paradox

i've been digging through the garage and pulling out old poetry notebooks.  this one is from april 2004.

paradox

at first, i'm not sure what

he means when he says, there is a theme

in your life, so i only look at my wine glass,

twist the stem between my thumb

and forefinger.

reminds me of a street fair when i sat

to have my palm read, waiting to hear

something profound only to be told

what i already know as truth. she looked

into my eyes instead of my palm and i

felt cheated.

paradoxical, he says finally.  i want to find

the word in the dictionary, trace my fingers

over each word next to it.  one exhibiting inexplicable

contradictory aspects.

the sun sets on the gulf of mexico (and i forget to watch)

while we were in captiva, we watched a beautiful sunset and it reminded me of a poem i wrote years ago about when i was working on the oil rig in the gulf.  i've posted the poem before, but here it is again (with a picture of the almost gone captiva sunset) :)

The Sun Sets on the Gulf of Mexico (And I Forget to Watch)

He asks how long I think it will take the sun to disappear
after it touches the water. Thinking of a movie I saw once
where the sun seemed to disappear almost instantaneously,
I tell him thirty seconds.

“No,” he says. “It takes three minutes.”
Silence lapses between us as fiery light falls
on black water between the breaks of the waves.
He is talking but I am thinking of what to say
next. My gaze is on the water. I hear him
pause, so I smile in what I hope is a valid response,
turn back to the sun on the water.
I forget to pay attention to his watch.

Instead I watch the water until the light fades,
fascinated by the way the sunlight
is carried back to us from the horizon,
dancing along the blackness.
Remembering the sun,
I ask him, “Is it really three minutes?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something like that.”

in the details

i want to tell
her about the postcards under
my windshield wiper, the day spent
surrounded by books (my dictionary
too). the way your shirt sleeve
gets damp but i keep my hand
there for the whole movie anyway,
i want to tell her about mixing pancake
batter at 2 a.m. and how you send
me words, save me words, love
my words. she should know that when
you told me you weren’t leaving, you
tightened your hand on mine just slightly
and i thought how no one (not even
me) has ever stayed.

i wrote this in march after nate and i had just started dating :) i discovered it in a notebook in a box in the garage recently so thought i'd post it.

we're headed to nashville this weekend to visit laura and drew-- nate and i are flying out together on friday afternoon, then i'm heading home sunday evening and nate's staying for a few days for the iie conference. i'm really looking forward to spending time with laura and drew, and time in nashville :) the may trip has become a yearly pilgrimage for music and tasty american beer :)

other than that we are deeply in love with our screened in porch and have spent most of our waking moments sitting on it. the weather has been in our favor, nice and cool in the evenings. this past weekend we spent a lot of time in the yard/porch making it a nice little haven. nate's project was pavers for the screen doorstep, which he did a fantastic job with. my project was lots of foliage and flowers for the porch and reviving the flower bed that was almost entirely destroyed by porch construction.

while i was kneeling next to the reed grass in the flower bed i heard a rustling which i've gotten used to given all the lizards we have around, but then saw a 4 foot (at least!) black snake shoot our from behind where i was working. needless to stay i screamed bloody murder and ran in the opposite direction. put a serious damper on my gardening but after prompting nate to poke around with the end of the rake, i was satisfied he didn't leave any friends behind and finished off my planting!

that's it for now :) hope your week is going well!

poem

we spent our first years
flying away so often. pulling
away from the earth together.
i want to be at home
with you. i want to soak
in the waters of our new life
together until our skin
is filled with wrinkles.

poetry workshop! :)

so due to a recent lack of creativity, i'm revising some old old poems as opposed to writing new ones. i've already hacked the following poem to pieces, but seems like it still needs work. help! i don't like the way it ends, it's too abrupt i think...

No One Has Ever Fallen in Love with a Fish

Today my sister fell
in love. And i-
well, i bought a goldfish.
He’s a lovely goldfish really.
i brought him home in a clear plastic bag,
filled with air and water,
and one fish.

Startled at first by the transition,
he swam slowly along the bottom of the bowl.
then began to dart around, nipping
bits of food off the surface of the water.

Watching him, i think of my sister,
how she might like to hear
about the latest addition to my life,
but before i can pick up the phone, it rings,
she is on the other end of the line.

“He said I love you,” she says just
as my lips are moving
to form the word fish. Her words
spill over mine, fill in details.

Then i remember,
and tell her about my fish.
How he swims and bobs just a bit
to The Beatles.

After i’ve hung up, i turn
to see him, swimming
alone in his bowl, close
to the rocks along the bottom.

poetry dose 1!

this was written about something my mom used to tell us when we were growing up. now in her defense (i just got off the phone with her)- she says what she ACTUALLY said was "the one who is least emotionally involved is in control," so take this one with a grain of salt ;) and don't get caught up in the overdramatics: (1) it's poetry, (2) this was a long time ago.

my sister tells me we are cursed by the unattainable

no matter what happens, i know

i’ll be okay, i tell her, smoothing

the tears from my cheek

with my fingers, pausing

while the phone line falls silent,

interrupted again by the sound

of her voice. that’s another curse

of ours, she says.

six days later i am walking home

at five o’clock in the evening and i realize

what she meant. rush hour traffic is speeding

past me and my love life suddenly makes sense.

we will never completely succumb our lives

to someone else’s. suspended

in our independence- cursed in knowing

that the one

who loves

the least

is in control.

second poetry dose!

this one is (obviously) written about living on the oil rig.. lyrics in italics shamelessly stolen from Natalie Merchant's Where I Go.

Venice, But No Gondola

I: On the Way

He says out loud (not necessarily to me)

“If you want to see poverty, just go to Venice.”

Funny how they’re both water cities,

whether it’s Italy or Louisiana.

Instead of a gondola, I’m in a Chevy Suburban

traveling down a highway.

Houses on stilts line the roadside,

the smell of oil seems to hang

among the cars on blocks, dark swamps with bright

green algae on the surface. Natalie Merchant

wails from the car speakers, a borrowed CD.

I didn’t borrow it, the lyrics reach me anyway,

climbing over the old stone wall

I am bound for the riverside.

When I look out the window, the leather seats

seem wrong for the situation. I feel compelled

to respond to the poverty comment but don’t know

what to say and the awkward lapse inevitable

of a four hour car ride with a stranger

fills the car. Natalie sings anyway, unaware

there is nothing to say, find a place

on the riverbank

where the green rushes grow

see the wind

in the willow tree

in the branches hanging low

We reach the dock and I board a boat headed out

to the Gulf. I watch from the back deck as we push

through the heavy water and every now and then

my gaze lands on small houses, isolated

by the swamps , connected only by dilapidated

wooden docks. Later, I notice the water has cleared,

the houses are gone and ocean water laps the tall grass

all around us.

II: On the Rig

My shift will be midnight to noon. I learn

to love rising in the darkness, eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.

I learn exactly what to tell “Q” in the mornings

to have my eggs cooked just right. I learn what to call

the men. Later, I even learn their names.

I find that when the metal

and the men and the mud

become too much,

I can always find the sea.

It stretches out so far that I can no longer remember

where I might find land. At night, I forget that it’s only water;

the other rigs light the skyline as if they are outskirts

of a metropolis.

One morning, as the sun rose on the water

I noticed that the blue was being overtaken by a deeper,

darker brown. It’s the Mississippi, they tell me, even

twelve miles of water between us, it still finds the way

all the silt spilling into the gulf,

staining the blue. child it's lovely

let the river take it all away

the mad pace, the hurry

the troubles, the worries

just the river take them all away

flow away.

don't think i've ever posted this one

although maybe it's cause i never quite nailed the wording -- anyway, here it is in all its rough draft glory:

My Fairy Godmother Wears Versace

I tell him twenty-one year olds are sexy
and sophisticated. He seems skeptical
of such a transformation, one that happens
while we sleep breathing the stroke
of midnight. A Versace clad
fairy godmother will wave her wand
over the length of my sleeping form,
then flit elsewhere- perhaps in pursuit
of a tall skinny café latte (no foam).

I will wake with an impeccable French twist,
cotton turned silk, wool to angora and a craving
for a lightly buttered croissant alongside a café au lait.
He won’t know me when he wakes, yawning
turning to find that I have been thieved
away in the middle of the night
by the turn of a year, leaving someone
he’s never seen before.

altitude

this town breathes a sigh
of relief when i’ve left
my feet too heavy
on its streets.
sometimes, when we sit
inside on sunday mornings,
the waitress comes by
with the coffee, and i pretend
i’m somewhere else. a ski chalet
where the syrup is thick
like the snow and no one
has seen me before.
let me breathe- this altitude
suffocates me.

arizona collected

11 November 2000
arizona, i feel you calling me
deep inside late nights when i am almost asleep,
i feel your breath through the window
-a raspy dust filled breeze-
drift across my cheek
and whisper past my ear.

arizona, i sleep fitfully and wake
from dreams of you only to feel disappointed
at the continued loss of your landscapes, your twilight,
the sweet scent of orange blossoms in spring,
the way palm fronds thrash in a summer monsoon,
and most of all, your skies.

arizona, there is a part of me unwilling to leave you,
no matter where i sleep, still searching for your scent
in the breeze through the window- always longing.
arizona, i feel you calling me.

15 December 2000
arizona, you left me when
i needed you most.
the grit of your deserts
nowhere to be found
when i lacked the strength.

i feel as if i’ve failed you,
in a way, i know i have.
but you’ve failed me too,
i cried alone while your night sky
stood empty.

where were you on autumn nights
when the chill froze leaves
still too green to see november?

the night i dreamt of you,
the scent of your rains lingering
even while i slept-
where were you then?

arizona, why did you do it?

9 January 2001
arizona, i’ve left you far behind,
still, your sidewalks burn my feet,
your sun still warms my skin in a way
i could never capture with words.

17 January 2001
arizona-
i felt your breeze through the window
the other day-
a hint of dust lingered,
then faded and i stood there
long after, trying to recapture the moment.

arizona-
how can we be angry with each other
when you are so much a part of me?
i left you only because i had to and
while away i have only grown to love
you more. no, that’s not true. you
felt it to, didn’t you? the last time,
when we met, you knew, just as i realized
i could live without you.

14 November 2001
arizona-
how can i leave you behind?
i can still taste your breath.
he speaks of you and i with sadness
in his voice. he knows i’ll come back
to you.
arizona, it isn’t fair. can you not hold
us both?
why do i feel as if i cannot hold on
to either of you?
arizona, i’m pleading with you.

26 August 2002
arizona,
how very far apart we are- your sun
reaches me only long after i’ve risen,
and even then, i’m not sure it reaches me at all.
arizona how could you give up on me so easily?

In Which Autumn Attends a Beach Party

so this one is super old -- dredged up from September 2000 -- but i think most are aware of my long running obsession with all things fall:


In which Autumn attends a beach party

There’s a chill in the air tonight that I had long forgotten,
as if Autumn had suddenly strolled into a beach party
draped in a cloak of fiery leaves-
(just yesterday, I could have sworn they were green)
but now here she is, surrounded by them,
with her auburn hair tumbling over bare shoulders.

How could anyone have forgotten her beauty?
Her presence is striking, and suddenly the Sun
seems too harsh for the setting.
Knowingly, he fades into the sky and the light becomes softer.

Unsure now if she plans to stay, we glance wistfully at the trees,
then the calendar. How did the months slip by
when only minutes ago the Sun burned so intensely?

Autumn seems to sense our reluctance-
with a soft smile and a nod of reprieve,
she slips through the crowd and disappears.
A single flame-colored leaf floats to the ground where she stood,
a reminder that Autumn is close by and Summer grows distant.

rough rough draft...

...but what is a blog for if not raw poetry?

(as yet untitled)

it seems those nights my head was full
of poetry that my fingers can no longer
find. was it so very fleeting? even now
you are further and further from me- or is it
farther? i find myself in a unyielding plastic
chair, a sheet of notebook paper in front
of me. the pen i used- too much ink, has bled
to the other side, the answers i number and fill
intermingling in the fibers.

by now, you’ve extended past my reach, rubber
gripping pavement, headlights flashing over bridges
and trees, back to where you began. where i falter
to begin.

Solstice

I. Summer

Such timid beginnings. He counted
every brick on the face of a building
while she looked up, searching
for words. He had wanted
to hold her hand, trace her jaw line
with his finger from earlobe
to chin. She knows the darkness
here is like nowhere else, satellites float above
them like slow-moving stars. Solitude lingers
in the darkness and then fades.

II. Autumn

He tells her rain is falling against his window.
When she looks through her own she finds
only dry leaves, already full
with autumn. Still, she tells him
if she closes her eyes, it begins to sound
like rain, begins to sound like his window.
Suddenly for a breath of a moment,
rain wind leaves swirl together
on windows. She almost feels him there.

III. Winter

The leaves have gone- snow falls
soundlessly past her window, whispering
to the trees- never speaking to her.
She walks close to midnight,
searching the darkness for satellites.
She cannot recall the curve
of his shoulder, the sound
of hello through a phone line.

IV. Spring

Suddenly she finds the ground
uncovered from months of snowfall.
Hundreds of tiny buds pushing
through the soil towards
the sky. At night she breathes spring
as she walks away
from satellites,
towards solstice.

poetry archives return!

dredged this one up-- don't think i've ever posted it -- tell me if i have, and i'll replace it ;)

The Dog Days of Summer

“Don’t answer the door while I’m gone.” She’d say,
fastening a name tag to her uniform just before
grabbing her keys and a quick kiss from each of us,
leaving the faint scent of her perfume lingering
just in front of my face.

My sister (in all the maturity of her junior high years)
liked to watch The Young and the Restless at 10:30.
I liked the Price is Right better staying in front
of the TV just long enough to see if anyone won the showcase.

Afterwards, I would retreat to my bedroom with a book
and the dog (if she could be convinced), emerging later to find lunch.
She and I usually ate hot pockets, ham and cheese mostly.
Sometimes, I would ask her what happened on the show.
Did Victor really die? Was Cole really Victoria’s brother
after they’d been sleeping together for months?

Other days, my sister’s best friend would come over,
and they would eat lunch on the roof.
Not for any reason really, other than they weren’t allowed.
Those days, I didn’t find out what happened to Victor and the rest.

Once, I scrambled up with them, swinging scrawny summer legs
the few feet between the roof’s edge and the courtyard wall.
I didn’t stay long, quickly bored by talk of boys I’d never met,
teachers of classes I hadn’t taken yet.
On the way back down, I slithered
off the edge of the roof on my stomach, feet dangling,
searching for the cement wall to put my feet on.
I slipped before I found it, feeling nothing but air
and the glance of the wall across my back as I fell
into the flowerbed. Startled, I lay there
trying to find my breath again. I reached
back and felt the broken skin along my back, but no blood.

The fall and I must have made enough sound to draw the attention
of two seventh graders on the other side of the roof.
I rolled to my side to find they were leaning over me,
concern quickly turned to ridicule once they realized
I had missed my own footing.

Left alone when they disappeared to the roof again,
I sat up and brushed my arm where
dirt from the flowerbed and shame from the fall clung
to my t-shirt like cicada shells on the backyard fence.

Cello Boy on a Tuesday Night

and because of a phone call from an old friend, i'm posting this poem in which he is featured (he's marc, not cello boy) :)

Cello Boy on a Tuesday Night

We walked down to Church Street one night
to see if we could find cello boy.
Marc says he’s always out on Saturday
nights. I saw them-

only once before, on a Tuesday. Cello boy
and his father. The boy dressed in a starched
white shirt, shined shoes; leaning over
his cello, face much too serious

for someone so young. It is a reflection
of his father, the man who hovers behind
his son, watching the Rubbermaid box
in front of his child fill with change.

That night, a crowd formed
around the two of them, father and son. Tonight,
there is no cello boy, perhaps his father
has relented, and cello boy has lost

his serious expression for an evening, no music
filling the street with the melancholy song
of a boy who learned the notes
too early to play them.

odd poem from the archives

breaking glass

she says,
“a weekend of glass breaking would do her some good.”

pickle jars, those forgotten dishes with the orange flower trim, an old perfume bottle

all of them, broken.
lying in a shattered pile of
arguments,
something she should have said
relationship that ended too soon
sharp words
pain already forgotten.

i am reminded of a half an hour i spent breaking glass once.

she and i set pieces of glass
in the branches of a sapling
across the creek from where we stood
and shot them with bb guns.

i quickly learned to take aim
at the glass through the sight
to grasp the trigger
feel my index finger pulling back
the slight jolt of the stock against my shoulder,
the splintering of glass breaking apart
falling almost soundlessly to the forest floor.

soon after, her father found us,
scolded us for the shards that lay
unrecoverable amidst dirt and pine needles
he took the guns away.
not before
we discovered the absolute satisfaction in the sound of breaking glass.

A Green Ford

My mother used to tell me about
herself, at age sixteen and the boy
she wanted to love who drove
a green Ford Mustang, Mach II.
(and now, I think, isn’t that a razor?)

Now, 1:30 a.m. on a Thursday
night, years after I first heard the story,
I remember it. How she used to leave her light
on, late at night hoping a green Ford would pass
by and notice.

I remember laughing at her then.
What a silly idea, I told her.
Still, tonight the story has come back to me
as i sit watching the window, listening for car
doors, making excuses, even to myself to stay
awake in this room filled with light
realizing that when you come home
you’ll see it,
glowing yellow into the dark parking lot.

Venice, But No Gondola

I: On the Way

He says out loud (not necessarily to me)
“If you want to see poverty, just go to Venice.”
Funny how they’re both water cities,
whether it’s Italy or Louisiana.
Instead of a gondola, I’m in a Chevy Suburban
traveling down a highway.

Houses on stilts line the roadside,
the smell of oil seems to hang
among the cars on blocks, dark swamps with bright
green algae on the surface. Natalie Merchant
wails from the car speakers, a borrowed CD.
I didn’t borrow it, the lyrics reach me anyway,
climbing over the old stone wall
I am bound for the riverside.

When I look out the window, the leather seats
seem wrong for the situation. I feel compelled
to respond to the poverty comment but don’t know
what to say and the awkward lapse inevitable
of a four hour car ride with a stranger
fills the car. Natalie sings anyway, unaware
there is nothing to say, find a place
on the riverbank
where the green rushes grow
see the wind
in the willow tree
in the branches hanging low

We reach the dock and I board a boat headed out
to the Gulf. I watch from the back deck as we push
through the heavy water and every now and then
my gaze lands on small houses, isolated
by the swamps , connected only by dilapidated
wooden docks. Later, I notice the water has cleared,
the houses are gone and ocean water laps the tall grass
all around us.

II: On the Rig

My shift will be midnight to noon. I learn
to love rising in the darkness, eating breakfast at 4:30 a.m.
I learn exactly what to tell “Q” in the mornings
to have my eggs cooked just right. I learn what to call
the men. Later, I even learn their names.

I find that when the metal
and the men and the mud
become too much,
I can always find the sea.
It stretches out so far that I can no longer remember
where I might find land. At night, I forget that it’s only water;
the other rigs light the skyline as if they are outskirts
of a metropolis.

One morning, as the sun rose on the water
I noticed that the blue was being overtaken by a deeper,
darker brown. It’s the Mississippi, they tell me, even
twelve miles of water between us, it still finds the way
all the silt spilling into the gulf,
staining the blue. child it's lovely
let the river take it all away
the mad pace, the hurry
the troubles, the worries
just the river take them all away
flow away.

another oldie (is that how you spell oldie?)

so in light of the new darkness... no pun intended - tee hee :) a poem from a few years back about sunsets (or lack thereof)


The Sun Sets on the Gulf of Mexico (And I Forget to Watch)

He asks how long I think it will take the sun to disappear
after it touches the water. Thinking of a movie I saw once
where the sun seemed to disappear almost instantaneously,
I tell him thirty seconds.

“No,” he says. “It takes three minutes.”
Silence lapses between us as fiery light falls
on black water between the breaks of the waves.
He is talking but I am thinking of what to say
next. My gaze is on the water. I hear him
pause, so I smile in what I hope is a valid response,
turn back to the sun on the water.
I forget to pay attention to his watch.

Instead I watch the water until the light fades,
fascinated by the way the sunlight
is carried back to us from the horizon,
dancing along the blackness.
Remembering the sun,
I ask him, “Is it really three minutes?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something like that.”

from the archives....

this one's from awhile back, but as i've been away from arizona for some time now, it's appropriate ;)

Most of All, Your Skies

Arizona, I feel you calling me
deep inside late nights when I am almost asleep,
I feel your breath through the window
-a raspy dust-filled breeze-
drift across my cheek
and whisper past my ear.

Arizona, I sleep fitfully and wake from dreams of you
only to feel the loss of your landscapes,
a saguaro cactus silhouetted against your twilight,
your mountains basking in strands of sun,
the intoxicating scent of orange blossoms in spring,
the way palm fronds thrash in a summer monsoon,
but most of all, your skies. There are so many.
Evening skies filled with dust illuminated in color
by the fading sun. Skies filled with clouds
that missed black by mere shades, rolling overhead
across cerulean on late summer afternoons.

They all drift about me as your breath does-
pulling me into the only place where I can find you.