Yellow, Lost
The forgotten poem, existing in title only: Yellow.
Which is a bruise at three weeks, or memory’s shade in autumn.
In what black folder does it hide? In which blinding light?
I take comfort in primaries, lose sleep at the edges.
Where fraying begins and annotation dwindles to scrawled lines.
Above the bones and flesh of the Egyptian gods. Above my books.
Within these lost minutes. Those moons, bereaved. The hours.
Desire germinates even after our rainless decades. Yellow, again.
The color of sulfur (the devil’s realm) or the traitor’s door.
Of cowardice and warning. Of aging and decay.
How to recover what’s sifted away, the residue of our loves?
Each day more bits break off, never to be reattached.
But you, I blend with the sky, perfecting trees, the grass.
* * *
“Yellow, Lost” was published in wildness, Issue no. 10, in October 2017. wildness is an imprint of Platypus Press, which published my work Interval’s Night, a mini-digital chapbook, in December 2016 in their 2412 series. If you’re not familiar with wildness, check it out. In fall 2016 Poets & Writers named it in their article Nine New Lit Mags You Need to Read.
Lovely to hear your voice. Enjoyed this piece.
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Thank you, V.J. I’ve become accustomed to my voice, though for years I disliked it. Now it seems part of me. 🙂
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I know the feeling, lol.
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Great poem! I really enjoyed your recording, too. I love to hear poets read their work and hope to include more readings for mine in the future.
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Thanks, Michelle. I’ve grown to enjoy recording poems. It used to be a reluctant chore, done only for publications by request. Now it’s fun.
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Really nice reading – smooth & yet jarring in all the right places.
There is something sweet about a love poem to a lost poem (by any title). Very Okaji!
In defense of yellow as hue – it’s sunlight, daffodils, and the magic that blends blue or green into myriad beauties. Cowardly? hmph! superstitions.
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I found the title “Yellow” in a list of my publications from the 80s, but I have no recollection of it, and have found no further evidence of its existence. Such is poetry. And life.
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Love the voice. I feel the poem. 😉
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Thanks very much, Nina. I’m so pleased it resonates for you!
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Yeah… the old mellow yellow spreading it’s joyous primaries around the world…..
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Donovan! Ha! Now that’s a singer I’ve not thought of in years…
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Oh, I’ve still got his vinyls
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This is fantastic — and hearing it read makes the synesthesia all the more satisfying!
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Thanks, SJ. Trying to recover the “lost” can be arduous. Or not. 🙂
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A thought woven through poetry written over the years is worthy of a poem of its own, even if it is only a title.
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I’d like to find that poem, if only to compare styles. Who knows what it’s like.
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Digression and return. I feel this in all of your poems. Am thinking it’s in your DNA.
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You have discovered my secret! Yes, I believe it is in my DNA.
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Excellent reading of this one I think. Correct slowness. The last line left me in a puzzle–and then I remembered additive color mixture. Aha!
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Thank you, Frank. I’m glad you caught that!
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