Under the hard light of January
everything is ugly;
shoes my daughter’s toes will poke through
and slave-made poisoned toys my son wants
winking through excess packaging, things built
to break and none of it fixable, all of it hungry
to reseed already pregnant landfills
what feeds can never sustain,
potato buds boxed next to ramen–
no apples, but there are cans
swollen with salt and pallid peas.
There is milk from rBGH cows,
eggs from exhausted, beakless birds
and we buy it,
stuff it in those black/yellow bags
we wonder why we are dying
and why death is not so easily paid for
as this, sent off to bulk burial
in thick plastic caskets stacked high
in the aisle next to kinked hoses
no one wants.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
Now that is one that makes you think…. excellent Sus
THanks, Jen!
I am thinking over your last stanza and two things immediately come to mind: We are dying and yet some of us are living longer than ever before. I wonder if what is so frightening, even so treacherous about the current “situation” is that things are just familiar enough that the degree/the scale of the violence and the destructiveness around us eludes us because nothing seems so outwardly different.
The “hard light of January” seems to me here to be not what some other folks might think that it is: cold; snow; the post-holiday hangover; debt; the need to lose weight. It is that the evidence mounts and you see it and nothing changes. I think “hard light” is the light shining down on you. That’s where the power of the piece lies, in my opinion.
Jeremy–thank you. January was not there initially–had that in the last line, but it seemed to make much more sense there, in the first line. I like how its positioning in the piece changed everything.
It seems to me to be an excellent choice. I think January as a subject is full of meaning (as you know from my pieces). I like the way it tied these observations together for me when I was reading this.
I like it there too–was a suggestion from John on IP–I had it originally in the turn, where it did nothing. Made a huge difference in meaning and tone for me.
Powerful
Thank you!
Susan,
Poetry as social activism. There is a long and venerable tradition of this. Lovely writing.
Alice
Thank you, Alice. Through conversation with a friend, this one was sparked initially around Christmastime, and tripped to fruition when I had to stop there to get some kitty litter 😉
Inspiration hits at the oddest times.
Inspiration does hit at the oddest times and over the weirdest things. Now I have to leave a notebook by the bed so when the dog wakes me up I can jot things down. I’ve learned that night ideas vanish by morning every time.
Alice
They do–and the worst is when you wake up, with lines in your mind–and they evaporate as you stretch for a pen…
So much to look forward to as I continue my writer’s life.;-)
Alice
hehehe–the muse is EVIL. Check this one out–perfect description of a muse if I’ve ever seen one:
Thanks. I went there and read. Perfect. Mine runs off on long vacations in search of sunnier weather and leaves me behind to grow moss. Which is worse? Together or apart? (Apart, for me.)
Alice
Apart is definitely worse. I am addicted to my dysfunctional relationship with my muse. Funny. If art were not involved, there would be a pathology to this…
Dang girl. You may be right. I hadn’t thought of writing in terms of a dysfunctional relationship with the muse. It’s a real head-banger at times. All that going away and coming back, loving and leaving, melding and abandonment. Wait. is this another poem? Nope. Sorry. false alarm.
🙂 might be, at some point.
You and I should collaborate sometime on a writing together. I think we’d make a great team. This poem of yours blow me away and makes me think a lot. 🙂 I love this piece. 🙂
Hmmm. Could be interesting. Refrigerator flarf. I like it. I’m in whenever you are.
Excellent! Just write me a message through my email that’s on my page.
Will do!
So true. We separated one product at a time. We jumped and fed its popularity and emboldened further explorations away from the natural, to the point we – me included – often prefer artificial creations to that which we can watch grow. This is my weakness.
Mine too, Nelle. Climbing back to the natural is difficult, with the ease of the already-prepared out there for us.