MK Creel
we are a land of shadows
sometimes they break through
the veil
dark, dense and outside
the light
black winged things
swishing saurian tails
dancing
encircling
containing
what we cannot reconcile
thought and memory
blur
incite
the primitive
to rise
a fevered frenzy
of feathery trails
engulfs us
lifts and carries us
not above our own wounds
but the world’s
A note from the author
The story behind this poem is twofold: First, it was in response to Jackson Pollock’s “Untitled. C.1950.” This poem is also in response to the recent ban on immigrants and refugees, and a growing increase of intolerance in the United States. According to Carl Jung, everyone has parts of themselves that they suppress and ignore. These parts make up what Jung referred to as our shadow. Jungian scholars pose that just as an individual has a shadow, so do societies and nations. According to Japanese author Haruki Murakami, “At times, we tend to avert our eyes from the shadow, those negative parts, or else, try to forcibly eliminate those aspects. No matter how high a wall we build to keep intruders out, no matter how strictly we exclude outsiders, no matter how much we rewrite history to suit us, we just end up damaging and hurting ourselves.”
MK Creel‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Paper Rabbit, Tar River Poetry and Avocet. Creel lives in the foothills of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and has worked in journalism, community mental health and nonprofit marketing.
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