Just Glow by A.S. Coomer

“Sometime write me a little poem that isn’t intense. A lamp turned too high might shatter its chimney. Please just glow sometimes.”
Olive Higgins Prouty to Sylvia Plath

I sat down to write a Poem:
something prophetic, pristine
–who knows, maybe lasting?–
something I could use to prop my head up with
–you get so sick of looking at the same two feet–
something to keep the shadows at bay with
–you know they’ll always be there:
it’s part and parcel of the actuality of light
but, god, the difference a sunlit reprieve can make–
something to express my innate understanding
of what the older woman was trying to instill
in the incandescent, rising Icarus
and the applicability of the adjuration
in my own, though more obscured, darksome existence

but ended up getting stuck,
much to my chagrin & amusement,
on a question:

Who the fuck
puts a lamp
in a goddamn fireplace?

A.S. Coomer is a native Kentuckian serving out a purgatorial existence somewhere in the Midwest. His work has appeared in over thirty publications. He’s got a handful of novels that need good homes. You can find him at http://www.ascoomer.wordpress.com. He also runs a “record label” for poetry: http://www.lostlonggoneforgottenrecords.wordpress.com.