Giant Steps

There is no sorrow won’t burn...

Giant Steps

—for fallen friends

There’s an iron heart ringing
on an anvil this morning.
There’s the blacksmith stoking his forge.
No iron will turn till it’s hot;
no sorrow will end till it’s gorged.
Callous fingers drum blunt
on a wood tabletop as years drop
like coins to the floor.

Magic beans cost a cow, cost a heart, cost a penny,
there is no sorrow won’t burn.

The giant has fallen; the stalk has been cut
that led to treasures above.
The princess chose another. The witch turned not.
I’m alive and lacking for love.

Magic beans cost a cow, cost a heart, cost a penny,
there is no sorrow won’t burn.

Giants trip as mortals do. Gods fall flat from untied shoes.
Rugs bunch up. There are patches of ice,
uneven stairs, too dim lights.
If sleeping dogs lie, there is no truth.
This night is darker for lack of you.

Magic beans cost a cow, cost a heart, cost a penny,
there is no sorrow won’t burn.

Illustration from Jack and the Beanstalk, 1890, published by A.L. Burt.

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Matt Layne writes…

The line “there’s an iron heart ringing on an anvil this morning” came to me when my friend Sharon Lewis won a marathon (I think the Vulcan) the first time she competed in one. It must’ve been around 1998 or so, but it wasn’t until about a decade later that the rest of the poem emerged, and when it did, it flowed so naturally.

I know I’ve written about what a euphoric feeling that is when the words do flow and the poem essentially writes itself. To become conduit. Vessel. The line between creator and created is blurred, and a kind of ecstatic pleasure takes over. It’s my favorite type of high and always has been; a feeling of connectivity I rarely achieve but always crave. Y’all, the writing doesn’t even have to be very good. I might look at it a few weeks later and hate it, but in that moment, it feels like the coolest thing ever put to paper.

But back to Giant Steps, I wrote that one line, and it sat there in my notebook. I tried a few times, but the poems always came loose and fell apart. Then years later, my friend, Mike Shrader, passed away. Shrader was an Alabama iconoclast. Some people called him the King of Alabama. He would recite Whitman from the heart, and he would do this ommmmm poem that morphed into a fuuuuuuck you in what was a shockingly delightful way. My favorite instance of it was hearing him perform Om at a spoken word stage in downtown Birmingham. When Shrader moved on from this world, the poem coalesced into what it is now. Magic beans cost a cow, cost a heart, cost a penny. There is no sorrow won’t burn. I don’t know if that does for you what it does for me, but damn, if that don’t sing.

Keep climbing those beanstalks, y’all. There are adventures yet to be had in this life.

Love,

Matt

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“Giant Steps” appears in Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022. The music is “Bewild” from Ned Mudd.

Miracle Strip, a poetry collection by Matt Layne, is a unique hybrid of the written and spoken word. Each piece of the collection has an end-stop embellishment QR code which, when scanned, transforms the reader into a listener. Layne has recorded each poem, often with the accompaniment of musician and poet, Ned Mudd. The first line of the book invites the reader to “tell me your story, and I will tell you mine,” in the campfire tradition. In Miracle Strip, the reader and poet embark on an experiential journey of memories and the ghosts who haunt us.

Miracle Strip by Matt Layne is in print! Get your copy today!

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Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet’s nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. His debut multimedia poetry collection, Miracle Strip, had been awarded the 2025 Alabama Author Award for Poetry and was named the 2024 Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society. Order your copy today.

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