Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis
Kerry O'Connor

@skyloverpoetry

Metamorphosis

Sinkholes appear
on arrival of the solstice
and this one is no different
though whether valedictory tunes
are beaten out with the bones
of vanquished enemies
on hairy hides pulled taut,
or echo a two-step garage
drum machine in the grime,
I cannot clearly distinguish.
                                         No matter,
some dark hybrid syncopation lies
tightly coiled and vibrating
at low frequency
while meteors tear up the sky.
My hands feel empty:
a nervous tension writhes
along my backbone as I wait
for my carapace to split open
and some newer, shinier fusion of self
to emerge, damp and wrinkled,
into the  reverberant present.


This is a poem from my Skylover Collection, recently edited and illustrated for the Solstice, whether that be Summer or Winter depends on your relationship to the equator, but nonetheless the change is felt by all, especially we, who have passed through the longest night.

Shared in The Imaginary Garden for Toni's Weekend Mini Challenge.

Self Portrait in Night

In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It’s two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story...
In the Secular Night ~ Margaret Atwood

Night Windows (1928)
Edward Hopper

The nights are not dark enough.
I sleep with the windows wide open
and wake at all hours, and always the night

is lit above and below by streetlights
or the diaphanous moon. I rise
to look at my garden which murmurs

like a strange sea and seems to heave
and flow; and I don’t know if my room is atop
a tower, or below decks of an abandoned ship.

I only know that I am alone. And it is night.
Without a god to pray to, or ghost lover
to yearn for, or blindness to hide myself

from myself. Only the undark, the unquiet night.
And my breath fogging a pane of glass
with every question I no longer want to ask.


Instructions for Living a Life, a poem inspired by contemporary poet, Margaret Atwood.