Italy Post #12

Dear Readers,
I really do like to write poetry. If you follow my blog in any way shape or form you should know this. But really readers, I do. I love the way words can wrap themselves around images, the delicate tendrils of sound and rhythm. I've never taken a poetry class. Before this semester (cue evil laugh). Yes, I'm hoping for a lot of things this semester, but one main goal is to completely get outside of myself and write poetry that I would have never thought of writing. Example one - the poem I wrote today. While I didn't quite take myself out of the poem, I never thought I would be cool enough to write a monologue, and while it may not be the best monologue EVER, it is a monologue. With meaning.

So, let me know what you think! Its due tomorrow, so feedback will probably be a little past the fact, but I'd still love to hear your thoughts/comments/critiques. I also should tell you all that the context for this poem is a little strange: we are supposed to take a figure in a painting or decoration from the monastery and write from their perspective. There are these weird little faces that decorate the cupola on the second floor and I've always found myself looking at them. So I decided to write from one of their perspectives.


On Stopping Underneath the Cupola

Would you place, dear girl, take me
from this chilly white wall where I have rested
so long in a frozen smile, the last
thought of an artist whose hair was greasy
and hands were careless as he moulded
the everlasting features that I have stared
down through the centuries with while
nuns with downcast eyes never cared to
grace me and look up, and new students
have done nothing but shun me.

Take me out into the garden,
rich with a painting of purple and
green. . . .

NO! Do not remind me of what I am
missing, flesh-colored stone grown to
life, dark stones beneath my feet, yellow
walls sprayed with bouganvelia and tormented
by bees. Do not talk of these things.

Does the sun still shine as bright as it did
back then, when golden light pierced the sky
with intent. . . .

Why does no one look? Does no one see
my cold features, staring from up above with
disdain, stuck inside the ninth level of Hell
with the betrayers. What was my sin, sickening
girl, with breezy curls and wide blinking eyes?
Tell me!

Wait, do not go at the beckon of those living, breathing
bodies you call friends! They will all leave you, just
as I have been cast aside into the dim light
of a dingy cupola to forever stare into the patterns
of the red tiles and count the dust particles that fly
like eagles in front of my stone cold
eyes.