Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MRS. PILSUDSKI'S UNCATHARTIC AFTERNOONS, by JOE HORRELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MRS. PILSUDSKI'S UNCATHARTIC AFTERNOONS, by                    
First Line: Mrs. Pilsudski's afternoons in a pub
Last Line: Sitting superannuated in a pub.
Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Wine


Mrs. Pilsudski's afternoons in a pub
climax the enormous predilection of her years
in ale: hollow eyes cannot cup tears
even when the screaming imperative is there
for tears will not flow in a pub
not the tears of dead cumulous years:
the classic angularity of frame and mind
metamorphosed from the sinusoidal years
in her sporting with tortuous despair

A maiden and a maypole in the spring
forbidden nectar, wistaria in a rampant ring
summarizing the cosmos in a trellis shade:
and now the nickelodeon is false as her wisped hair
turned grey defiant of time: the tune
the tune is false like the face in the locket
but the irredeemable coin rests in the pocket

Rise I exhort you rise and break
this madding metronome
that drones the beat but not the tone
of yesterday: the tune gone mad, now speak
let down your hair and cry aloud with mariners
the hapless woe of fate plunged into the sea!
She wipes foam from her mouth with the back of her hand

Someone shatters a glass upon the floor
and her trauma is an emphatic labial smack

I think Mrs. Pilsudski must have been glad
if she could have uttered a cathartic wail:
but there was the ale
and the hair wisped grey against time
and the wracked years cloaked about her like the faded shawl --
and that was all

So we have Mrs. Pilsudski
quaffing her ale in a pub
sitting superannuated in a pub.





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