Gestational Metaphors




Two of my old poems; circa 1995; which I am musing over: both use gestation as a metaphor for creative approaches. The idea of giving birth to stones came from how little people care that you make art, that it is seen as pretentious, indulgent, sullen and stubborn. But if you make art, you do it anyway. The second poem seems more content, though it is still quite insular.  I wrote them, so obviously they strike a chord for me, maybe I am posting them to see if anyone else can catch a note? I would like to read the male version of these verses, if anyone fancies drafting something? It needn’t be poetry, opinions are welcome.


Barricade 

She loves them
But they do not move
Her silence, dense with grief

She washes them and searches
For fingers, her tears come
Hot in the cold stone night

She has a wall of them
A sturdy morbid construction
The home of shadows


Ring

She lays down her carving knife
Flexes clay hands
Rubs the finger of her wedding band

She carries a candle, lit, to bed
It shrinks under the weight of the flame
Lights on the melt of her waist

She is the pot and the growing quilt
In this house where she makes everything
She is the naval-portal, the sculpted head






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