Gemini of a Different Art Form
2025-Aug-26 • Skinner Matthews
What I wanted then / when we were young / was something just so. / Something to place in a glass / be able to set it aside / let it ferment / into a kind of wine / with a taste to describe / using semblables. / Something outside / appraised / allowing us to observe it / untouched and unscathed / before its eventual mutations / of vinegar.
I did not want to be / in the constancy of undertow / finding in the loam / withering beneath my feet / foundations of ghosts / being thrashed in the salt / and the sand / with tons of kelp / and actinoporins of anemones.
I could feel them to the touch / withdrawing to the opposite / of something / I did not know what / but it was there / a semblable of the sea. / This epode / that continuously feeds / terns / sandpipers / oystercatchers and curlews. / I think of Rembrandt’s wife / joyful of a handmaiden / lithe and strong / and there to serve / tea and crumpets. / O' what verve / when witnessing such diligence.
Not all masterpieces end up on walls. / We have grotesque statuettes / and ancient ruins / savage, indigenous populations / with their beautiful gods and hard-working women. / Michelangelo’s calling / in bits and pieces / so easy to confuse / as a sacrament. / Those things we fear / that we must / by all means keep nearer. / The resuscitation of the waves / in their rise and subsequent withdrawal / a coronation of our grief / written in a language / of dead Sanskrit / as if holding / some sort of importance / but we don’t know what it is.
Skinner Matthews
Skinner Matthews writes and lives in the Appalachian mountains of Maryland and Pennsylvania. He hopes his poetry celebrates his working-class upbringing and sheds light on the generational poverty, abuse, addiction, and violence that exists like landmines in the streets, neighborhoods, and family households of the working-class and poverty-stricken.
He has been published in Amethyst Review, As Surely as the Sun Journal, Autumn Sky Poetry, Ekstasis Magazine, Eunoia Review, Hilton Head Poetry Trail, Inside and Out Anthology – Mental Health Society of America – South Carolina, Livina Press, Local Life, Loud Coffee Press, Rising Phoenix Review, Sea Change Anthology – The Island Writers Network, Stray Branch Literary Journal, Susurrus and Unlikely Stories.
More: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571104781100