Thursday, September 11, 2008

Country Cart

Again with the difficult words at Poefusion: birse, jounce, sike, throstle, griseous. I had to look up three of them.

Given a choice, I think I'd use "grizzled" rather than "griseous". It has a similar sound, and lists as a synonym.

I think of this as a vignette from a Thomas Hardy novel; it has that feel, and the slightly archaic words seem to fit. Could develop into a longer poem.

Throstles sing in the hedgerows
while the cart jounces over dike and sike.
The driver's beard, griseous
and birsey as gorse. Hands oak-root gnarled.
Old horse. Old man. Old country lane,
close to earth under a wide and unforgiving sky.

Update:

Throstles sing in the hedgerows
while the cart jounces over dike and sike.
The driver's hands, oak-root gnarled.
Beard, birsey as gorse,
grizzled like the weathered wood
of the cottage on the hill.

Red blossoms at the edge of the roof:
flowers or flames? An old man with eyes
blue as the wide and unforgiving sky
drives an old horse down an old country lane
and doesn't turn back
when the fire bell rings.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

5 comments:

poefusion said...

Tiel, you've created another wonderful poem even though I keep throwing out these hard words. If you should ever decide to widen this poem a bit please let me know as I would be interested in seeing where you take the readers next. Have a nice day.

carmilevy said...

I'm with you on word choice. Grizzled just feels right. I seem to make writing/word choice decisions based on feel. I often can't explain why...I just shrug my shoulders when asked. Somehow, my gut knows when the right word's been slotted in.

Wanted to thank you for "following" me in Blogger. I've added you to my new and improved blogroll. It's always such a joy to read your work.

poefusion said...

I think grizzled is the best choice for your poem. I really like the extended version. Funny how one word can throw everything off a bit. But, when corrected it can enhance your other words. Nice job. Have a nice night.

Tumblewords: said...

Strange. I like the first one - oak-root gnarled is lovely and close to earth is indicative of old - very nice poetry in both instances!

Admin said...

I love how you changed some of the phrases around to make the second option.

An excellent poem!