•
how impertinent
moth and junebug
what’s with all this buzzing chatter
you’re bump and thump and all a’clatter
worrying with the frontporch light
steaming on this august night
such racket over a minor matter
while here below you
my heart breaks in silence
• • •
rob kistner © 2011
• linked at Magpie Tales and OSI
Oh, those last two lines!
wow, great magpie! glad i stopped by.
I like the image of silence-is-screaming between the two here…
You got me by the last line …
Dear Rob: The lover’s tiff reflected in the incessant noise and bump (bump and grind?) of the “Junebug”. Perfect!
You painted an evocative and lonely image here, Rob. Beautiful.
Thank you Tess, I really like Hopper’s work! I have a litho of “Nighthawks” that I love — it reminds me of the all night diners my bandmates and I would find years ago when we were giggin’ on the road…
I like the unexpectedness of this one–the junebugs and the broken heart. Good and subtle.
It’s probably not surprising that at least two of us saw a moth in that light! But our two reads are very different, nonetheless. That is one of the great joys of these Magpie prompts, how they bring forth synchronicity at times, but always uniqueness.
Your Magpie is truly beautiful, and I have always loved the word “junebug.”
Not only do you evoke perfect
pitch, with strong connectives
to the Hopper painting, but I love
how you bitch slap the verse,
giving it a rhyme scheme that
keeps us off balance;
a, b, c, c, d, d, c, then e, f;
free, unfettered, yet able to
draw the lines, the ideas into
the moth’s wing undulations
and the heart’s arrhythmia.
Glad you were taken Glenn, I am appreciative… and I seldom rhyme, but when I do, I find the predictable to be boring, as I know you do…
Enjoyed this a lot, particularly the middle section (“aclatter,” etc.)
Moth and junebug, two entirely different species. But after all the patter, the poignancy of the last two lines! Thank you.
Hearts do tend to break in silence, don’t they?
…such racket over minor matter!
most of the time it is so.
it’s the bugs fussing with the light that is the minor matter Harshad — heartbreak never is…
Great stuff, Mr K. Not much quieter than a summer night.
thanks Ron, nice to have you visit again…
Beautiful verse…
dead woman returns
So much insect activitty and then the drop into a broken heart. I really like this poem, Rob. I wrote about cicadas this week– must be a bug in the air!
Lovely to ‘see’ you, Rob – it’s been an age. And I love the poem. and the picture. Hopper’s been a favourite of mine since childhood, he’s such a human, un-arty-farty kind of painter. I do like rhyme, and recently have found myself writing more of it, but my taste is for half-rhymes, slant-rhymes scattered about a poem where they feel right. Your poems are like that.
That last line just slaps you in the face, doesn’t it? well done. Nice juxtaposition of images and feelings. I like surprises like this.
loved the analogy and the impact this managed to create…wonderful!!! 🙂
Perfect with a Hopper. Especially like the minorhyming with the major un…
Yes, I read the hartbreak too. Nicely done, carrying our attention from the fussing around the light to the stillness and pain below.