Poetry Sunday

There are three Poetry Sundays this month, and any number of Halloween-related poems to celebrate on them. Let's kick off October's poems with this eerie offering from Mary Karr ...

Field of Skulls

by Mary Karr

Stare hard enough at the fabric of night,   

and if you're predisposed to dark—let’s say   

the window you’ve picked is a black

postage stamp you spend hours at,

sleepless, drinking gin after the I Love   

Lucy reruns have gone off—stare

like your eyes have force, and behind

any night’s taut scrim will come the forms   

you expect pressing from the other side.   

For you: a field of skulls, angled jaws

and eye-sockets, a zillion scooped-out crania.   

They’re plain once you think to look.

You know such fields exist, for criminals

roam your very block, and even history lists   

monsters like Adolf and Uncle Joe

who stalk the earth’s orb, plus minor baby-eaters   

unidentified, probably in your very midst. Perhaps   

that disgruntled mail clerk from your job

has already scratched your name on a bullet—that’s him   

rustling in the azaleas. You caress the thought,

for it proves there’s no better spot for you

than here, your square-yard of chintz sofa, hearing   

the bad news piped steady from your head. The night   

is black. You stare and furious stare,

confident there are no gods out there. In this way,   

you’re blind to your own eye’s intricate machine   

and to the light it sees by, to the luck of birth and all   

your remembered loves. If the skulls are there—

let’s say they do press toward you

against night’s scrim—could they not stare

with slack jawed envy at the fine flesh

that covers your scalp, the numbered hairs,   

at the force your hands hold?

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Don't look for skulls.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo