Catching a Poem

Catching a poem is not like catching a plane.

A poem doesn't happen on a schedule.

It comes in its own good time, usually not when you've packed your bags, but when you're unpacking, 

leaving a messy ring at your feet of unrecognizable matter never fully decomposed,

no matter how many therapists, or meditation apps, or bike rides, or spans of grace, or turns of a shovel.

On your best days, you pick a way out, clear a path, forge past, speed away, for a while.

But before long, the ground is littered again, some old detris, some new, alongside a few shiny objects that catch your eye.

And make you think 'hmm' and reach in.

'Maybe there's something in here besides the pain.'

Sifting, simply a poem.

Lost: A Verse in COVID

I am/am not okay in superimposed solitude,
my mental seesaw tilts between stability and warp.
One minute I stir sugar in my good coffee,
the next, infinity is not large enough to hold the heaviness.

What is lost? The ordinariness of showers at 7a,
leftovers packed into a foil square, an overstuffed backpack,
a tough choice of 'Which shoes?', a slamming door in a rush,
a hurried drive to a parking space before it's gone.
People pass me on the street to Point B, a few feet apart,
close enough to see a man's whiskers,
to smell a woman's perfume.

My clothes in solitude smell of my body in them for days in a row,
ripe but stagnant, and covered in cat fur. My pants crease from
sitting too long in one place, no need to do anything.

No need -- besides take a deep breath.

Needs were a thing we took for granted
while we passed each other on the street,
aloof to our closeness, unafraid of the proximity.
Why now that tragedy of disconnection seems a luxury.

I always walked overly conscious of myself in the public realm,
comparing my size to the street and the people on it.

Black cat on black shirt.

My steps -- straight ahead or to the side -- would be determined
by the others on the path. And now there are none.

What is lost? The maybe-thoughts of not fitting in.
The maybe-thoughts of inferiority.
The maybe-thoughts of aloneness.
What is more alone?

My stay-at-home community is my couch and my cats.
My old black cat sits on my chest right now, interested in the scribbling.
When I reach the end of the sentence and sweep back to the fold,
this cat spreads open its paw a little, somewhat on cue,
as if to settle me down.

Be still. We are in this together.

Fooling Around for National Poetry Month

I'll bite. Poetry, yeah, I read it. Write a few. Wish for inspiration. Here's one I'll share, and then offer a shorter version, maybe better, leaner, more core.

Hawk Song

In the woods, a hawk spoke.
She wanted to sing together.
“Sing,” she called, and we threw our voices.

Circling in my sky,
she flew endlessly as I wandered,
as I sought a different ending.

Like the hawk, I must call out, must circle,
must crease the air.

Difference is,
the hawk lives in the now.
The hawk never questions.

When I go, she becomes the woods.
If I am silent, her song spins on.

Difference is,
I need more than the hawk needs.
I need someone to hear.

~*~

Hawk

In the woods, a hawk

She wanted to sing

"Sing," she called

Endlessly

Call, circle, crease

In the now

Becomes the woods

Song spins on

More than the hawk

The Valley of Write

Whenever you are sad, write.

Whenever you are lonely, write.

Whenever time cracks open, write.

Whenever you need strength, write.

Whenever the voices take over, write.

Whenever the stars need praise, write.

Whenever you are whole or part, write.

Whenever your cup runneth over, write.

Whenever you need to remember, write.

Whenever you need to access peace, write.

Whenever all places are a foreign place, write.

Whenever the rain drowns your parade, write.

Whenever the troubles of others flood in, write.

Whenever black and white don't contrast, write.

Whenever the headache is really heartache, write.

Whenever you can't tell the difference inside, write.

Whenever the nerve of every nerve is frayed, write.

Whenever someone hurts you and you hurt them, write.

Whenever you cannot walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, write.

Write, for yourself and the wonder.

Write, for all will be well.

Write, for purity.

Write, for grace.

Write, to know.

Write, because.

Write and feel.

Write.

-----
A collection of poetry from my years living in Portland, Ore., is available in paperback this month. This poem isn't in it. Many in the collection are light-hearted. Hope you find the book amusing and inspiring.

Take Stock, Moby Dick Lovers

This post has nothing to do with Moby Dick, other than I embrace the fact that I'll never finish reading it. On the other hand, here are few things in life I do embrace, not in any particular order:

rock'n'roll

the delete key

the malleable mind

My favorite cuff courtesy of Jerry Van Amburg.

chocolate

fire

forgiveness

a well-placed kiss

leather on skin

true love

miracles

libido

tweezers

the power of words

my voice as a woman

lists

the constancy of change

To Live Deliberately, By Henry David Thoreau

Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life?

We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.

I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.

I want to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived.

I do not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear.

Nor do I wish to practice resignation, unless it is quite necessary.

I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,

I want to cut a broad swath, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

If it proves to be mean, then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;

Or if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it.

Black Book Intermission

Random Lines from My Black Book

I always have more to say than I should say.

First drafts are butt ugly.

Come to the table a whole package.

Take notes on EVERYTHING.

Writers write. Talkers talk.

Just keep asking the question.

Exist in the field of uncertainty.

The girl who looked like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo smelled of smoke.

Make rational decisions.

Read out loud for best possible effect.

Write, Dance, Hum Through Your Paradox, But Especially Write

The title of this book grabbed me, "Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche." For about a year, I've been on the verge of finishing another manuscript, and the end of the book is a paradox of light and dark, good and evil. I'm not one for the melodramatic, but I had to pick up this slender book and start a little fire under myself. It's given me much more than I believed it would. It's a quick read but sticky.

The theme is paradox (again that word) of what is positive and negative in the act of being and how the parts of life we don't like are instructive and won't be ignored regardless of trying. The author, Robert A. Johnson, who also wrote He and She (all from 20 years ago), suggests we find meaning in the hard space inbetween.

What stuck with me, besides most of it, which I'll be rereading, is what Johnson wrote about writing:

Every verb makes holy ground. "I will go home" or "I will play music now" imply a special identity to "I" and "home" or "I" and "music." To make any well formed sentence is to make unity out of duality. This is immensely healing and restorative. We are all poets and healers when we use language correctly. One makes a mandorla* every time one says something that is true.

...

The mandorla is the place of poetry. It is the duty of a true poet to take the fragmented world that we find ourselves in and to make unity of it. ... All poetry is based upon the assertion that this is that. When the images overlap, we have a mystical statement of unity. We feel there is safety and sureness in our fractured world, and the poet has given us the gift of synthesis.

Great poetry makes these leaps and unites the beauty and the terror of existence. It has the ability to surprise and shock -- to remind us that there are links between the things we have always thought of as opposites.

*A holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness.
No compensation or free copies of this book were provided as an inducement for this blogpost.

Poetry with Judith Pulman: Literary Arts at Multnomah Arts Center

Tomorrow is the last session for a revision class I'm attending at the Multnomah Arts Center in SW Portland. Four poets (including myself) and a woman writing a memoir for her grandchildren have been sharing work and revising pieces with our facilitator Judith Pulman. Judith is a force, a new person I've connected with in the Portland writing community. She is also a poet, having graduated recently from Pacific Lutheran University's MFA program. I haven't read much of Judith's work and the class doesn't revolve around her aggrandizement, which is refreshing, but she has been a good guide for us novices. She's titled the class "Revision: Getting Beyond 'I Like It'".

So we each read a piece (or two) and then sit quietly as the others in the group express what works for them and what doesn't. We go about the process in a somewhat methodical way by first giving a one- or two-sentence statement about what we believe the writer means, in essence, the poem's story or conflict. Afterwhich, the critique (and I use that word loosely because so far, it hasn't felt like critique) takes shape depending on what surfaces from the readers' impressions -- some readers express confusion, or desires for a different direction, or deep connection. As part of the process, the writer reads the work, then another person reads it a second time. I struggled to read aloud a piece for another writer last week because it touched a soft spot. 

Nevertheless, the class is teaching me that even if we think a piece is DONE, it has room to grow, to change and possibly to become something brand new and more powerful. Judith encouraged us to bring in pieces which we believed needed work, which I have. And, the discussions have led me to see poetry in a new light. Poems are translation. I'm not a person who holds tightly to first drafts (or second or third drafts), but this has made rewriting a vaster place, where many doors are ajar.

Judith provided a concrete example last week -- the "process" drafts of an Elizabeth Bishop poem (CLICK HERE). Bishop's first runs at "One Art" read like rambling laundry lists with mental asides. Then, over time and contemplation and tightening, the finished piece comes alive. But, our motto for the class is Paul Valery's statement: "A work of art is never finished, only abandoned."

A Shifty Wicket

The wick on her candle

    dances on vowels,

 

Tumbles on syllables

    'til finally she growls.

 

She stares for a couplet,

    sublime and serene,

 

Begs of the wax

    to show her a scene.

 

Where lithe gods of words

    come out to play,

 

And sprinkle out stardust

    of black lead in sprays,

 

Upon her white journal,

    the lines empty now.

 

She's humbled by flame

    and brittle from drought.

An Afternoon Scene

A sleeping dog and reading children,
the quiet hum of a heater.
The clock ticks.
My eyes ache and blink from the story underneath.
The four corners of the room fill with shadow.
And I am its chronicler.

Prayer XBox

X marked the box of sin.

He creased his note and dropped it in.

Who would read it, if not him?

White collar tucked below his chin.

It is Always the Writer

The point of view is his, hers, theirs, mine, I.
But it is always the writer.

The story can be a journey to a place seldom seen, vistas or sand.
And it is always the writer.

The questions are answered, the conclusions are drawn, nonsense is sense.
For it is always the writer.

Changes and growth evolve in epic feats and minutia. Characters cry & love & live & die.
And it is always the writer.

Do you know who I am?
In The End, not the story.

SPAM, Acronym for Some Poets Are Misunderstood

Her SPAM friends included:

Free Lobster

Contractor Power

MYLIFE.com 8/30/2011

Cheapter-Meds

C Baby Gurl

SexyGirl26

spycamera

Canadian Pharmacy

sakejunkie@yahoo.com

spOiledbyl0ve14@aol.com

MESSAGE ALERT!

confirmation

An Entity in the Car

She said she smelled an entity in the car,
a stench of roadtrip left too long.
Like the broccoli stalk that bounced under the seat
on a trip to Chicago when she wasn't born.

It smells like fish, she says,
her nose wrinkling with a pug cuteness.
How could a decade and more pass
before she's this big and telling funny one-liners.

An entity, I laugh.
She smiles at her inside joke.

Probably not broccoli, I say.
It's her souvenir shell that smells,
a barnacled crustacean empty of its creature,
picked from the sand by a hand as big as mine.

Give Writing a Name

Being a writer is part social commentator, philanderer, fool, catatonic state, mistaken identity, sorcerer, troublemaker, trash talker, kingdom builder, diva-licious, lunatic, calamity, wall flower, dike thumber, ditch digger, doppelganger, rambler, rolling pin, Slim Jim, Janis Joplin, juggernaut, jumper and jackass. I try to write something that pushes me every day. God save me.