe

Is an emblem of human life. Behold! how swiftly and rapidly our lives are drawing to a close. We cannot, without astonishment, behold the little particles, which are contained in this machine, how they pass away almost imperceptibly, and yet, to our surprise, in the short space of an hour, they are all exhausted. Thus wastes man! today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; tomorrow, blossoms and bears his blushing honors thick upon him; the next day comes a frost, which nips the shoot, and when he thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich our mother earth.


The Scythe

Is an emblem of time, which cuts the brittle thread of life and launches us into eternity. Behold! what havoc the scythe of Time makes among the human race; if, by chance, we should escape the numerous evils incident to childhood and youth, and with health and vigor arrive to the years of manhood ; yet, withal, we must soon be cut down by the all‑devouring scythe of Time, and be gathered into the land where our fathers have gone before us.