NaPo WriMo
That's right, I'm calling this National Poetry Writing Month because why should novelists have all the fun?? So I'm writing poetry everyday and I'm gonna post it here (feel free to skip if you want), and then, depending on how I feel about it, maybe make a chapbook. Huzzah. Here are the first three:
A Minor Operation
First, the incision, then the dull crack
Of clean, wet bone.
The trouble with stones is they only know
What they know and not much else.
Lay your palm flat; let the weight of the stone
Fill it.
Slowly begin turning it over and over again
Building a thick layer of warmth, like wax.
The rough patches smoothed over
Let the heat radiate through.
Close your palms over it, pumping
Gently, as oysters do with their perfect
Gritty pearls. Hands open, receive
Your new-fashioned heart.
The rest is standard procedure.
Spring Evening
Effort follows repetition;
Needle pulls thread against its will.
Bulbs disturb cold earth with color--foot
treads after each, eager for journey's end.
I dreamt I saw you playing chess--not smiling, but on the edge
of triumph.
One table and pieces contained your whole world;
made real the empty space around you.
Even in my dreams you had no luck. Just the knowledge
to know less than most--to get by. Watching you
like a newsreel or still photograph on museum
matte paper, I was held with the disinterest
of information you find on the placards next to old
master's paintings, what no one pays attention to--
Date, Place, Title "Man with Chess Board"--Anonymous.
T.S. Eliot's Laugh
Hollow, mirthless, yet resonant somewhere- perhaps
a small graveyard
behind an Anglican chapel.
At least that's how I imagine it. Unremarkable--deliberate.
There are so many sounds more pleasing; less austere.
There is something communal in laughter, some quality
of joy, which reminds us that we are at once ridiculous
and important, knowing as we do how to mask
our fears with grins.
So why do my thoughts turn to you, Tom S. while I scan
the cloudless sky, in these first days of April, which
you declared so cruel?
I can't help but imagine you out somewhere
laughing cheerlessly
without stopping, under some similar sky, quite alone.
A Minor Operation
First, the incision, then the dull crack
Of clean, wet bone.
The trouble with stones is they only know
What they know and not much else.
Lay your palm flat; let the weight of the stone
Fill it.
Slowly begin turning it over and over again
Building a thick layer of warmth, like wax.
The rough patches smoothed over
Let the heat radiate through.
Close your palms over it, pumping
Gently, as oysters do with their perfect
Gritty pearls. Hands open, receive
Your new-fashioned heart.
The rest is standard procedure.
Spring Evening
Effort follows repetition;
Needle pulls thread against its will.
Bulbs disturb cold earth with color--foot
treads after each, eager for journey's end.
I dreamt I saw you playing chess--not smiling, but on the edge
of triumph.
One table and pieces contained your whole world;
made real the empty space around you.
Even in my dreams you had no luck. Just the knowledge
to know less than most--to get by. Watching you
like a newsreel or still photograph on museum
matte paper, I was held with the disinterest
of information you find on the placards next to old
master's paintings, what no one pays attention to--
Date, Place, Title "Man with Chess Board"--Anonymous.
T.S. Eliot's Laugh
Hollow, mirthless, yet resonant somewhere- perhaps
a small graveyard
behind an Anglican chapel.
At least that's how I imagine it. Unremarkable--deliberate.
There are so many sounds more pleasing; less austere.
There is something communal in laughter, some quality
of joy, which reminds us that we are at once ridiculous
and important, knowing as we do how to mask
our fears with grins.
So why do my thoughts turn to you, Tom S. while I scan
the cloudless sky, in these first days of April, which
you declared so cruel?
I can't help but imagine you out somewhere
laughing cheerlessly
without stopping, under some similar sky, quite alone.