Gilded by Greenwood comes from The Greenwood Poet, a book that came out last week as part of my ongoing romance with doubling my years on odd years and then writing that many poems.

I spent a couple of years, off and on, writing about the gothic fantastic and the environment and death, before and after COVID (thought that obviously wasn’t the original intent). I’m going to serialize them on the site for subscribers. If you subscribe for three months, you’ll get this for free. And besides, subscribing is free for the first seven days, so why not try out the Showbear archive?

Of course — 20% will be free for everyone and I encourage you to pick up a copy of the hardback.

Gilded by Greenwood

In the tower I saw tumbling drops
Obscure skies and scour the air
Of its acid atoms, the atom bomb’s
Rain’s making, realizing climate
Change is carbon in the clear midair
And a flying flood, flails from the heavens
Would drain slower. So dreary to thrive 
Skyward away from the scalding drenched
Greenwood stones, the gold splashing
And muddy mashing molded for the dregs 
Of society’s grapes. See the corner 
Room of the hotel? Rays whiten,
Brighten walls while brooms sweep
In the dark quarters, daylight on one
And clouds on the other. Clearly Van Gogh 
Knew that the Kirke could claim the light
Again if the good in the great world 
Would spin from the windows of spritely Christians
And spinning down the spray of rain
On the Unknowing Arms of New Yorkers
Instead of staying stuck and conserved.
In the tower teem tumbling drops,
Rains beget rains, rights beget beauties,
And exposing your pride to the painful goods 
is the only way to open the sky
To be scoured of demons by showers of light:
The good of Greenwood could gild your blankets.

Photo by David East on Unsplash