She is Laughing at Me

Today, I’m surrounded by Neptune’s center, which isn’t as blue as a person would expect. Everything interesting and cloudlike exists outside, held together by her father’s fingers. White floor and black walls, a woman clad in floating rings of water. Her body is made of opal and she’s the center of the center, having dragged me from Barcelona. I remember dancing through a local flea market after fishing my purple ballet slippers from my mother’s closet. It was a Tuesday. Earlier, I ate a blueberry snowcone and watched a bird flap helplessly in the gutter. “What’s the matter?” she asks. She stops floating in mid-air and the water rings swirl around her genitalia like moons. Her skin is lavender in the light and her smile is made of robin feathers. I feel she is laughing at me. “You’re so different from me. You’re made of starlight. I’m going to die before you turn twenty-three.” Her smile widens and morphs into gold-plated birch leaves. She takes my hand, puts a finger to my left eye, except I am her and she is opposite me. I am the core of the core of Neptune, with opal skin turning periwinkle in the light. I’m bursting with starlight and threatening to super nova and pass into immortality. And she’s smiling, magnified by death, a grin made of bees and ladybugs.

Death Becomes Her

"Like rain

becomes a hearing aid
in darkness.

Let’s assume
she doesn't mind

informal forms of address:

Heavy-eyed space heater,

a one glass girl:
drowning (in flame).

Submerged

(naked
beneath an inflatable pool toy)

a nipple,
maybe areola,

exposes itself
beneath the porch light moon.

*

Something is wrong –

"Never quit" is written on the grocery list (again).

Stay away from lonely places:
                     Public pools
                     Life during wartime
                     Sunday afternoons"

-by Chad Forgbred

(I really enjoyed how sparse the poem felt, but keeping with such concrete imagery and feeling).

Parallel

"I could show you
Where I live, where
I spend my time,
But the ocean
Floor burns my
Tongue. I have
Been on hold
With the phone
Company for the
Last ten years
Which gives me
Hope. I sit
In the freezer
Planning my escape
But I am comfortable
In silence. I sent
A post card to the moon
Telling him his light
Was burning my eyes.
As the cold air
Tried to arrest me
And I surrendered."

-By Alexis Youngs

(I really loved Alexis' imitation poem. It felt both different from her usual work, but still very her.)

French

There is no pre-existing story; I just like to watch you.

Not in that creepy way, like the dude

with the pink mohawk and black

sideburns. You know, in the food

court with the cold French fries.

It's just when you move, take action,

shake your fist at the sky

no matter how many people

ask or offer to drive you to the mental

hospital down county road.

You always know what to say,

who to kick around, who to piss

off with that cockamamie donkey

laugh.

A mesmerizing challenge to the world

in a cotton bed and stained white sheets that curled.

(The very first line of this poem comes from Mary Samyn's poem, "Cup and String." from her book, My Life In Heaven. I thought to move it a few times to be deeper within the poem, but it just felt right as the opener.)

Failed Exchange

Council Property
on housing list
has criticized occupants
in Leslie.

The detached house
has been found, said previous
tenants. The Council
need the same
adaptions. One

argues with the question
"How long is reason?" Seven
months is too long. A blot
on support under specific adaption.

(This poem was adapted from a Scottish newspaper post from March 25th. It was the second or third attempt at the erasure that I was actually happy with. I'm glad, also, that I didn't have to change too much to bring the sound I wanted to the poem. Anyway, the original article was published by Neil Henderson for Fife Today. Here's a link, for those interested in reading the original article: FifeToday Article).

Chameleon Woman

Table of Contents:

Comprehension

Nearly Everything

Tea Time

Escape

Scud

The Desperate Vigil

No Breaks

More Tea Time

Wired

(This will be fiddled with a lot though, as some poems haven't been added to it yet.)

"Chameleon Woman is something easy to get because it has all the things that entice people. Like sex. People are probably already paying more attention to this simply by the appearance of the word, and if it appears a few more times, it may just draw a look. But it’s not just about sex, and you have to read it to know. It’s about relationships and mothers and brothers and that creepy man you caught staring at you one day while you were eating a pretzel in the food court. Assuming you do that. It’s about nature and other arbitrary concepts that are too big to put without rolling your eyes. It’s something you just have to dig into and hope you like, otherwise you wasted some money. It’s about self-awareness in the worst and best ways, about women and men who know and will never know who they are."

(The book description too. I wanted this to all go together, and the description took a bit longer than I thought.) 

Comprehension

Understanding the world
is like dissecting a moth.
I have to carry fire
to the pit
and pretend no one
is watching us
through the thicket of trees
and torn plastic Walgreen's
bags. Even then, eyes
catch the moths and I
sitting in the dusk,
sipping embers.

I'm trying to understand
engineering with a fire
and cat.

So I sit with a tabby
and moths dive from crow's
nests and loop through the flames.
Lighting like vigil
candles, I grab one
from the air and the cat
snatches with his fangs.
Soot smears our lips

And I pretend to know
engineering, grasping make-up
instead.

I had fun writing this once I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I read through several poems from Ruefle so I could get her voice and thoughts. I think it helped to let my voice sort of know how to use hers, if that makes any sense. It feels like something of mine, made from another person's thought, or something like that. It was fum, anyway, and I think I'll include it in my packet.

Le Livre De Ma Vie

I love you.
But who is the I
and who is the you?

Mr. Potato Head
Mr. Potato Head

Please accept the pressing in
of your eyes.

Here are your glasses.
A book for the evening.

In the book a person
is smiling at you.

Smiling and smiling
like a mother over a baby.

Remove the pipe from your mouth
and smile.

Help me behave,
weeping in the dark earth.

"Le Livre De Ma Vie"
Mary Ruefle
Trances of the Blast
Published by Wave Books

This particular poem caught my attention because of the sparseness (in comparison to some of the others that I saw), as well the use of Mr. Potato Head as an image. That's not something I usually read. But again, I'm swayed by the last few lines, which are surprising in a good way and leave such a powerful and unexpected image and thought at the end. It makes me, and I'm sure others, go back and look over the poem with this in mind, looking for more hints of the undertone.

Favors From The Dead

The dead did Tristan many
Favors. Everything he asked
For, he got. When his talking
Phone was hit by lightning,
He asked his departed uncle Buster
To fix it, and the phone was
Talking again within minutes.
When he asked his great-great-
Great-grandmother to send him
A care package, a fruit basket
Dropped on his head. These
Were only two of the many things
He asked for. When his partner
Died, Tristan found himself being
The lone survivor of an alien race
Of two. His partner had left him
A note, "I leave you my space-
Suit. I will see you again." Tristan
Didn't really know what to make
Of the note, but he started to build
A shuttle in his house. At every
Turn, Tristan asked his partner
For help with the building, and
He got it. When it was complete,
Tristan was excited, and proceeded
To try and launch. But launch, he
Couldn't, and so he asked his partner
For more help. But this time, his partner,
said no. Frustrated, Tristan stamped
His feet and pleaded, but the answer
Was still no. Exhausted from his
Antics, Tristan went into his bedroom
And locked himself in. He crawled
Into his closet as if he were crawling
Into a womb. He noticed something
Shiny in the back of the closet,
And realized it was his partner
Spacesuit---he really did have one
After all. So Tristan put it on
And fell asleep. He dreamed of
A frozen field of souls, and then
He was one of them. When he tried
To wake up, he couldn't. Tristan
Was ready to acknowledge the magic's
Presence, and so he wandered off
Into the cosmos, searching for
His partner, searching for the light
That he had read about in books,
Which now collected dust on his shelves.

"Favors From the Dead"
Noelle Kocot
The Bigger World
Published by Wave Books

This, out of all of her poems, seemed to get to me the most. I loved how purposeful the spaces seemed to be, and the images, especially toward the end of the poem, were some of the most powerful to me. The way it ended left me with this sad, wistful but oddly satisfied ending I like to have with some poetry, and it all just sat well inside my stomach.

Grandmother

Red hat on red

hair. A woman

whose penchant is books

and arm candy. She wears

a white dress and holds a novel

to her nose when the garden

erupts.

Dirt and flowers

set on fire. Shrill wailing

all the way from Vietnam.

Earth steals her

bones and hair

and the words from her book.

It was romantic.

It had something about

birds.

Red hat on grass

blades. Gnarled roots and vines

curling around her

walking space.

Did she feel the sky

grab her throat

or the vines

creep around her lungs?

When the air

left, did she

try to breathe

anyway?