Moat
Moat
A part of us lives
behind a moat of bone;
it sculls about
our skulls,
on the look-out.
So defended. Even when it feels it’s been
a pawn, it’s certain it secretly harbors
the queen or king,
of everything.
How lucky that in this bateau ivre
this row of self-deceiving,
we have a skin,
a wall easily pierced
by all’s awl.
How lucky that we have
these isthmuses of
lips, mouth, tips,
peninsulas
of nerve ends;
for it’s the outside that keeps us
centered–
for me–the sage
brush
of this minute’s coolish breeze, the frisson
beneath my sleeves,
the warmth of you,
earlier,
the ripples of the chest
that rises, falls.
******************************
Another drafty poem for my own prompt on Real Toads, relating to John Donne’s “no man is an island.”
Bateau Ivre worked its way in their somehow–it means “drunken boat” in French and is the title of a poem by French poet Arthur Rimbeaud: in the poem, according to Wikipedia, the boat tells of becoming filled with water, thus drunk.
The pic is mine; all rights reserved.
PS the end of this was edited just before first posting, now edited again to move back to the original–agh.
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, UncategorizedTags: a mote in my eye poem, manicddaily, no moat no island poem, the love of you poem, the moat about the brain poem
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ManicDDaily 
May 17, 2015 at 11:50 pm
The outside keeps us centered – stellar. I also love the moat of bone.
May 18, 2015 at 1:57 am
I like how “it sculls about our skulls” and by “all’s awl”…clever, K!
May 18, 2015 at 3:08 am
for it’s the outside that keeps us
centered–
a wise insight!
May 18, 2015 at 4:59 am
This is so intriguing and well measured up to the last verse 🙂
Loved it..! Hats off 😀
xoxo
May 18, 2015 at 7:15 am
The bone moat and the drunken boat work well together, as if by absorption more than intent we finally know…lovely word play in this k, the sage/brush and the rippling chest, and a very vivid metaphor.
May 18, 2015 at 7:27 am
Thanks. I had taken out the specific chest last night which I realized this morning was a mistake. K.
May 18, 2015 at 9:20 am
Intriguing piece.
May 18, 2015 at 10:04 am
I love your fourth stanza.
May 18, 2015 at 5:40 pm
This little bit is just genius:
“it sculls about
our skulls”
May 18, 2015 at 8:31 pm
Perhaps it is what we allow outside the walls, outside the portection that does keep us centered. I guess it comes down to how honest we are with it, you know. That is the thing about the hedges and protections, what protects us can also isolate us.
May 18, 2015 at 9:23 pm
Nice, K.
You know, we hardly know the inside. 🙂
Like a car, what we see is what we like.
A few look under the hood, that can be pretty too.
It’s a priority of the senses thing.
Looking must stop on the outside, feeling goes inward as well.
..
May 18, 2015 at 9:40 pm
Thanks, Jim. k .
May 19, 2015 at 11:16 am
Your opening image is brilliant and any poem which contains the word ‘isthmuses’ gets a thumbs up from me.
May 19, 2015 at 12:42 pm
Ha. Thanks, I will remember that. (I take it you do not have a lisp.) k.
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 12:16 PM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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May 19, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Everything moves in waves here–boats and skulls especially, but also the inside that so needs defense and gateways! I would love to see a video made of these images. Love.
May 19, 2015 at 12:43 pm
When I try to go to the site (except from Toads), it tells me that it may be a phishing site and that it is dangerous. k.
On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 1:12 PM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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May 20, 2015 at 3:01 pm
I love the bateau ivre bit. I knew what it was but for some reason it made no sense. Thanks for the explanation and the reference.
Greetings from London.
May 21, 2015 at 12:46 am
“A part of us lives behind a moat of bone”—and this stunning line starts off a splendidly creative metaphor that you honed beautifully throughout the entire piece. I LOVE this 🙂
May 21, 2015 at 5:52 am
Thanks, cc.
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May 23, 2015 at 7:35 am
There is so much in this, k. Wow! “moat of bone” “bateau ivre” “isthmuses of lips, mouth ….” and quite a bit to think about. The drawing is different from your usual, perfect to go with this poem and well done. What an altogether fine post.
May 23, 2015 at 8:01 am
Thanks so much, Jamie. It is a picture that I made on the iPad, so I tend to use a much more defined line; as you can trace and change and completely delete. It also allows for a lot of layering. It’s a great app–called Brushes.
It’s quite wonderful what one can do on the iPad and it does allow more consistency as you can copy and modify–but it is much harder — for me at least–to really do free-style drawing on it.
Hope all is well, and that you are not too affected by the drought.
k.
On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 8:35 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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May 23, 2015 at 10:14 am
Well, now I am even more impressed, knowing you did it in iPad. I’ll have to look into “Brushes.” Sounds fun. Thanks, .k.
May 23, 2015 at 1:09 pm
It’s a great app. Not very expensive–maybe 4 or 5 dollars and fairly intuitive. It takes a little while to understand how the layers work–but they are very nice as you can work on different levels and easily delete or heighten something that you like without messing up the whole thing. I haven’t been using it much lately as my iPad is rather old and completely full of stuff, but it is just a great app. I think the English painter–Hodgkin uses it. k.