Ice Scraper

Ice Scraper

In the hours since we parted,
I dreamed of not needing you again.
I hoped to be able to depend on myself
to leave this morning.
Instead, I rose to find things obscured
again. Sighing, I grasp you one
last time. We work together, silently.
I realize that I only depend on you
when things are cold, dark, and lonely.
I long for better days. When, smiling,
I'll rise, start the car, and slip inside.
Leaving you, forgotten somewhere
behind me.

* * *

There you are. My feelings about my ice scraper. I hate scraping my windows. There we go.

Tomorrow's poem makes my heart explode. I'm not sure what the assignment is on this one. I think it will be to write about deep emotion, loss, and longing. Heads up--tomorrow's poem may be late. Krista and Taize prayer trump.

As a note to anyone who reads this and loves poetry. Do yourself a favor this Feb. 14th and buy Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair. Simply, it's one of the best volumes of poetry I've ever read.

* * *

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

The Truth About Snow

The Truth About Snow

Is that it's never convenient and almost
always unwanted. Except for kids who
would rather spend the day drinking hot chocolate
and sledding down hills into traffic.
Or lovers who want an excuse to remain
with one another for just a little longer.
Too soon, it loses its glamour and its purity.
Kids begin to think of summer and water balloons.
Lovers long for beaches or someone new.
Dirty, unwanted, and forgotten,
it waits in the gutter for spring.
When it washes rubbish to the river
or provides puddles to jump in,
it may regain some usefulness.

* * *
All right. There's the poem for today. Good bits and bad bits. Overall grade of C. For tomorrow, let's work on something a little more concrete. Tomorrow's goal: Personification. Tomorrow's poem: Because I Could Not Stop For Death: Emily Dickinson

"Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
And Immortality.

We slowly drove--He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility--

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--

Or rather--He passed Us--
The Dews drew quivering and chill--
For only Gossamer, my Gown--
My Tippet--only Tulle--

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--

Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity--

Tears

"Tears"

He sat beside the bed and held her hand
For years they had waited for this moment
the IV dripped chemicals from its stand
finally each had made their atonement.
He sang to her and stroked her long fingers
She begged him to remain until the end.
In his mind her her last look would always linger.
He knew he no longer had to pretend.
She had absolved him completely; that was true.
He clutched her hand and begged her stay.
His last avowal was long overdue.
When at last her face began to gray.
and her shuddering breath finally did end
he knew on her he could no longer depend.

* * *

Today's title comes not from the poem itself, but from the fact that I wanted to cry the entire time I was writing it. I hate, hate, HATE writing in any kind of a strict form. Did you know that English rhyming poetry is held in such high regard because the English language has so few rhymes? I have so much more respecte for people who churned out I don't know, say ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SONNETS when I attempt to write one lousy one for myself. If it's in iambic pentameter, it's because I'm lucky. Grade: unsuccessful, but a useful exercise nonetheless. I never want to look at that poem again.

* * *

And now, journeying onward from strict cold form into the loving embrace of self-indulgence. Tomorrow's poem is "A Clear Midnight" by Walt Whitman (per a request for some Whitman). The goal: Combine two big, big things (like the soul and the night sky) use them to reflect on the Truth of one another.

A Clear Midnight

by Walt Whitman
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

Note

Note

In the event that you
find this, somewhere,
I want you to remember
the first time you rode the city bus.
Wanting to press your head
against the grimy glass.
Until you realized
the scum already there.

Looking out the window that day,
you saw the park, the cyclists,
the dog-walkers. And there,
too, the black bag
and dark puddle. Making
you uneasy.
For the first time.

* * *

A poem directed toward the reader was more difficult than I expected (can you sense the mantra for this blog?) I don't know if I can actually evaluate how well this one succeeded, because I wrote it and can't read it without having some part of it affect (effect? Why can't I remember that rule?) me. So, poop.

* * *

For tomorrow, an exercise in form:

Sonnet #29

William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sunday Afternoon

Seed poem:

Ordinary Life
Barbara Crooker

This was a day when nothing happened, the children went off to school
without a murmur, remembering
their books, lunches, gloves.
All morning, the baby and I built block stacks
in the squares of light on the floor.
And lunch blended into naptime,
I cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
one of those jobs that never gets done,
then sat in a circle of sunlight
and drank ginger tea,
watched the birds at the feeder
jostle over lunch's little scraps.
A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
preened and flashed his jeweled head.
Now a chicken roasts in the pan,
and the children return,
the murmur of their stories dappling the air.
I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
We listen together for your wheels on the drive.
Grace before bread.
And at the table, actual conversation,
no bickering or pokes.
And then, the drift into homework.
The baby goes to his cars, drives them
along the sofa's ridges and hills.
Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
tasting of coffee and cream.
The chicken's diminished to skin & skeleton,
the moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
but this has been a day of grace
in the dead of winter,
the hard cold knuckle of the year,
a day that unwrapped itself
like an unexpected gift,
and the stars turn on,
order themselves
into the winter night.

* * *

Kelly's Attempt

"Sunday Afternoon"

An icy sidewalk. Cold, now, but not like it has been.

No need for a ski mask this time. Runners pushing strollers,

walking dogs, singing under their breath. At first, anxiety

about work, the new apartment, the new doctor.

Will she need pills, or can she beat it on her own?

After awhile, simply noticing birds in the bushes or

that the sun is out longer now. Then it's all deep breathing

and warm muscles, none of the panic that passes

for thought these days. Just one foot in front of the other.

Carrying her to complete forgetfulness.

* * *

My object for today was to write a poem about something totally ordinary that I overlook in the fuss of every day. I meant to try to take that thing and revist it. I wanted to somehow make it less ordinary and more. . .who knows. I've been pretty down lately, mainly about work. Unfortunately, when I get into a funk I tend to stay there. I took a long run today and while I was running I noticed that all of my anxiety and apprehension about the coming week quickly began to melt away. After awhile, I wasn't even thinking anymore, simply placing one foot in front of the other and breathing in and out. That was my gift for the day. The ordinary Sunday run that became something else.

Not very happy with this poem. It has some good bits, but overall, there's something missing. I don't feel like there's any zip to it.

* * *

Backtracking to the haikus. They were super fun to write. One literally came to me at the breakfast table (thanks to Maggie's inspiring food). For someone who makes a living in deliberate obfuscation (name that poem), it was nice to try to be concise and meaningful. I think I succeeded to some degree.

* * *

Mediation on the whole project: I think I'm far more likely to come out with 30 drafts of poems than 30 completed poems. I think I've known this all along.

* * *

Looking forward: Tomorrow's poem: "To a Reader" by Robert Hass. The exercise: write a poem to the reader. Try to reel 'em in emotionally. Evoke a vivid mental image to pull them in to the poem. Rely on standard images but give them an air of the surreal.

"To a Reader"

Robert Hass

I've watched memory wound you.

I felt nothing but envy.

Having slept in wet meadows,

I was not through desiring.

Imagine January and the beach,

a bleached sky, gulls. And

look seaward: what is not there

is there, isn't it, the huge

biard of the first light

arched above first waters

beyond our touching or intention

or the reasonable shore.

Haiku

Eggs, toast, and bacon.
Fresh coffee
Maggie says good morning.

Tilted mattress,
tangled blankets, exhaustion.
He must love her.

Dreary afternoon, snow,
sleet, wind.
Warm patchwork quilt.

* * *

Debriefing tomorrow. Right now, exhaustion trumps.

Masked

"Masked"

The first time is the worst for everyone.
The sudden, shocking reality that it isn't
smooth and easy. A push,
a grab, slap, cry, bundle of blankets,
and radiant smiles.

You almost never hear about
the screaming, blood, and struggle to breathe.
Or that nearly everyone moves their bowels on the table.
No, instead it's all pictures afterward,
brushed hair and clean skin.

Once in awhile, though, sweating from the sheer work of it,
she'll hold your gaze. And you'll think
that if you wait just long enough,
you'll be able to see her
as beautiful as she was
in the moment that this all began.

* * *

Today's poem (based on "Blue) was meant to re-examine preconceptions about something. I interviewed my mother for a class with Mara about birth, and she said it was the single most intense experience of her life. She said that one of the most amazing things about it was the fact that you forgot about all the craziness of it and just remembered the good parts afterward. I've often wondered what it would be like to be an OB and experience all kinds of births and see women in an intimate and frankly, kind of gruesome way. I wonder what it would be like to imagine women nine (ten?) months before in a situation where they were obviously beautiful in some capacity. I feell pretty good about reexamining a preconception. About the last line as the strongest? Arguable, but I'm pretty content with it.

* * *

Tomorrow's poems. Adventures in Haiku. I'm trying for three.

Bush clover in blossom waves

Without spilling

A drop of dew.

-Basho

Hitch-hiked a thousand

miles and brought

you wine.

-Jack Kerouac

Sleep on horseback,

The far moon in a continuing dream,

Steam of roasting tea.

-Basho

The object? Lots of truth/emotion in very few words.

Thanks for reading.