A rose told my thoughts
and I took to drink,
dined with my troubles—
the money horse,
the rose that brought
a slow hell home.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 February 1659/60.
I live in an Appalachian hollow in the Juniata watershed of central Pennsylvania, and spend a great deal of time walking in the woods. Here’s a bio. All of my writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, my name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact me for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).
This one’s amazing, with or without constraints. Love the last couplet. But the “money horse” seems integral — a powerful suggestion, but the rest of the poem stands up to it.
Thanks — I’m glad you thought so. I really sweated over this one. It was Rachel’s suggestion that I make “rose” into a noun and incorporate that. Plus, we were reading about Brynhild’s revenge and death in the Poetic Edda this evening, and I think that’s partially behind the horse and slow hell.
yeah I really like this one too – reminds me of Tom Waits or someone
I’ll take that! I love Tom Waits.