- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Talk to the Heat
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Click hereTalk to the heat;
It'll make madness seem sane.
Listen to it screech cicada screams
at straw hat uncles with muttering hearts,
turning tiffs into fistfights
and miles into neverminds.
It'll turn the house on the highway
into an abstract oil,
and browbeat the yellow dog under the floorboards
to chew his tail to the bone
and heave soul sighs into the dust.
It hates your grandmother--
whips her from her kitchen and her cornbread
to the shotgun porch
with only a funeral fan to chase the buzzing.
It jumpstarts lovers-- steals their clothes.
They moan and stink, even before their first icewater kiss
drives them to bed to slap and slide
and leave sweat silhouettes on cotton sheets;
Hiroshima lovers,
seared into eternal embrace
by a flash of madness.
Talk to the heat;
It'll lie out loud,
and promise to leave town by sundown.
But it hides in stones
and unforgiven slights,
waiting for tomorrow
to gun you down.
- COMMENTS
Anonymousover 19 years agoI never knew heat like that until I spent two summer months in NC. And that poem sums it up perfectly--not just the physical heat but the tension it causes. The only criticism: The line about the screaming cicadas was a mood breaker. I guess I never think of the noise of cicadas as a scream. Perhaps another word choice? Maybe "chattering"?
JenniferMidnightover 19 years agoyes...like the heat it felt like thick corn syrup...crying for a second read but was just as delicious as the second stollen spoon full of golden syrup. Yum!
jd4georgeover 19 years ago...though I was occasionally overwhelmed by the plethora of images & metaphors. Please do not take this as criticism... but each time I read your line "talk to the heat", Rod McKuen's "Listen to the Warm" rambled through my head.
Mutt, I'm beginning to become a fan of your stuff. I define myself as a "fan" when a poet's work makes me want to steal, or makes me so envious that it pisses me off!
Well done.
