L'aura del Campo

3 critiqued poems incl. Near the Soul's swift river

3 poems read and critiqued this week:

Near the Soul’s swift river

         an homage to Langston Hughes

It was in the blood:
the A positive aristocratic blood,
the O negative donor they cried out for.

At the Dawn:
my soul sang among pyramids
as bloody sweat raised stone above stone,
festooned my bosom with their mud-daub huts.

In my veins
bathed in ancient sunsets grown deep,
lulled to sleep near the Soul’s swift river,
wept a blueblood running seep;
my flood tinged gold.

It was in the blood:
the B positive Celts,
the AB negative mongrel hordes;
both raised the sword, heard humans bleat,
opened veins to let blood flow.

Older than the unknown world,
my dusky voice
filled with the thrill of sickle-cells
in crescendos as bold as a clot,
young as a blood-stained dawn
singing of pomegranates.

© Kåre Enga 2011-08-07 [168.123]



A word scramble of Langston Hughes' poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers".

Banishing the shadow between us

Once every two blue moons
when Earth cast her shadow between us
you whispered in the language of rocks;
I lisped in a song of water;
we cackled when the sun grew hot.
There was no life here
beyond the bacteria we had brought.

And then that First Day
when we felt our two moons collide,
the First Time I heard you utter,
“What hath God wrought!”
you smiled when I replied
“Only what two spheres must suffer
when they dare not stay apart.”

As we wondered you whispered to me
in the language of sundered rock
and I sang to you of ice and water,
how I would never forget your face,
that look of shock.

Then Earth graced us both with shadow
and we dreamed as our two moons,
glued back to back,
cooled off.

© Kåre Enga 2011-08-03 [168.122.Z]



This is a "Zmitri" poem written in a response to an article postulating that there originally were two moons orbiting the Earth that collided and fused as one, explaining the very different faces of the Moon. "Earth's 2 Moons? It's Not Lunacy, But New Theory" in the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/earth-two-moons-theory_n_917464.html

To the unknown love of my life

To wake up to the fragrance of honey and sweat
The name of your flower expectant on my lips

To know it’s right to hug you flesh to flesh
A soft rose held tight, silk-petaled and fresh

Then, what privilege to be embraced at the hour of death
My last whisper inhaled by your ever-patient breath

© Kåre Enga ed. 2011-08-11 [168.124]



Three couplets scribbled in my notepad and today edited into a poem. Nancy really loved it and kept a copy for her refrigerator. It was the best received of the three.

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