"A blog is to a writer what a canvas is to an artist." ~ Colleen Redman

A New Year’s Thaw

A soggy lament

weeps in drips

melting ghosts

and sugarcoats

exposing every

telltale line

and wasted time

that pools like soured

Christmas cream

drowns me

in clichés

and sorrow

__________

Short days crimp

cramp my limbs

wind kicks loose

the gloss of December

clouds hang over

nagging dreams

shamed by glaring sun

__________

I’ve taken to bed

with a sickly poem

a hibernating bear

lumbering blue

with a growling stomach

it talks to the wall

to the low grade hum

of drum

10 Responses | Add your Own

  • 1 sherry:

    I feel this way too!!
    Love you xoxo

  • 2 colleen:

    I feel so out of the New Year bell ringing mainstream but my only way out of funk is through it. It’s amazing to me how a winter thaw after snow can make everything look so dirty.

  • 3 Tabor:

    I should be so creative when not feeling well!!

  • 4 colleen:

    It was a homeopathic antidote. But I still had to wonder what the heck I was doing spending most of my day yesterday writing such a poem.

  • 5 srp:

    Oh, no! You know, my stomach has been sort of queasy today as well… I would rather have a stuffy cold than a rumbly tummy. Hope you feel better soon!

  • 6 Miss Becky:

    well let me add my current malaise to the mix and then we’ll have a party.
    Colleen, I think your poem, like a photograph, is a slice of time; it’s real. If that’s your truth, it’s beautiful. I find it to be a moving poem, and I love how it gives me a peek into your mood and feelings for those brief moments.
    Actually I think your poem is fantastic and I’m wishing I would have written it. I’m intrigued.

  • 7 colleen:

    That’s a great way to look at it, Becky, a slice of time being captured like a photograph. I feel it’s an ugly poem with some beauty within the ugliness. It was an accomplishment for me to stay with the feelings and NOT end it on a lighter note.

  • 8 Loose Leaf Notes » Blog Archive » The Quantum Physics of Talk:

    […] mysterious malady I was struck with last week that seemed to have both physical and emotional components has passed […]

  • 9 Loose Leaf Notes » Blog Archive » Channel 13:

    […] 7. Poetry is cheaper than prozac HERE. […]

  • 10 Loose Leaf Notes » Blog Archive » 13 in 2016:

    […] 9.  I often feel somewhat depressed after the holidays, as this 2011 New Year’s poem attests to:   A soggy lament / weeps in drips / melting ghosts / and sugarcoats / exposing every / telltale line / and wasted time / that pools like soured / Christmas cream / and drowns me / in clichés / and sorrow.  – Read the poem, which was published in Floyd County Moonshine, in its entirety HERE. […]

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