The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Thu 2/19/2009)

[RetroLounge]

The Rope

They put a noose in me—a knot, a nook
for a neck to go through. Not just any neck,

but almost any neck of the woods:
north and south, west and east.

Not just one race, though one race
more than others; not just one supposèd crime,

though rapists sell more papers than kidnappers,
union organizers, seditionists, or cattle thieves.

Not just men, though mostly men. I have held
the breath of women, too, and children,

whose necks are supple, who struggle more,
who twitch the longest, because they harbor hope.

I nick the quick right out of ’em. I try
to do it swiftly, and I can, if the knot’s made fast.

Sometimes they’re dead—burned, bullet-pricked,
beaten to death with shovels or with bricks—

before they get to where I’ve been uncoiled:
a cedar, a bridge, a telephone pole.

Sometimes a crowd takes strands of me
for souvenirs. In another life of rope,

I bound saints to the stake.
Twine wasn’t made for this. I should be baling hay.

I’d rather pull a bucket from a well,
haul a rowboat to a dock, give an acrobat a path

across the air. That’s a kinder life for a piece of string.
I’d like to rig a mast up, and hear the sailors sing.

Take me from this limb, or if you keep me here,
tie me to an old tire, and let the children swing.

Melissa Range

***************

:hi:

RL

[Chorophyll]

1. ...

:applause:

[RetroLounge]

4. ...

:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. Have you had this poet before?

I know I can Google but, I was interested in a Bio. :donut: :hi:

[RetroLounge]

5. No, first time...

:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. hmmmmm...

Melissa Range's poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Parks Review, and Image. She has a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, a "Discovery"/The Nation award and a writing fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Proveincetown, Massachusetts.

[BlueIris]

3. Woah. That's a keeper.

Yeesh.

[RetroLounge]

6. Yeah...

:hi:

RL