Haiku for 3rd/4th Graders

I'm teaching a three day lesson on haikus this week. This is GREAT (I can't wait to workshop with my 3rd and 4th grade students!), except that I'm not exactly a haiku master myself, and I'm expected to model the form for my students. Their poems will have to answer the questions of where, what and when, so I did my best to follow the student format, without making it seem too restrictive. I obviously modeled a loose interpretation of "where" (in the rain), for instance.

The falling raindrops
reflect the approaching ground,
before they shatter.

It's hard to stay caught up

With the MTTC exams and finals I've had a tough time keeping this blog up to date. Now with my main rig hanging out at the Apple store waiting for a new optical drive, I'm stuck without digital copies of the piece I wanted to revise and submit for this week (and, ahem, the week I missed).

So there you go.

My excuses.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, here's Langston Hughes to put my work to shame:

Dare

let darkness

gather up its roses

cupping softness

in the hand--

till the hard fist

of sunshine

dares the dark

to stand.

Frost Wall

My apologies for the missing week. I spent last weekend studying... and this Saturday filling out tiny scantron bubbles with my trusty #2. At least I have blogging to fall back on if I didn't pass the exams...

At any rate, here's one that seems (almost) seasonally relevant. I wrote this a couple winters ago. I look forward to the winter departure of my syntax this January. New work soon, ideas are churning, but so is my ever hectic schedule.

Frost Wall

bite hard and grind

teeth to taste to touch

to see fall

tipsy toddler

find feet (align with ankles)

over black ice nursery rhyme

catch snow smoke stink

and steam

hand follows wrist

numb

under sleeve

tug down

curl fingers and find

tight 'round cigarette

burned too close

tongue like paste

pressing luck time and into

roof of mouth

eyes dried wide

in white-out fury.

The (second to) last piece

Collaboration with rbannal at permanentstrangerladyhand:

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer"(rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September"(fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)

part 4: "Crash on M-131" (fragondruit)

part 5: "on being a raindrop" (rbannal)

And here's part 6.

And We All Fall Down

Every raindrop that falls

reflects the ground as it approaches,

copies the umbrellas that scuttle

like beetles across hot sand.

As they plummet, slippery images

mirror reflections of umbrellas

and falling raindrops,

no longer remembering being falling raindrops,

reflections of reflections of

others like them, until

at the end of their journey,

they shatter to the ground,

draining into a pool, lake, stream, gutter.

Acceptance in the community basin.

Others are blessed with the embrace

of an outstretched tongue.

Ode to His Bastards: The Accomplice Falls in Love

Part 2 of "Bastards: The Terror Science Creates" (click here to view part 1, "What Worlds We Create").

But first, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (to set the mood):

"For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. i had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

Ode to His Bastards

I wait for you to hatch

to crawl out from ground,

sprouting, unfurling,

a city populated by umbrellas.

I wait for you and pray:

grow, darlings

you are mother father

brother sister

both one and many,

divide and multiply.

You are no flower patch

no garden herb, but still

so tender, so easily bruised.

I worry about you

your soft purple blood

what may happen in the moments

you must spend alone.

Your Doctor,

so mad for pleasure,

will sow and sell your parts

pluck

clean and dry

body to cap.

You will be eaten

and shake the trees,

put breath into walls.

You will be eaten

and like a tapeworm

grow fast and greedy.

It is only after being consumed

that you bare your teeth.

The next installment!

I'm posting my Sunday poem a little early this week. It's the next part of a sequence I'm working on with rbannal at permanentstrangerladyhand.

Just in case you missed something...

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer" (rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September" (fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)

This week I was to "steal" two of his lines from part 3 and use them in order, but with the freedom to play with the line breaks. As always, I italicized rbannal's lines. Watch his poetry blog for part 5-- he'll have to siphon two lines from my poem and weave it into his own response.

Here's part 4:

Crash on M-131

The engine hisses as rain hits the hot steel.

I walk along the side of the road until my limbs go numb;

until the trees and farmhouses on the horizon blur and

the moon fades to gray. Until once-closed eyes again

acknowledge the perfection of the spiraling colors.

I keep walking because it is too late to go back.

I leave my vocal chords along the

side of the road. I am naked.

The wind must have ripped the clothes

from my body. How is it, I wonder, that

I did not notice when this happened?

I must be breathing.

I pass a hulk of charred metal and plastic.

With each step the circle tightens.

I’ve been here before.

A familiar smell mingles with that of

smoldering leather and upholstery.

Smoke doesn’t just rise, it spreads.

For a moment, I can almost

hear myself whisper, but it’s too quiet.

Why do I know that awful smell?

Then I remember.

The engine hisses as rain hits the hot steel.

BASTARDS

I'm finally going to take the plunge and attempt to revise the massive sequence of poems titled "Bastards: The Terror Science Creates." It is my attempt at bringing science fiction into my poetry.

What Worlds We Create

I. THE ACCOMPLICE

I was his friend,

assistant,

confidante,

but most of all,

his accomplice.

I saw his Bastards for the

monsters they were,

the Doctor

for the monster

he had become.

There were no parlor tricks,

no circus mirrors--

only the twisted faces

born from the desires

of a madman

with time on his hands.

(There is nothing more dangerous

than a madman with time on his hands.)

And yet,

I too am mad, as mad as he.

I watched, I watched

and did nothing.

II. THE BASTARDS

Call us Bastards,

the dark corners of the mind

kept tucked away, quiet

materialized in fangs and glory.

We nibbling away at our creator’s

fingertips, toenails and sanity

squealing naked through nightmares

and spitting into the ears of young

make starving and sleepless

sift time through smell

and eclipse the night.

Some will pray for death.

Others know it has already come.

III. THE DOCTOR

Create and godless be.

Clarification

The post from 9/18/11 was NOT meant to be dirty. I gave it a nice, literal title to tie up the metaphor in a neat little bow and to put those filthy minds to rest (though I admit, I should have known better when I titled the poem, "I can almost taste it.").

Anyway, it's now "freedom rings," check it out and see if it strikes you in a different way.

I guess it would have been bolder to roll with the evocative message, but I'm not feeling too brash this evening.

An Experiment in Collaboration

First of all, I missed a week. Shame on me. So this is either last Sunday's post six days late, or this Sunday's post one day early. We'll see how tomorrow plays out.

This post is the initial step towards a collaborative poem between Rbannal and myself. It's an exercise in cops and robbers. Mostly robbers. I've stolen a line Rbannal's "love song for the end of summer" and inserted it into my own poem. Presumably, he will then follow this by stealing (a different) line from my poem. I'll then snag a couplet from that poem, and so on and so forth until the poems progressively more intertwined. The end result should be an nifty sequence, beginning with "love song for the end of summer" and ending god knows where.

Find poem #1 in the sequence at: permanentstrangerladyhand.blogspot.com.

Here's my "reply," or poem #2 in the sequence. Rbannal's line is italicized.

Morning in Late September

Driving East on Huron,

I catch the end of the sunrise

orange, gold rays linger

just minutes as the sun drifts

deep into the overcast sky.

It won’t be long now

before I’ll only see

the tender halo of light

creeping along the horizon,

breaking the dawn.

Gray hours claim more

of each successive morning

as the Earth shifts.

The city shrugs uncomfortably

close to winter.

In a month, the morning commute

will be in total darkness.

A chill will sink into my chest

and stay there, not breaking free

until next spring.

Frost will line the inside

of my bedroom window.

It will be next to impossible

to ignore my toes. Even so,

summer’s death is a welcome one.

For a moment, the trees

blush yellows, reds, purples

until, realizing themselves,

the color drains from their branches,

the leaves fall

brown, crumble,

decay

feed the soil

and nourish the roots

from which they rose.

Morning dew shimmers

at the brink of frost,

caught between water

and ice.

The air clears,

no longer burdened with

heavy swarms of mosquitoes,

flies, gnats, and the sticky

sweat of humidity.

Gusts of wind move freely

dancing along each nerve

on my face and fingertips,

sharing a hushed warning—

soon.

freedom rings

freedom rings

the word

will never be

big enough.

the mouth

will never remain

full, no

everything must

go down,

down,

down.

a stomach gurgles,

teeth gnash.

The Day the Sky Fell

The Day the Sky Fell

It sounded like rain. That's what woke me:

the patter of bees, mosquitos

flies and gnats crackling against the sidewalk,

exoskeletons like pop rocks.

I rushed to bring the dog inside.

Dead insects smattered across my cheeks.

The clouds sinking.

A bird broke its neck on the grill.

A white haze surrounded us.

Water beaded up on my arms and forehead.

As I struggled to drag the dog inside,

a power line fell and everything went electric.

The cicadas have gone

The cicadas have gone

The air stops buzzing with

the first cool whisper of fall.

The wall of voices is silenced,

leaving only the faint scuttle

of leaves swept across the

concrete by my boots.

Gone is the throttle of wings

constant as the sound of my pulse:

usually imperceptible, but

impossible to ignore once noticed.

The silence won’t last.

The song of a thousand

drunken violins

does not simply die

with the coming of fall.

In 17 years the offspring of

this summer’s cicadas will emerge

from the dirt. They will pick up the

song where their parents left off.

Carbon Dioxide (revision)

Busy studying the science curriculum for my future students, so just a revision for today. I think it may be time to pitch this darling, but that's another story.

Fresh work next week, I promise...

Carbon Dioxide

just after its fire

has been snuffed

a small twist of smoke

winds upward from

the head of a match.

oxygen becomes CO2.

exhale.

600 muscles

rack the body.

sink toes, heels into earth.

600 will bever be enough.

exhale.

no one dies

with air in their chest,

not even bad air.

Smoke Flees the Flames of Its Birth

My first prompt driven poem in at least 2 years. The prompt was, "Someone's house is burning." I'm still sorting through the line breaks, they seem awkward long, and perhaps even more awkward as they are now, in short snippets.

Smoke Flees the Flames of Its Birth

From up here I can see

the entire west side of the city,

a great cross hatched web

of black asphalt, interrupted

with rows of green trees

and dark rooftops.

In the distance,

deep inside the grid,

a house burns.

Even nine stories up,

I can hear the sirens.

Can almost smell the

plastic melting,

paint bubbling,

the carpets that hiss

as they burn like

ribbons of tissue paper.

Smoke rises in the distance,

curls between the trees

like a hand that reaches up

to touch the sky.

On the sidewalk below,

a man with a single crutch

pushes a shopping cart

full of bottles and cans.

Wheels rattle over cracks

in the concrete. Plastic

and aluminum rubble as

they bounce. Everything

is the same, in tact.

Junk Bound Riders (revised)

Junk Bound Riders

A man with wild hair and a red beard

stares through thick glasses, looks unsure.

The glass doors slide open. Bus 12A.

Cool air floats across the sidewalk.

An oasis in the summer heat. In time,

the man heaves his bag over his shoulder

and joins the others, their tissue paper skin

smudged like the stamps of cigarette butts

on the concrete.

My neighbor has arms like black licorice.

Her soft jaw chews words without teeth.

Consonants rounded like vowels

smack between her lips like taffy.

She rides often, but tends to go nowhere.

Mouth mashing, she flutters though

conversation after conversation.

No one is alone here. In the aisle,

a thin man clamps teeth to toothpick.

He is left-handed. I know this.

Marks to the right, write with the left.

He carries a lamp in one hand,

a camouflage backpack in the other.

D.C. Comics baseball cap perched

on his head: S is for Superman.

This Bar is Now Non-Smoking (revision)

This Bar is Now Non-Smoking

It’s not quite my hundredth day and

I still miss the companionship:

friends huddle in doorways until

glowing embers dance

near lips. Fingers stained

burnt umber smash

cigarette butts into a brick wall.

Conversations of importance

never happen inside bars, but

here at the fringe you can still

feel the heat from inside;

hear the bouncers laugh

and sometimes the

hard crack of a pool cue as

it strikes. Here stand

the philosophers.

The nihilists.

No denying nothing.

This Place Will Never Be the Same Twice

This Place Will Never Be the Same Twice

This vast, white space is not frozen.

The tumbling sands swell across the land

further than my eyes can grasp.

The dunes wait, patiently

for visitors, for wind and time.

Momentum fuels

their constant state of travel.

A small part of the dunes resides

in the fibers of my living room carpet,

but a few grains, the crest of a wave

of particles, crushed rock and stone,

shifting slightly with every step.

They often travel as stowaways.

Cling to clothes and sweaty skin,

stick to shoelaces and water bottles.

Sometimes they travel by foot,

slipping into socks to settle

and crunch between toes.

A flurry of blisters is created.

Travel by mouth is less common,

but they sometimes find a puff of air,

fly by exhalation;

or wedge themselves between teeth,

or under tongue for long distance transit.

Many of these gritty travelers are discarded.

Stuck to a shirt or a damp bathing suit,

tossed in with the rest of the wash.

The granules are swept down the drain,

settling in the bend of a pipe.

The journey, it seems

ends here.

The Junk Bound Riders

The poem needs another stanza. Two parts don't seem to suit the topic, so expect to see hearty revision of this in the future. I'll have to schedule in another bus trip for research.

The Junk Bound Riders

A man with wild hair and a red beard

stares through thick glasses, looks unsure.

The glass doors stay open.

Cool air floods the sidewalk.

In time, he heaves his bag over his shoulder,

joins the other junk bound riders

whose tissue paper skin is smudged

blue and purple like the stamps

of cigarette butts on the concrete.

No one is alone here. In the aisle,

a thin man clamps down on a toothpick.

He is left-handed. I know this.

Marks to the right, write with the left.

He carries a lamp in one hand,

a camouflage backpack in the other.

A D.C. Comics baseball cap perched

on his head: the S is for Superman.

Revision of Notes from Arena Sports Bar and Grill

Notes from Arena Sports Bar and Grill

The corner of Fourth

and Washington;

salt lick for the wicked,

for neighbors, workers

fathers, mothers,

one and all wrong

and wronged. Loners

and runners all

nightly migrate and post.

These sad faces do little

to hide loss and nerves

and misfortune.

These people with

withered lips

suck hard on death sticks,

pretend it’s candy.

It’s warm now,

no more hands stuffed in pockets,

cigarette clasped in teeth.

These sad souls,

these snapping turtles

smoke outside with

greater vibrance than in

the gray months passed,

smelling like whisky

and wheat beer,

smoke and oak.

Now pink cheeks lift

through the haze.

A happy buzz of

voices big and small,

washed over with sweet

citrus and coriander.

They’re all here now.

Everyone has a place.

This is theirs.

They drink, smoke,

hide and forget,

yet stay together.

The 3 Rs, revise, revise, revise

As much as I had hoped weekdays would provide time for revisions, with student teaching and school, the time just isn't there.

If only I had a Tardis.

No going back in your own timeline, though. On second thought, that may not work.

Hopefully this is a bit tighter than it's previous rendition. I think it still needs some work, but we're going to start here.

Origins

I am drinking green tea from China,

bought from a Polish bulk foods store,

seasoned with cinnamon from an Indian grocer,

sweetened with Michigan honey.

I scribble with a Holiday Inn pen

from a stay in Spring Lake, Michigan,

but made in Taiwan.

I am from Grosse Pointe

and Detroit, Michigan,

but also Terre Haute, Indiana.

Not the city, but the scruff along

the edges. The dust and the single

room shanties. Ford trucks and

Larry Bird paraphernalia and

too dry summers that make

the rows of corn weep.

The stalks sag from the sun,

shiver in the wind.

I am not from the city,

or the country, but somewhere

nestled in between

where the dialects of each generation

melt to form the language

farm to city to suburb

zink, sink

sal-ary, celery

drawel, pause

nasal vowels

forgotten consonants

voices in harmony, but also

timeless, placeless cacophony.

Origins

Origins

I am drinking green tea from China,

bought from a Polish bulk foods store,

seasoned with cinnamon from an Indian grocer,

sweeten with Michigan honey

while I scribble with a Holiday Inn pen

obtained in Spring Lake, Michigan,

but probably made in Taiwan.

I am from Grosse Pointe

and Detroit, Michigan,

but also Terre Haute, Indiana.

Not the city, but the scruff along

the edges, the dust and the single

room shanties that dot rows of corn

bringing with them Ford trucks

and Larry Bird paraphernalia.

I am not from the city,

or the country, but somewhere

nestled in between.

The dialects of each generation

melt to form the language

farm to city to suburb

zink, sink

sal-ary, celery

drawel, pause

nasal vowels

forgotten consonants

voices in harmony

timeless, homeless cacophony.

Gritty Travelers

Gritty Travelers: This place will never be the same twice

The dunes drift along the horizon

stretched past the eyes’ reach

limitless shifting

the swell of a great wave

a slow, but not frozen sea of sand.

Always moving, the dunes

wait for visitors, for wind and time,

for the requisite momentum

to their constant state of travel.

A small piece of the dunes resides

in the fibers of my living room carpet.

The dunes often travel as stowaways.

They cling to clothes and sweaty skin,

catch on to shoelaces and water bottles.

Sometimes they travel by foot,

slipping into socks to settle

and crunch between toes.

Dunes travel by mouth

by a puff of air—

momentary fly by exhalation;

or wedged between teeth or under

the tongue, for long distance transit.

Many of these gritty travelers are discarded.

Stuck to a shirt or a damp bathing suit,

tossed in with the rest of the laundry

the granules are swept away with the wash,

settling in the bend of a pipe.

From Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, Empire, Michigan

Smoke burns across the lake’s surface

Chippewa legend says it was a forest fire

that drove the mother bear and her cubs

out from their den, into Lake Michigan.

The great, blue waters could have been the sea,

shaking crests and break neck currents—

the only solace from the flames.

The mother bear was strong. She paddled

without rest, to the bluff of the dunes.

She waited for her cubs,

staring out at the empty and unforgiving waters.

until weak from the glare of the sun,

she fell asleep, the sands covering her body.

One day the bear will awake in a fury.

She will shake the dunes off the horizon

and into the sky.

Revision of Sister Death

Frankly, I think this could still use a liberal chopping. Kill your darlings, as they say. I have a lot of darlings to dice in the near future. Think of it as compost. It needs to be broken down before it is useful. Here's one revision to start off the process of finessing the mess of previously posted material. *edit* Double spacing was not intentional, but I've given up on fixing it.

Sister Death: Margo Kevorkian

Margo,

does history try to forget euthanasia’s

next of kin, grave enabler’s like you,

lost in your brother’s wake

as you reached out to the dying death

like frantic toddlers tumbling in the dark

falling without handrails or walls;

crashing through a house of leaves

never hitting the floor.

You did not talk them off the ledge

when you kissed them good night.

It was usually quiet, but was it gentle?

Did you thread the needle lightly,

with tenderness? Or like an awkward nurse,

did you have to search for a vein,

fishing through fat and muscle

apologizing, this will only sting

but a moment.

Vaguely disappointing

Maybe I need to change my methods, perhaps tell myself that my post is due on Friday, instead of Sunday.

I've never been good with guidelines.

Either way, I'm putting my foot down this morning. No more bullshit, Fragondruit. Free write from the tip top of my head, 15 minutes, no edits, no looking back. Move on and revise later.

Ready? Set? Go:

Notes from Arena Sports Bar and Grill

These people wear

withered lips

suck hard on death sticks,

pretend it's candy.

It's warm now.

No more cupped hands over mouth

or stuffed in pockets,

cigarette gripped in teeth.

These snapping turtles.

These sad souls

smoke outside with

more vibrance than in

the gray months passed.

Pink cheeks through the haze,

happy buzz,

big voice.

We're all here now.

Everyone has their place.

This is theirs.

The corner of Fourth

and Washington;

salt lick for the wicked

for neighbors, workers,

fathers, mothers,

one and all wrong

wronged, loners and

runners all

nightly migrate

and post. These sad faces

hide loss and nerves and

misfortune

smelling like whisky

and wheat beer,

smoke and oak

washed over with sweet

citrus and coriander.

They drink, smoke,

hide and forget,

yet stay together.

Sister Death (running a wee bit late this weekend!)

More on Margo K... think I have a new research project. Because apparently poetry without research is just too spontaneous for this amateur.

Sister Death

I wonder about your face, mostly

why I cannot find a single image.

Is it that history tries to forget

the grave enablers?

Euthanasia’s next of kin?

I looked for your face to see for myself

how you could bear the death and

disposal in your brother’s wake.

How did you process your patients’

pain and hopelessness—

(Like a mother? A soldier?

A dog kicked to follow with dark empty eyes?)

typing and taping away

and not die some yourself?

You reached out to the dying dead

the frantic toddlers tumbling in the dark

falling without handrails or walls;

crashing through a house of leaves

never hitting the floor.

You reached out and plucked them from the fall,

tucked them into white sheets.

(Could it have been gentle?)

You did not talk them off the ledge

when you kissed them good night,

but (at least, perhaps) they went quietly.

As I try to picture your face,

your experienced eyes

I must ask and accept no answer:

Did you thread the needle lightly,

with tenderness? Or like an awkward nurse,

did you have to search for a vein,

fishing through fat and muscle

apologizing, this will only sting

but a moment.

Margo Kevorkian

Choppy. I know. Editing will hopefully take place for this and previous posts in the near future.

Margo,

the steady handed soldier,

the stagehand cloaked in black.

You recorded the interviews

the tales of pain and suffering,

the patients searching for peace.

You were there for the first fifteen

departures, procedures, final sessions--

pick your euphemism, Margo,

it's all the same in the end.

In the end all conditions are terminal.

Your brother, Jack, only agreed when

his patient told him: "There is not

any joy, not any joy in life."

Everything is conditional.

Your brother agreed,

"I know that, I know that."

No joy, not any joy,

but what of your silence, Margo?

Thanatron is Death Machine in Greek.

I found an image of your stone, Margo.

Head stone rubbings have given way

to amateur photographers, internet

historians and genealogists.

I found you buried

in gravestone search engines

death cult databases.

Is it wrong to smile,

discovering you here?

You know better than anyone

what the end looks like--the mess

left behind, the survivors taken

under your wing moments after you

and Jack sent their loved ones to rest.

You helped form support groups in

every town touched by the Doctor

and his Thanatron. You brought them

together after he tore them apart.

He was Dr. Death, but Margo, be true,

you were no Bedside Angel either.

CO2

Carbon Dioxide

just after its fire

has been snuffed

a small twist of smoke

winds upward from

the head of a match.

oxygen becomes CO₂.

exhale.

do not cling to

bad air

do not allow it to linger

mouldering

in the chest.

exhale

and release the

600 muscles that

rack the body.

sink toes,

heels into earth

and realize 600

will never be enough

and no one dies

with air in their chest,

not even bad air.

though you can move

smoke with your hand,

you cannot

capture it.

Hopefully the first and last late post

Sorry, I was watching the final episode of the Wire last night and managed to ignore my other obligations.

This isn't a poem, it's a rant. I'll do something with it next week, but it in the end it is unlikely it will look anything like this:

The Count

These days I count sand, hunched like a 'possum, one grain at a time. My tweezers neatly hoover, transporting each spec to the next pile. This position is a significant upgrade to my previous job counting salt. Salt counting is a far more labor intensive task--as much care must be put into maintaining the proper levels of aridity as is put into the actual counting, lest the salt granules moisten and stick together in clumps. The clumps have to be broken apart and spread to dry, then raked back and forth to re-create the proper size of particles before being shoveled back into the pile and counted again, one grain at a time.

Counting sand may seem less glamorous than counting salt, (sand doesn't have half the tricks or powers of salt--salt preserves food, sanitizes wounds, and can crystalize. Salt can also alter the boiling and freezing temperature of water. Sand, on the other hand, may reflect the sun or slowly wear away rock, but its effects do little for humanity beyond landscaping plastic beaches) but counting sand features significantly increased job security. Rock will always be crushed and worn by the wind into smaller and smaller sediments. The inventory of sand in the world will only increase with time--it is unlikely that sand will ever be "used up." Salt may be eaten or soak into the ground. Salt can be lost, and so I am content to enter work each morning, tweezers in hand, grip prepared to gingerly transport one bit of sand at a time. Ready to count.

The Easy Way Out

Short and rough. Really rough. But hey, at least it's short:

This Bar is Now Non-Smoking

It’s not quite my hundredth day

without a cigarette and

I still miss the companionship:

friends huddled together

around bar doorways until

the glowing embers danced too

close to the lips. Fingers stained

burnt umber, dry and cracked,

smash the butt into the wall.

Conversations that are

important never happen

inside bars. But at the fringe,

you can still feel the heat from

inside, still hear the bouncers

laughing and sometimes the

hard crack of a pool cue as

it strikes. At the fringe stand

the philosophers. The nihilists.

No denying nothing.

Round One

I wrote this after spending a little time with Rilke's Duino Elegies. I'm still not sure if I like it. Either way, I think it needs to be cut with the editing knife in the near future. I also definitely plan on reworking the line breaks to follow a somewhat more orderly meter-- nothing too formal, just a business casual approach to following a strict meter. No tie (ahem, iambic pentameter) required, just a pair of khakis to keep things semi-professional. At any rate, my apologies for any formatting or grammatical errors. Here you go:

On Rilke’s Duino Elegies

I.

“Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure”

Is it as Rilke supposed—

no place we can remain?

A roar as the ethereal bodies

float through mansions and mausoleums

ghettos and oil spills, caverns

closets and forests,

whispers swept by the wind

as smoke sucked through a straw

through fissures of time,

cracks of memory, consciousness

and the incomprehensible space

between each atom of every cell.

The worlds spun like fibers of a rope

and so tightly spun, are sent

spinning among the terrifying angels

in the whirlwind between

the living and the dead.

II.

“In the end, those who were carried off early no longer need us”

We must somehow forget all who we leave behind,

though some may find it difficult to forget us.

Lovers will caress the empty side of the bed

or embrace a well worn pillow, even long after the smell

of the departed has faded away. Our sisters,

and friends will pour through photographs

cut, paste, collage, cry to create lost memories.

Mothers will touch stretch marks, or perhaps

a long, deep scar, hip to hip, as was once the practice,

while fathers choose trinkets—a feather

or a stone found camping forever to be kept

on a desk or nightstand so as to maintain

some connection with the dead.

The cats alone will not be sentimental

in their mourning. They will cry out as they can,

yowling and searching the empty corners of the

unsure of how to devote their lives.

III.

“Of course, it is strange to inhabit the Earth no longer.”

Sooner or later they will all forget,

as I must forget once I reach the whirlwind.

I will forget my customs, so recently learned:

my morning coffee, favorite shirt, nicotine cravings

never quite filled by a fondness for lemon drops.

I will forget the price of gas and I will forget how to drive a car.

I will forget my career and the years juggling work and school.

I will forget the five years waiting tables and every

promise broken to never do it again.

I will forget the name of the first man I slept with;

the bitter pith of grapefruit; pomegranate seeds,

cilantro, curry, salt, and the slight discomfort of steak

caught between ones teeth.

I will no longer know how to button my jacket

no longer feel heat and cold and the dry whip of wind

in my face each January as I walk hunched, eyes squint

towards the sidewalk. I will forget

the winter comfort of whiskey,

and that tequila burned worse that kerosene.

I will forget family gatherings with round, pregnant aunts,

roast and meatballs and the fried chicken my uncle

insisted on each year. I will forget Grandma’s wig

and when my cousin tried to run off with Dad’s beer.

I will forget my first dog and the Christmas Eve when there was

nothing left to do but stand and cry and wait

in the cold clinic as he went still beneath my hand.

I will forget how to lace my shoes or powder my face.

I will forget my birthday and the street I grew up on

as I will forget the taste of my lovers tongue late at night

and early in the morning.

I will hang on as long as I can, but it must all slide away.

I will lose the smell of smoke, garlic, peppers,

and freshly cut grass.

There is a quiet smell on the back of my lover’s neck,

and that too I must lose

as I forget sex and lips;

sunlight and

all the colors the sky can become.

I once learned abhay means fearless.

I will forget that as well,

but I will no longer fear the ocean

or the waves that tear the world apart.

I will forget how to speak.

touch

and

forgetting will

thought

fully immersed

whirlwind now.

a spider web captured by winds

(web torn, it clings to the branch

for a moment before it is swept away).

Here, spinning.

Here all forgot,

but perhaps,

Rilke’s terrifying angels.

Terms of Agreement

1. 11:59 pm, Sunday, every Sunday, I will (attempt) to provide one page of fiction or one poem (or poem in progress) worthy of peer review.

2. I will (attempt) to remember this engagement.

3. and this url.