Tuesday 16 October 2018

Parallel Realities

Glass is never clear
here in the desperate dust
that scratches and clogs.
Plains stretch forever with distance.
A lone horseman plods
where his ancestors roared
to the mountains,
light glinting on the metal
of their weapons,
shadows beneath them.

A photojournalist stares
through her grimy lens,
dreaming shadows into being,
blinded by light
glaring through glass.
She cannot see the mountains
so the lone horseman plods
forever into nothing.
All that is clear
is she does not belong here
and can never convey
this reality.


Previously published in Curlew magazine and featured in my pamphlet Unthinkable Skies.
First posted on this blog in July 2008 for Read Write Poem

20 comments:

Catherine said...

This converys a very vivid picture - I especially liked the idea of her trying to dream shadows into being

anthonynorth said...

Some great images here - mostly of the mind rather than reality. It is usually thus with us humans, me thinks.

Anonymous said...

Very nice--I adore the line, "dreaming shadows into being!"

Anonymous said...

That the horseman, through the lens, goes into nothing outside of the context of time, his context, this is brilliant. Says something important about what we get of the world through the media. This is a great poem.

Scot said...

interesting concept

Anonymous said...

I like dreaming shadows into being too.

mareymercy said...

I love the message here:
"She cannot see the mountains
so the lone horseman plods
forever into nothing."

An interesting take on the prompt.

Anonymous said...

This is fun. To me, it's like seeing the same scene twice -- once in each stanza -- like two eyes with slightly different views through the same pair of binoculars. Great with the dust, grimy, scratches, and the alliteration. I enjoy this a lot.

Janice Thomson said...

One gets a real sense of the bleak landscape from both the visitor and the one who lives there. I very much enjoyed the imagery of hot and dry dusty plains. Well done Juliet.

Anonymous said...

It's kind of strange, we must be on a similar wavelength, because I wrote about dreaming shadows into existence, sort of.

You create a scenario and an atmosphere of beauty and mystery, with a photographer observing a rider, and his relationship to the landscape. Evocative.

polona said...

sharing the space, and yet living in different realities... excellent!

Anonymous said...

I like the way you introduce the glass at the beginning, but make us wait to the second verse to find out what this image is about!

Anonymous said...

it is a surreal imagine conveyed...plains stretch forever... dreaming shadows into being.. whether it is a glass lens or a writers pen.. all that is clear

Noah the Great said...

I can relate. I feel as though I don't belong, also.

chicklegirl said...

What I really liked was how in this instance, the presence of light actually made it more difficult to see clearly, which was a lovely departure from what one usually thinks about light. Very nice.

Christy Woolum said...

The imagery in this poem is amazing.

gautami tripathy said...

I like this. It creates suh great images inside my mind!

Ms Afropolitan said...

i've read this a few times now, and it gets better with each one!

Jenn Jilks said...

Good work! I haven't done a poem in ages!

Gabrielle Bryden said...

wonderful poem :D