Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Squishy soaked shoes

[Poem Request # 6]

Here you go. Squishy Soaked Shoes in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins (with a dash of Plath thrown in for good measure):

Soggy squelching O! squishy soaked shoes
Damp tramp of the cramp'ed feet, cleats
mud belching, dragging the stamp of their jackknife beat,
chanting Daddy Daddy you do not dos
through gagging laces; the tongue undone, unloosed
runs bragging through the rain sagging streets,
and the sound of running repeats, repeats
ample warrant of the lagging angels, whose footprints ooze
through swamp and heath, leaving beauty unstumbled.
Sacred variety of heel and toe, slip-on, velcro, laces
and here buckle! Bare or stockinged, white or black as coal
all reduced to the same defeat, squalored and humbled.
And Thou! walking in grace through these secret places
crushing - as though a twig 'neath thy sole - my soul.

3 comments:

Revealed said...

You are sometimes amazing!
:)

Anonymous said...

This one is genius. Deserves to be in "The Stuffed Owl"...

Falstaff said...

revealed: Only sometimes?

cat: Thanks. Such praise.