theology&geometry

I can’t imagine anything more … odd … than an old-poetry dump here at T&G, since I don’t write much poetry these days and poetry is one of those things that people either love or hate. (And most people lean toward the hate side.) But for whatever reason, I was combing through my e-mail drafts earlier today (*cough*boredom*cough*) and rediscovered all sorts of weird little blank verses I’d written over the past four years, and thought maybe it was time I aired some of them out.

We all do crazy things for blog content in early January, don’t we?

YES WE DO.

It helps that I have no shame.

Scarlette (2006)
He came over today
and brought the cat
(who peed on the rug)
and we talked about
the new rules
for interaction
and he told me about
Scarlette
— she of the silly internet photos —
and I said mean things
about mouthbreathers
while sipping on
meaty red wine

and you know what they say:

you let the cat pee on the rug once …

For a ghost (2006)
I dressed up today
for a ghost
and paced slowly
in front of the mirror
grazing the contours
of these deliciously wide hips
with hungry eyes
or at least eyes I hoped he’d use
if he was here

Fluorescent (2005)
Oblivious,
you stand,
my eyes on your back,
your hands in your hair,
the earth rotating slowly,
keeping us a respectable distance apart.

And, just to tie it all together, I’d like to link to one of my very favorite poems that I’ve written.

It’s late and I’ve had some leftover champagne, so surely I can be forgiven for waxing romantic about notions of life and creativity and love on all levels.

I was reading a fairly depressing comment thread over at Salon the other day (depressing in that so many people want to dispense advice to an author who isn’t even asking for it) and this poem cropped up in it, like some little pearl ascending out of all the grit and grime of other people’s keyboard diarrhea.

I put it here not only to share it, but so that I can keep it and remember it occasionally when I revisit my archives.

The Writer (by Richard Wilbur)

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys

Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.

A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;

How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove

To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window

And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

[for Wednesday, July 25]

My vacation from the internet earlier today (Wednesday) was actually quite nice. Granted, I was practically under house arrest while I waited for the landlord to call me back, but it was still a very quiet, contemplative morning and afternoon. I fetched Stranger Music from the bookshelf and reacquainted myself with the world of blank verse. It’s a scary world, actually. But one I very much enjoy.

The words, if you’re inclined to care about such things:

The only poem

This is the only poem
I can read
I am the only one
can write it
I didn’t kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn’t turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn’t sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

It’s not Sappho or Chaucer, but it is … something. I can’t quite place how I feel about Leonard Cohen. There are some of his poems that just give me a quick punch to the gut and make me sit down and smile. There are others that piss me off; “Is this it? This is shit!” But I get that. Not every poem a person writes is going to mean something to any- and everyone. Some things people write are meaningful only to the authors themselves, and perhaps to the select few people on the planet who happen to be in a similar situation. The hedged language makes sense. The metaphors aren’t over-wrought. Etc.

So it goes with Cohen. His poetry is very specific, yet comes bundled with meanings that can be extrapolated again and again. I’m not sure I can explain it much better than that.

Funny that the other day as I was digging through my inbox, trying to discard the extraneous stuff, I found several poems I’d written that I’d sort of forgotten about. Here’s one I actually kind of like, from mid-2006:

Dulcinea

I had you at nothing
No words
A flash of leg, perhaps
funny
I remember laughing
But I knew what I was doing
Priming the pump
so to speak
A pump that was not mine
and that I did not want
at the time
because I was busy
my hands in a trough