Grave Poem of Spoon Island: Merideth Hurley
(1990)
Inspired by the book "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters. These poems have been crafted by me under the title "Grave Poems of Spoon Island".
Autumn dusk descends Street lights run on rain-slicked… To glistening pools
a cold moon filters down through the purple asters no explorers have returned with caterpillar robes and dandelion gold
All I wanted to do was ride my mo… And make out at Spooner’s Point. But when Mary Daley got pregnant Her father threatened me with the… So I married her and went to work
grey rocks flowering in melting fu… first blooms of March after winter… a flock of ducks is muttering in t… the first light of day to brush th… shakes the branches they reply…
(Based on the fact that 95% of household dust is our own skin cel… flakes of me circling in the sunli… bits of you lying on the bureau gather them in a beaker
wind tangled trees coiling across a yellow moon spiraling leaves surf-curled dunes
Time for a pit stop Half face in rear view mirror Road unwound behind
Me: I love to drive He: it’s too damn dangerous safer to fly, statistics prove it
Empty moorings and Quiet lighthouse watch the bay Crawl back to the sea
Tide tickling sun’s wake Under a thin skin of ice Beach disappearing
Beneath that secretive smile A strong hot thrust From a sidewalk grate….
I remember the summer of the polio scare we couldn’t go to the cove to swim that whole summer
she watches him as if the fault were in her eyes poor shorn Sampson withered hands grip the canes that barely hold the frail reflect…
surf and turf of St. Andrews olde salts and bullshit under one blue tarp gossip thick as molasses sparks quick as match-lit gas
which of our ancestors did it - traded wings for thumbs burdened us with possessions fed us to the uncompromising earth…