Photo – Douglas Salisbury
“My truck is the size of a green wheelbarrow full of dead horsepower.
I dug it up in the cemetery.
” ― Jarod Kintz, Sleepwalking is restercise
This poem is the stale beer left overnight,
it’s a Tylenol breakfast
and the grime under your fingernails.
This poem is ambition of your spilled oil,
it’s persistent chrome on rust,
and kudzu left to cover graves.
This poem is anemic soot,
it’s mold on schoolbooks,
it’s the gloom —- scratching underneath
before you fall to sleep.
This poem is what always should be lost,
what should be buried deep.
But at the end its headstone legacy
remains a hungry heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2fTuW3__oU
Susie present the wonderful Photography of Douglas Salisbury at Toads, and this is where it took me. I had never written to Hannah’s prompt on “This poem is .. “, and this is where it took me.
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Björn Rudbergs writings 
Great choice 🙂 Brilliant write 😀
The grit in this poem makes me think of the truth of poetry, exposing things we or the world would rather stayed hidden. Beautiful work.
what should be buried deep.
But at the end its headstone legacy
remains a hungry heart.
Cannot be helped. Invariably there’ll be longings that linger on into the future!
Hank
Powerful stuff, those things buried, that should be lost. Well done!
An inner look we all take, hang onto things we should let rust into dust. Great voice for the image. The song is an exclamation point to your poem. Great write!! Thank you so much for taking part in the challenge!
I love your take on Hannah’s form, with your signature dark viewpoint. The term ‘anaemic soot’ is inspired. This is existentialism at its best.
I have never thought of myself as an existentialist.. but I know that I love the poetry of Per Lagerqvist so it might be so.
Pretty sad. And not just that someone left half empty beers as wounded soldiers, but that there are those that hang onto things until they eat their own guts.
Excellent use of Hannah’s form. I really enjoyed this.
I knew from your title that I was going to LOVE your take on the “This poem is” form and I definitely did….love the ‘anemic soot’ and the ‘persistent chrome on rust’—fantastic images!
This poem is terrific, Bjorn. Great use of Hannah’s form and wonderful imagery and movement to the end. K.
Excellent. >
Super rad title.
This is definitely my favorite: “This poem is … the grime under your fingernails.” Scratch, scratch. Poetry-writing should definitely involve a fight, peel off a few layers of skin, get down and dirty. Clean, sweet, well-behaved poems don’t usually grab my attention like the gritty, sharp, shocking ones. Show me the underbelly of a city, and I’ll do a naked dance down its shadiest streets.
cool. ~
Great metaphors, Bjorn. Well done. 🙂 — Suzanne
I like this. It’s so real and that in itself is an understatement. You have condensed a lifetime in a few wonderfully beautiful and descriptive lines…and I knew the people and the times.
Thanks for your kind comment.
It took you to a great write!
I think the hungry heart of this poem has much in common with my ‘starving, stalking pen’!
Indeed.. we had similar ideas there 🙂
Ah, Tylenol just off the rumpled bed sheets. Breakfast of Champions, yes. This whole poem had rusty edges and is an ode to all things Springsteen. His songwriting sensibility, I love, forever. Thanks, Bjorn! Amy
Love the prompt, the pic and what you did with them. Hungry Heart was a nice touch.
This poem rocks, Bjorn…I love all the layers you reveal of the who, how and why of this truck…great work!