Friday presents you with a unique perspective of our guest posters. Today we post a poem from Seth's lovely wife, Amber.
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How the Hollow Began: Learning of Death in the House
This is heavy dark,
rain through buckled tin,
iron water in buckets on the floor,
a story I told my sister:
The devil lives above us and maybe below.
Our empty black attic has a window
I watch for souls from outside
and openings to my closets
whose doors I keep shut tight.
Six generations before now
was a hot fireplace behind this false wall
and a swell of kin’s blood in the wood floor.
My bedroom is a covering,
a place I walk on graves.
Beneath me, tile on soggy wood
that goes below the cellar depth,
below the roots of pines.
I kneel (better the knees than the feet)
and smell the tile, like miry, tepid cloth.
Ear down,
I hold my breath to hear voices.
I am afraid of pounding feet.
Whose dark blood warms around me?
Speak, devil, if it’s you.
12 comments:
mrs. haines!
i sooooo wish i had not read this in the bright morning. this is for printing out and reading at night with a flashlight. sheesh, woman, this is creepy! and i love it!
i love how this is a storytelling event, i'm guessing, between two sisters. somehow that scene - two little girls sharing this dark moment and haunted setting - is both familiar and very ominous. these were some of my favorite moments when i was a kid.
i love the way you keep the anciently ominous feeling moving through this piece with images like:
- heavy dark
- rain through buckled tin
- iron water
- empty black
- I watch for souls
- openings to my closets
- Six generations before now
- swell of kin's blood
- miry, tepid cloth
- afraid of pounding feet
- dark blood warms around me
the entire stanza starting with "My bedroom is a covering..." is pure black magic. so good. i've been in that house. i've felt that "tile over soggy wood" beneath my feet. holy crap. that stanza is so, so good.
but this is, by far, my favorite line; it made me cringe:
- I kneel (better the knees than the feet)
what! "better the knees than the feet"? WTF?! even the idea of making the choice, or feeling a need to, makes me shiver. totally terrortastic. hardcore horrorification.
bravo, my twisted, twisted friend. i freaking love this. seriously. this gets 5 shattered kneecaps out of 5 from me. please keep it up.
ps. i'm just going to believe that you wrote this as an early birthday present to me. that's how much i dig it. never tell me otherwise, though i know otherwise is the truth. intentional ignorance is bliss.
I like that hamster called you twisted. You are perfectly twisted.
Mmmm "speak, devil, if it's you" has been whispering in my head since I first read this three hours ago. It's haunting, and I love it. Such a solid end.
I also love the pace of this poem. That's what makes it taste like candy to me. It's smooth and slow.
I'd love to hear your inspiration for this. I'm always curious to know things like that.
This is not a spankin new poem, but it is newly revised, which means I've been gnawing on it a good bit
I had and have been considering how Fear has lead me and followed me almost everywhere I go. Now, as a believer, I think it's found seven more powerful friends and sat waiting for my house to empty again.
I've considered how many times I've invited Fear and made good friends with him, my ticket to sexual sin and addiction.
You know how southern peoples will say "holler" instead of hollow? Well, there's a spiritual correlation that I've been trying to pen - the story of a holler and a hollow place and how someone got out of both. This is poem #1 of that unfinished sequence.
My great-great aunt actually did bleed to death in our house long before we lived there. If that won't put a twist in you, nothing will.
Amber,
You can smell the rural gothic must from the first tongue tang of wet, buckled tin.
The fear shrinks the scene from an ominous outside to a suffocating room where the stories are whispered in small trembling voices.
The image of the hot fire of long ago separated by the "false wall" of the cold present that threatens to burst through is enhanced by the bedroom, the place of yearned for rest, being the place where the separation threatens to bust open.
Don't such things often get busted on a bed. Or in an attic, alone or with an accomplice.
You can almost hear the devil's reply.
i think it's rubbish
ok, so i just like to be in opposition to everyone else.
i liked it.
i'm still digesting it.
i felt like i lived in the 1800's
in a really old house out in the woods with hollar's all around me.
two days later, and i'm still rubbing my kneecaps with affection.
I can't tell you how much I love "cellar depth."
The opening and ending images/tone are perfect.
Here's what I struggled with in the prone:
"Our empty black attic has a window
I watch for souls from outside
and openings to my closets
whose doors I keep shut tight."
It's the 2nd and 3rd lines that seem not quite as smoothed out as the rest of the poem. I don't like that the speaker looks to the outside; everything about the poem focuses on the internal, the conceit being contained within the space of the house itself; of course, I could be reading the line incorrectly and the speaker could be watching "from outside" the house. Still, I like the speaker being within the house.
I'm not sure about the word choice: "Openings to the closets." Of the closets maybe? I'm not sure I've gotten what you're going for here, but keep in mind I'm narratively minded.
-Brad
Brother Brad! Thank goodness! Yes. This is what I need, and you confirm my gut. That stanza has been so many different ways that I can't see it straight, you know?
I feel the poetry leave there, too.
You're right, too, that there is a place issue. I am putting attention to the attic that I'm not sure is needed.
Ohhh, that is INTENSE, Amber. Very fully of talenty goodness. No seriously, I love that darkish poem,
Cindy
At the end of reading this I feel cornered and swollen with fear and tragedy.
There's no way out yet I see glimpses of hope through the attic window. Though they are only glimpses and hope is fleeting.
Plus tragedy is my identity therefore I cannot easily trade it for whatever lies on the outside. I wrestle with the greater fear of the unknown rather than the dark history of yesteryear . So I simply succumb to it and allow it to eat away my reality and in a moment of deep irony I call out for more. Because without it I would simply cease to exist.
Thanks amber... this was very good.
This poem is one of the reasons I love my wife. I would have never guessed that such a sweet woman could pen such a dark offering. The evolution of her life from that very dark room is truly remarkable.
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