"This Is Just to Say"...

For you, whom I spoke with earlier, this is just to say--

it doesn't matter. I rarely say anything on here anyway.

--

This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

here's one about you know who

Here's the first draft of a poem I put together tonight... Thoughts?

(I'm becoming ever reticent; sometimes I can't tell myself why.)

Well, here's to this--
(though it's set a bit differently in Word documents, but oh well...)

SAND …OF ART
“Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.” – John 8:8

seeing the blood seeped beneath my fingernail
blew the whole memory:
you, leaning your head over
the sand—doubled over,
but not out of pain;
out of art—

you and your sand-art: mysterious
and written like a skeleton
lacks flesh;
written between the brackets of
[earliest manuscripts plus many witnesses
do not have this account]—

so what
do
you do with the sand?
in the sand—
will you leave
fingerprints?--

… … … … … … … …

pang, the word
makes me double over;
I love to see people double over in laughs.
people crouch, cover their heads with their hands.
pang; not art. pain
[exists]—

...of you, laughing? how could that picture exist?

Flub.

I keep jumping away from writing a critical essay on Adorno blah-blah-blah and checking my blog.

No comments... and not a surprise, after I've been such a poor poster these past few weeks.

And Adorno says, onward.

Also, I meant to say, I hope the swearing in my writings hasn't offended.

It's already Thursday.

one method for...

Here's a poem/thing I came up with tonight after finding a list of words. The words were written out one day when I wanted to get thoughts onto paper quickly and without much development. As it stands, the poem's probably too long and wordy right now, but I wanted to see what you all said about it.

Also, tonight I was angry... hence the poem:

ONE METHOD FOR LOSING ANGER

The word series may go like this:

(but first, because you must,
pound your fist against the shower wall)

: shit : damn : saliva : monastery : Greek : P. : paint : acid-reflux : pink : hot : music : leopard : outside : silhouette : doctor : photo : booth : location : pneumonia : drum : beat : line : baton : twirl : mother : K. : the same : twin : brown : Hayden : Hades :

and the interpretation, this way:

(beat it out, vomit up the anger any way you can without hurting
yourself or anything else—discreetly)

: : expletives help resurrect the soul from its stuttering state;
additionally, in the brain there exists a special place for the expression of such words
and only this place works properly in dire times, when ordered thinking isn’t possible
: saliva also works in times like this;
if you lean your head against a pillow and let your mind scurry, pretty soon
this will trickle out soundlessly
: possibly the only place where people can keep quietly depressed without interference—
here you can think; behind stone walls; a ledge over ocean: captive
: again, sea rolls about here; these islands captivate you
: you haven’t read Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, yet your friend P. says:
don’t forget Ovid’s Metamorphosis
: because it starts with the right letter; is also an art
: even a little vomit in the throat never fails to remind you of color—
acid orange, acid brown, acid—
: pink—grapefruit; not to mention the color vest worn by P. in your dream
: wasn’t it hot?
: also in your dream, P. played viola; you never knew he played at all
: another thing about P.’s outfit: spotted yellow, like leopard-print;
and with remembering, things rarely follow chronology
: that kind of animal wouldn’t keep inside, of course
: running so fast, you’d see their blurry silhouette in shadows; close to a cheetah;
as a kid, this was what you pretended to be
: or this and a doctor; what else can you do
when your dad offers white lab-coats as Christmas gifts?
: slip one on and say cheese
: slip in here and say cheese
: the place, naturally
: your guess—as good as mine;
besides, you caught this once and coughed a lot
: the rattling in your chest might as well have been a snare
: what, besides beat, can they do for you?
: drum lines can be quite captivating
: : more so than baton-twirlers
: your mother remembering high school
: : she teaches your sister, K., the same
: K. slept in this bed next to yours, after mom took the bunks down
: P.’s bald, but this is the color of your sister’s hair; also end-rhymes with the last line
: the poet Robert Hayden without the recognition he did earn;
people paid this color too much attention
: what should be the end, or where you’d like the source to have gone; but—

shit—you remember : it starts again.

--
What do you think about cutting everything after the line "-slip in here and say 'cheese.'" (as well as the list of words after "booth") and then adding this as a last line:

happy now? or just pretending? ?

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on it. Thanks!

more genuine, more fatal

Well, after some of the last post's comments, I wanted to write something here that was maybe truer than the last.

I could be honest and say that most of that last poem started as something I wrote in my journal this past week after dealing with some diabetes issues (though it turned into an exaggerated or satirical version of someone like me... yes, another narrator (Will the real B-Go please stand up? Please stand up. Please stand up.)). Having not recieved my some of my blood testing supplies from my mail-order pharmacy, I hadn't checked my blood in three days and finally went to the university health services to get my blood tested. Turns out--surprise, surprise--it was much higher than it should have been... and I ended up purchasing my own prescription without insurance rather than continuing to wait for my order to come (it still hasn't arrived).

Not to shock anyone who is outside of what I fathom to be normal, but I would be surprised if there were people out there who didn't think about dying every now and then... and even how suicide could be so easy. As with this particular instance, I felt how simple it could be to give up on taking care of myself and this whole diabetes thing. Don't worry, I'm not going to give up... it was maybe my bitter sentiment at the time of writing that poem, but it wasn't a sticking one. It was one of those self-destructive thoughts that kind of lingers around, bugging you... but isn't something that you ever give into one-hundred percent. There was something else I meant to say here, but the thought left me.

Anyway, I still hope that no one will be concerned. I've got a Counselor (the Holy Spirit), accountibility and a head on my shoulders that I don't worry about actually carrying on any horrible misjudments or big decisions that may be founded upon lies--lies that the enemy would like all of us to believe about ourselves. As for all of this compensating and disclaiming: this post is perhaps the sort of "confession" I try to avoid, and even end up denying in my poetry. I suppose that when I write things that start out as my own true thoughts, yet I know are flawed on some very plain level--such as the whole bitterness and self-destructive tinge that the last poem had; flawed with lies--I think that I shouldn't go through with them and claim them as my own voice. I know the truth; I should be writing the truth. This point just came to me--why am I not writing more of the truth? Well, now I've got to deal with this some more... and, needless to say, not openly raw on here as it will come out in private.

have i said too much

Hi, well... it's been quite awhile since I've posted anything actually personal. Part of my hesitation over the past few weeks has had something to do with the readership here: who might be reading and how personal I can be with strangers. But, I'll try to shirk off my hesitations and get down some of the things that I might actually like to share...

Actually, even the following absurd draft-poem in this post is one that I hesitate in sharing because I don't want anyone to automatically assume that the speaker of this poem is me. This is always a kind of danger in writing... and I've gotten kind of close to some problems/misunderstandings because of it in the past. Can I trust the human mind and will to cast aside judgments on my character/state/etc. in reading things such as this?

Though there are still those reading who might decide that all of my fears and efforts to dissuede readers from identifying a poem's narrator as me are really a testiment to my own identification with the text... And I may be making all of this worse with every next word I write.

Doesn't this remind you of the times when your little sister, for example, tries to avoid talking about something and the more she says, the more she implies... Ha.
So, I feel like this little sister. And is that all that I will say?

I suppose this hasn't really been so personal afterall. Woops.

Needy Sugar Mind
(and that of a Diabetic)

Nope—haven’t checked my blood-sugar in, what?
three days? Yeah, the root-beer’s mine.
That too. Oh, but this as mad?
Did you say masochistic?
No, you’re right. This is masochistic.
I’ll cede to that; if you but call yourself
a Fit McGee. Hang on,
when the doctor asks, tell him I’ve
decided to die: go ahead and let
see what happens.
It’s about metaphysics; not you.
It’s not about science, of course.
No, this is about the skinny and the fat:
the insurance companies making a meal off of me.
No, I know you’re right. Masochistic.
Or, I’m letting them win—
Or, I’m letting the sugar win by not
letting meter machines run me…
my eating, my drinking, my sleeping, my being.

What’s the big damn
difference between a coma and a seizure if
both leave you in the same spot with the same sweaty condition,
relatively speaking.
No, wait. You’re right. I ought to start caring about the body.
Yeah, and here’s the clincher:
high or low, I already do care—
of course it’s not, I mean, it is—
about your body.
No dude, I got you right alright. I want your body.
I want your body.
Fit McGee, fit me.

Suess-style

Argitty pargitty blippity blue,
these are the songs I write for you:
Sunday is Monday and Tuesday's a scam,
who can put Humpty together again?

Sometimes I feel like Dr. Suess... only not a man and also not a doctor... and also not as successfully imaginative.

city poem... much German

It's late and I'm at the computer lab working on a paper and poems... but I did finish one poem (though, still a draft) and thought that Miss Herbert would enjoy it, if not others.... Please forgive the excessive German in it. I don't think it makes the poem unreadable, but if it does, please let me know.

Oh, as for the prose poem, I've gotten a tiny bit of feedback and have come to realize that it's a work wrought with confusion and obscurity... Let me try and fix that and get back to you about it. Thanks for reading anyhow!

Now for the poem:

TÜBINGEN AM NECKAR
—“Die Stadt voller Romantik und Schönheit”

It’ll rain again this Monday,
for every Montag it does
and again will the rainbow umbrella-man
mount his bike and splay his patio-Schirm—because
//
if he can zig-zag down Wilhelm-Strasse and see you, he’ll be all smiles.
Laughing yourself, as you twist your black Regenschirm inside
the thick-stoned frame—its tall ceiling; slabby stairs—
you’ll pretend to dangle a pigeon that’s died.
\\
Upon reaching the wobble top of the spiral-stairs,
you will hang your bag on a turquoise hook,
listen for muffling, shuffling papers, and head to the prose
to check one Günter Grass: sein neues Buch.
//
Leaving, you’ll hop along the cobbled Altstadt,
perch on church steps in front of Marktplatz,
then lick your fingers of pistachio Eis before shrugging
off Penners as you pass famous spots:
\\
where Goethe once puked and where nuns never sleep.
You will cross die Brücke stretching over der Neckar,
pausing to peek at wiry, blue river-homes—
they’ve got Grand pianos, plus Mozart’s marble bust, you’ll be sure!
//
You will hitch the bus back as far as you can:
concentrate hard against smells of dead breath and sleep.
You will return to your corner of the city, cutting
through fields of yellow grass and feed for sheep.
\\
You will arrive at your Wohnheim, pull shut
your sealed-clean door on the stewy stink:
of rotting wine, fresh basil, drowned fruit-flies
and bloated vegetables gone soggy in the sink.
//
Sun will wink with the grins of two kleine Kinder,
their running outside before your glass door.
The boy will stop, though not noticing you—
he’ll be three, wearing specs, and she must be four.
\\
There, bracing himself only for the relief,
the boy will pull his pants down,
with his Superman briefs, he’ll show you how to live on—
through next Montag, he’ll ignore his friend’s frown.
//
He will piss on the damp grass;
you will laugh and laugh.

prose poem draft: THE STORM MAY NOT HARM YOU

I've been really wanting to write a prose poem--probably ever since I learned of them (in 2004, I think--if not before.)--but moreso lately. A girl in my poetry class had one written for us to critique, but when we discussed it in class she had already made changes and set it into verse. Well, I'm still not sure of how to go about writing a successful prose poem, but here's one that I tried as it stands in its draft-stages. I'd be interested to hear if you encounter any problems with it, or if it sounds like there should be line breaks or whatever in it... (also, if anyone thinks that there's too much going on, that would be good to know):


THE STORM MAY NOT HARM YOU

The helicopter days, when the rain fills our gutters and pulls down across the window glass, she knocks on the door with a red hood propped over her ears and she enters in socks. We slip around the wood floors in socks and sweatshirts, listening to the murderous anger of the sky. Come here, be still, I tell her. Shivering, like a wet dog who has seen too much to remember that a storm won’t harm him. He crouches under a corner table in the basement. With the sunny curtains open and held by a thin band of cloth, as though they would collapse and weep if given the chance to let loose, we pull ourselves onto the bed and its sheets—feeling cool against our skins. How did I ever sleep without you in my life? she whispers.

They say, when the sky breaks and lights up quick—three seconds, wait: one, two—you should never fly alone or at all. In a helicopter, the only thing that matters is the person you’re with, the moment, what you two can see together. The fear that you’ll never get back down isn’t an issue when you expect that dying isn’t possible, if you can keep yourself in one piece, together with your other. Unfortunately, what you cannot see may often be the unspoken fear.

She reaches her hand across the side of my face and tangles her fingers in my mussed hair. I shake my head and close my eyes; put my warm hand on hers, Cold—you’re cold. I love that she needs a presence beside her to keep warm. When the morning comes between us, waking us till we blink at each other and pull the sheets over our eyes, we see each other again under a yellow glow—as that of a buttercup. The golden reflection upon our chins suggests that, Yes, of course. Someone must love you. You can walk in the forest without getting lost. You can walk in the storm without losing it altogether. But can you go out expecting none of that and still survive in one piece? Blinking beneath the blanket, thankful we lasted through another night, we expect nothing but another.

imitations of poems while we wait for the homework mountain to be moved... will take faith?

Hey--

I've been stuck in the pit of homework for awhile, but thought you all might enjoy reading something of what I've been working on... Thanks for all the feedback you gave me on the previous poem. I've worked on it much, and will still need to work on it for my class, but the feedback has been very helpful. Thanks again. And, as for the following pair of poems, they were part of an imitation writing assignment and I think that they may be rather lofty-seeming... Let me know if you want me to say anything else with regards to them, because I'd be happy to--though I'm not sure I'll know what I'm talking about.

Precursor to the following RETREAT

Memory betrays.
The infancy of a moment
suffers under wisdom, under suggestion.
For many, rebellion comes as a refresher,
enabling the will to forge its own path for itself.
Very little yields in the desert;
and what is the desert but dry sand?
What, the sage, but a dry-bearded man?
Keen for one
to grow his own beard,
to forge through to his own length.
There is little wisdom,
yet much to gain
beginning with infancy.

Even saliva
clinging moist to hairs
makes one prone to a draft—
to a fierce gust ushering forth with longing,
only to burst these wells
of their stored resources.

SAGE ON RETREAT
[A somewhat mirror-like imitation of Sean Norton’s “JESS ON RETREAT” (35).]

Fluids don’t yield in dry sand,
so the forest has become providential.
Something traced is carved offensively, obtrusively.
No one learns from sage beards unless expected.
That expectation comes from the lips within the beards themselves.
Fluids, such as saliva, may cling to their whiskers,
and therefore razorblades may be moistened, then rust.
Drafty seasons seem untamable,
and humid ones, unable to train,
all these years are wearisome with their constant weathering.
One little thing may be to accept the advice.
When there is a path to take, take it,
or dream you could blaze your own, or don’t dream.
I thought it ran itself out in dying.
But literature still preserves a whole swell.
Trying to quit creating, save everything and return to it.
Hemlock is not water. Neither can age alone value you.