Making up for lost time

Ahoy!

This summer has taken an interesting turn. Working full time has meant that in the time I have off, it's very hard to motivate myself to do anything other than exactly what I want to be doing right then. That means a lot of unanswered emails, un-done laundry, and semi-abandoned blogs.

Luckily, writing has held it's place on the list of things I actually want to do. Editing, however....


So, here it is-- a group of poems from the last couple weeks, still very much (and by that, I mean entirely) unedited. We'll see how this goes.

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sitting in thick grass, discussing
superman and tightrope walkers
I feel a softening around the edges of myself
as my body fades into earth and atmosphere

perhaps this is why I touch you, almost
with a sense of panic—
that I need a place in which to disperse,
that if I don’t my body will be lost to the vast spaces
of this world
that I hope you will collect some of me
and carry it with you, perhaps inside a pocket watch

we are more space than substance, aren’t we?
debussy said that music is found in the spaces between notes—
is that why clair de lune is so powerful? because everyone knows
the passage that sounds like rain,
it is unrelenting, it does not yield
to the silence of music

but I like your voice, and
the whatness of you
the spaces between your ideas captivate
I like knowing that the pushing of my body
will cause yours to push back
I like to feel your release,
to kiss your temples as you bury your head
in my breast,
to feel the freeing of our thoughts slowly
becoming each others

and to the extent that I have choice, I choose this—
I choose the roaches and the apartment where the bed is only yours
every other night
I choose your anger and your small hypocrisies
each of your toes
and the twin moles, mirrored across your spine
nestled in the small of your back.


------------

I try daily to follow my limbs,
the impulse of my body
vibrant and infinite

the knots of muscle fiber slowly unwinding
releasing the clenched breath of my body
into the atmosphere, into the ground—

my thoughts float above me,
generally; with you I gnaw
until the string begins to break



------------

freckles punctuate the type
that i have set into your body,
fallen eyelashes enclose the parenthetical
moments of uncertainty and
disparate ideas—

somehow your body moves me
we both admit it is not a remarkable one
but it makes me feel like I am slowly expanding
from the inside,

and the drugged delirium induced by lilacs
becomes the feeling of wanting you


------------

the heat of summer presses outward from my skin
it is gentle
it occasionally beats
i try to listen to it, follow it's pressures
down rain-drenched streets and
past cracked pavement
and windows fogged with age
full of both desire and unknowing
marching to the blue door on 152nd street



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I see the ghost your body leaves behind you in the air
when my eyes follow your subtle movement
a flick of the hand
the push of your toes

there is something soft and subtle about you--
I find it in the small of your back
and the scars on your palm.

I marvel in the arcs of your body
and even across large spaces
feel mine shift to match your shape--
[galaxies, pulling each other apart
across lightyears]


------------

for jpm

I sense sometimes that there is a larger animal
within my body--

or maybe I am stuffed full
of shards of glass

but somewhere contained within the
skin-sack, my body, there is something

that my nerve-tangle brain has
begun to fear

I will not try to burn in out
but it will take effort

Times are Changing

for bill gulick

I remember the good old days,
when movies didn’t have to show a boy and girl
in bed together to get people to go,
and the village was pulsing and alive—
I didn’t mind my fifth-floor walkup, because
the young ladies on the way up were so friendly,
and occasionally willing to go out bowling with me.
I suppose “friendly” means something a little different now,
doesn’t it?

I’ve watched for years the blood that careens through my polio-arm,
it seems so useless
but my hands are turning purple, now
the blood isn’t so contained.

I’ve watched the clock, too,
aware that the thing outlived it’s warranty about sixty years ago
when I’m feeling quippy and bold I tell my guests
that as long as it keeps ticking, I will. But who knows.
A clock can be fixed, in endless ways. But I
am meat. I will expire.

There is a small divot in the back of the skull,
a curve where spine runs into brain.
It is from that place, I believe, that memory falls out—
a slowly unwinding ribbon, pattern without logic
heaping behind me in a small pile on the floor.

at a loss for words

a memo from my feet:
we are tired. you abuse us.
we go and go and go and we do not know where
we are going, this skin bubbles up and bursts and dirt
grinds under toenails
arches collapse, what are we doing?

--

sparrow collision to window, they vanish in a husk of bird-meat and
feathers that sway past the sunburst-blue flowers

there is potential sleeping in my arm
there is potential growing in my throat

my eyes lift straight out of my head like tiny balloons,
my body moves blindly, unafraid

one day, this will probably explode into several different poems. for now, let the thoughts jumble as they may!

do not confuse this poem for a poem of love
or even one of lust--
willing close and intimate, oh,
where can i begin?

i can no longer concern myself with the quality of
first-draft writing
we live in first-draft, don't we?

how about i start with the small blue sunbursts of
the neighbor's flowers or the skin-settling effects of
damp earth and the dew-pearls strewn across the grass where i
run my feet?

or perhaps the damp-body smell,
it is a subtle placement of hands
bursting color and cracked horizon
finger trails spine, every vertebrae an instrument of gasp
feet touch feet
hands touch feet
nose press nose and hip press hip--

(i want to set type into my body
if only to see it reflected in a brand
on the plane of yours with fallen eyelash parentheses
and freckle punctuation)

poetry bred in immense heat. let's see how this goes.

if i could i would write whole books
for these small heroes, my hands,
winding easily through dense air to
bring and break, to push, place, arouse--

or the legs, long and lean
biggish thighs but they don't impose
palates of muscle wrapped to my bones

and the bones, they are another story
i love them simply and at the core of myself

and this is how it goes:

body young, body strong,
body loves bodies long
body give, body take,
body old, body break

NYC

the living is denser here, isn't it?
blades of grass grow too close together, all the
potential of the earth forced through tiny cracks
and occasionally expansive lawns

there's a certain intensity about it
wondering where all of these people sleep
wondering if i've every seen any of these people before
knowing that most of them probably look right through me

but that's okay, i'm not bitter about it
or anything, it is only nice to know
that i've seen them-- i may not remember it but
they cannot be unseen

and now they are real

Soon, I'll have a work ethic

The quest for inspiration continues! I just bought a Charles Simic book as well as Whitman's "Song of Myself," which should hopefully generate some cool thinking. I move into my new abode today, so it may take a couple days to settle enough to do substantial writing, but I'll try to keep writing.

I find that when I actually manage to get into the habit of writing, it gradually becomes easier and easier. When I'm writing at least something every day, it puts me in a more writerly mindset-- I start to notice the potential for poetry in things that might otherwise have passed me by. Hopefully that will start to happen soon-- for right now, the writing process is still very tricky. It both helps and hurts to know that there's an audience, even if it's a somewhat small one. Because there are readers, I feel the need to produce writing more acutely; at the same time, it becomes that much harder, because it makes me write with the assumed reader too much in mind. It becomes difficult to write frankly and with absolute honesty, which I think makes for the best poetry. I'll try to let go of all of that.

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the sun rose like a man who couldn't get hard,
soft across the body newly shaped,
hollowed by a new ambivilence, yet
made frantic by the iron rod of Want

within it-- Want for a place where children
are not swallowed out of sunroofs by tornadoes,
Want for something just a little stronger,
for beat and breath and public display

a rumble bubbles slowly in the feet and legs
the man rolls over slowly and the body sees
his sleeping face and double chin,
it is time to go, now,

the important parts of her drifting unassisted
into blue air

Surprise, surprise.

Astonishing how quickly a resolution can fall through.

There are a couple reasons I haven't written for a couple days--
1. I have been out and about almost constantly, and most of my down-time has been absorbed by showering, eating, napping, etc.
2. The things I want to write about are just too big right now.

It's a tricky thing-- sometimes amazing poetry is just dropped into your lap. But I find with my own process, as soon as I think I'll have to write a poem about that, I've in many ways doomed the idea. Because then I spend days and days mulling over this poem, and I develop a preconceived notion of what the poem should be, and have the expectation that it will be amazing and powerful and altogether perfect at first draft, so when I actually sit down to write the thing, I can't even start. Nothing seems to measure up to the original idea.

But, perspective check-- who will actually be reading this blog? Basically, friends, family, and the occasional stranger. Strangers won't give a shit about me or what I write, unless they stumble upon something good. Friends and family will support me regardless. I guess the trouble is getting over my own feelings of perfectionism, and realizing that it's better to write ten poems and have nine of them turn out badly than to spend the whole summer waiting for inspiration.

So, here goes nothing.

Yesterday, I found out that a girl I knew in high school attempted suicide in March. She hung herself from the 212/41 overpass. Someone driving by saw her and started trying to cut her down. He waved down the next person to drive by for help. That person was her mother.

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your mother cut you down
from your tether to the overpass at highway 41

the demons have been screaming at you, haven't they?
the rank and quiet mist of red, swollen wrists, fingers lightly push
the bruises that circle your neck,
broken body, terrarium night, tongue too big with blood shooting through it
did you know that she would come that way,
did you know that she would come?

the sterile words enfold you,
"Woman found hanging from overpass hospitalized"
some of your friends sent cards.
it will not be enough.

your mother cut you down
from your tether to the overpass at highway 41
but we both know that you are still floating there,
rope invisible, drifting in the air
like fog or maybe an angel

It Starts Somewhere.

Hello to the vast, amorphous blogosphere.

This is where I will be posting this summer's creative writing. I'm trying to develop a better writing work ethic, so hopefully I will be posting something every day.

That being said, I make absolutely no promises.

You will be seeing poems, snippets of stories, or whatever else I choose to post in absolute rough draft form. Please be gentle.

I'm very, very excited for my Montclair/New York City summer. Thank you for coming along with me, even in this small way.

-Katie