Monday, June 29, 2009

infinite margins















infinite margins

hell bent
side lying
hanging back
lost in the shadows
flowers turn to seed

the grass
lies anemic
either side
of this long yard
both sides cry for rain

i long
to scale
waylaid dreams
marking the way
grace lives at water’s edge

in tears
on cleanse
i fully erase
who I was then
forever free of fencerows


i preferred no puctuation and fence-rowed (starting out small and elongating)formatting for this one. this is part of a picture-to-word challenge i'm doing with gary gebert/blynd-poet and perhaps one other blogger if he takes the dare. the picture for this one by G. Gebert, my words to follow, to which he and the "other" blogger will follow .... first dare, was my pic/followed by everyone's words ... and so on and so forth ...

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Pandora's Sewing Box





Pandora’s Sewing Box

I can’t name the reason,
or the shame that rides behind
my sad eyes or the sullen fact
that beneath good, strong white thread
and equally as worthy black cord,
hidden within and without all the needles,
the thimbles, and a hay-stacked cushion of pins,
lies what seems like such ancient lost history,
so you must understand, then, my surprise
at its still-born voice beyond these years of reason,
this notion of what we had created up and out of us,
this thing lying bold face among the fluff
of quilt squares and denim saved for patching dungarees,
this nothing-more-than-a-piece-of-cardboard test stripping,
its thin pink and blue lines, side by side, barely breathing,
yet intent on announcing the delivery of a neverland arrival,
the tell-tale screeching nature of this end in miscarriage,
the absolute wicked injustice that we couldn’t even get that right,
screams for a a way out of my closed throat, as I clap my hands
in an effort to produce a thunder loud enough to mute the heartbeat,
dulling, dimming and dumbing down the residual pain and disbelief
over retained feelings hidden far deep beyond the labor of loss,
freaked at the sight, rummaging in an old box for the strong fiber
I think I can take back into a well-lit room to begin again anew.

Goofy ass poetry note:
I don't always understand, or even pretend to know, the how's and why's behind a poem's beginning rise to it's bittersweet ending.

However, in reformatting this piece to fit Blogger, I picked a too-large a font size which left the last word of every line hanging alone on a new
LINE!!!!

Right before, I did the "select all" and changed the font, I scanned down each of these last words, orphaned on their own line, and they read in this particular order:

reason
behind
fact
thread
cord
needles
pins
history
surprise
reason
us
fluff
dungarees
stripping
breathing
arrival
miscarriage
right
hands
disbelief
loss
fiber
anew!

Oh my aching poetry!!!!! us ... fluff!

Important Image Note:
Giclee print "Pandora" by John William Waterhouse (1949-1917)

Friday, June 12, 2009


Saving Grace

Burnt twice past
a Sunday,
I’m not sure
it's shyness,
this quiet way
in which I protest.

My feelings,
or the shadow
looming over
my scary lot,
is not as bizarre
as my screaming.

Who do you
think you are--
--my mother?!?!?
renews the shame
among the sad remains
of who I have become.

From the inside.
sticking too far out,
the frail sticks,
and heavy stones,
I used for bones
shatter at my feet.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Torn to be Wild ...

My writing of late has the continued mention of rain, as if it's an oddity for this time of year.

Then, today, I pulled an old journal art notebook down, looking for a specific collage piece (above), and I note the dates June 9th on through the 11th and so on, in the year of my life 2004.

And what are the first words after the notation June 9th, "...end of the day June 9th. The temperatures have dropped dramatically with this new onslaught of rain. Lovely. Will be most excellent 'sleeping' weather' around here and as I once coined the phrase in one of my poems, [it's] 'summer supremely'."

I note another upside to the day, in that same journal entry, in that I've managed to write a poem, which "lifted my spirits since I felt as if there wasn't going to be time to get something to the page at all this week. What luck!"

As I traced back my skull today (June 9-2009) I had trouble recollecting what the fuck poem I was even talking about!!??!?! since I've written hundreds and so what the f' was I doing lamenting time lost in that venture?!?!?

However, because I have works online far-gone past, I clicked to an archive to see if there actually was a poem very specifically posted on June 9th-2004, since I did allude in my journal that getting one to the page was not the easiest thing in that timeframe, and indeed ...

in the thick of june

the whirring of the fan,
occasional rap-beating,
some distance away,
thumping inside the trunk
of a souped-up car.

the stirring of leaves,
rising and falling curtains,
muted television voicebox,
providing blue half-light
as shadows play.

the spurring of emotions,
yours, mine and ours,
knuckles hitting plaster,
walls coming down,
toes pointed in dance.

the slurring of words,
mouths searching,
beyond pouty lips,
sigh-sound meter
of time well spent.

the purring of souls,
scattered hair to pillows,
orange rinds peeled back,
cold fruit to soothe,
love's fire still burning.

the blurring of visions,
raindrops dancing
rhythmically roof-top,
nature's tribal beat,
singing us to sleep.

... and there you have it circa June 9th-2004.

Yeah, so I guess I see why I was pleased. I remember what brought about the piece ... the June bugs hitting the screen, cars thumping on the highway, Paul and I humping in the bedroom and Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "Jazz June," we die soon, ever and always in my head.

So it strikes me f'ing weird how we experience a time and a place and a series of rainy days, and we think it's unique, odd, strange to be happening "this time of year."

And then we come to find out, another threatening-to-rain-for-the-how-many-days-in-a-row-day-in-June of 2009 (this time) that we and it aren't that special or unique.

The times, they repeat themselves.

The emotions on the other hand ... maybe if I open every journal I've ever penned or look between the lines of every poem I've ever written in June, the rain and the tears will be there, but in a multitude of ways.
June 11th 2004, I note "... the rain is insane! Really heavy at 7 a.m." but a great blue heron breaks through the grey sky and I tear up some paper and put his likeness in my journal.

On this day, Bekah is graduating from high school. Freaky weird, because in two years from this June 2009, on maybe yet another rainy day, Ali will have graduated too, three kids total flown from the nest ... toot sweet. Time flies when you are having fun notating all the rain!

June 12th-2004 finds me notating a trip to the some kind of craft and art emporium with Paul because I'm hell-bent on my collage art now that I've discovered the joys of ripping up bits of paper and reapproximating them into something new.

It had made me realize that the "resurgence of this other artform [beyond poetry/writing] has really fueled me, inside and out. I'm seeing themes build in my collage work as well as in my poetry --or better to say -- as I have previously seen in my poetry. The recurring themes are both the same +/different," and I was all like holy, fucking hey!




I was so ramped up by the end of my entry on June 11th-2004 that I ranted about the craft/art store and how it had closed at the "ungodly hour of 8pm!!!"" when didn't they know that "artists dont' really sleep! This place should serve coffee in 'go cups' ... for the quick dash in for emergency supplies."

However, in the end, I had less stress over the matter, realizing I had "gotten what I needed to begin with, or should I say to continue with since I've more than just started the whole dive into this 'physical' art world beyond or behind the words."

So, I guess that's what it's all about these rainy, sky-crying days which seem to be forcing us to notice something unique about them, when in the end we note the same-same but in a different way ... and we continue on realizing we have everything to begin with, and we've more than just started.

Or I could have just gone fucking crazy with all the rain.

The jury is out on this.