Poem from my notes

[minoanmiss]

Catch a Body by Ilse Bendorf,

Salinger, I’m sorry, but “Don’t ever tell
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.

Comments

[amaebi]

<3

[med_cat]

Yes :)

You should post it to greatpoetry ;)

[acelightning73]

I would sometimes find myself telling my life's story to someone while waiting at the bus stop. I never made new friends that way.

[sovay]

We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire.

I really like that.

[flamingsword]

Yes. This is correct!

[lokifan]

Oooh, I love this! And I love Icarus-related poetry.

I feel sorry for Salinger though, haha, that seems like a narrator opinion rather than his??? But everything I know about that book I learnt through osmosis.

[minoanmiss]

That is so sweet of you :) And yeah sometimes people blame authors for what our characters say -- not everything a character says is meant to be author-endorsed.