(no subject)
This poem's a little long, so it gets its' own entry.
This is so not my usual style, but it worked well for this particular poem. I'm not actually all that fond of this as a whole, but there are a few lines that I think work.
It is strange to think of you now, with out the pain that comes
from falling touches and fallen words.
We sang together, tuneless, the night we met. Fifteen other
people around the bonfire, and I did not know you then, when
your eyes turned in one way, and mine in another.
And I cannot find your memory without some attachment of pain.
You held yourself so that your lines would not match to those
of the world, and you drew screams from those around you.
Dusty wooden floors, groaning in time to our uneven steps, you
and I and Naomi, dancing around each other. You two moved
in clashing orbit, and I circled, wary.
Touch and leave and touch again, I watched you and her from a
distance before I left too, away over empty roads, silent
watching as you tore each other out,
bleeding where you would not cry.
December and screaming and tears. You and her,
you and Naomi and tragedy as your third, spinning out in unstable orbits,
running ever closer to your own final end, and even then when
you both were empty, when you had drained her dry,
canary bright wings stilled, no more tragedy or anger to run on, you
clung to each other, pillars of pain and rage broken down into
dust, all that was left.
When you came again, wandering and looking for something that
you could not find in the empty space between your bones,
I found empty spaces to match, mysteries singing like december
ice in the places that I did not know as mine.
Back and forth- we went in circles, and there was no love song
for our childhood as we touched each other,
and learned to worship our land, high and stark.
Dancing hands on a high hill, snow and mud and trees and wires
above us, circling birds, and a dead fox.
We hid in the trees, and called the hills ‘mother’, cold curve
of grass in place of the warm curve of hand and face
that we missed and did not know.
Mother, we cried, mother. We looked for the truth behind the
ideal, and failing to find it, we made our own, false ideals and ash.
Fire was cold comfort in the winter, and even when we curled
together in your nest of blankets, we found ourselves
with too much heat and not enough.
We froze together at night, and found that our edges
had run together when we melted with the sun.
We drank our mysteries together, foolish children falling in
our own depths, never knowing how to find land.
You found shapes in me, and drew them out with gentle fingers,
singing stories of witches and wolves and being wanted.
And I believed- was it so strange that we found ourselves
together, forgotten and unwanted, making myths of our own
small tragedies, waiting to be seen or to be ready.
We sought together, looking for our own quests, and when I found
a new road, and left myself behind, you kept me together with
your voice and your words.
Lines of wire connecting us, state to state, we traded words and
sympathies, moving through our paces,
stopping and starting and stopping again
as we tried to find a way to communicate things of scared and sacred darkness, clinging and binding.
You cried the night your Lady died, and told me of her dark
eyes, of her fear and pride, of her vicious defense
of that which she held dear, small warrior fighting for her clan,
eked out of the stone with tooth and claw, family bound by shed blood and fear.
You told me of her trust in you, her soft sweet open love for
you and no other, and I wondered, was this what you wanted from me,
a love that was only yours, or was what you wanted
what she had, the strength and pain of your fears
honed as a weapon to turn on those around you.
Warrior fighter weakness strength fear pain and loss were
the truths you taught to me through the long empty spaces
of our winters’ nights, the battles all fought inside.
I told you of loneliness and order, the feel of ten year old
blue paint smooth under the palm, the holy dark silence of
three a.m. behind the couch. Life behind a glass wall,
watching as things pass by, observed but untouched, fear after
fear parading by in bright colors, and comfort only from within.
Clan and family, you said, packmate and cub, things to seek for
and find and loose. Home and den and place of heart you cried
for, never found and always lost with your words.
Quiet was the word I spoke. The peace of hidden things clutched
between fingers scrubbed raw and bleeding.
Flickering lamps, smooth pages and Gigue for comfort.
Remember these things when they fall apart,
make touchstones of what you can.
And you asked me, what was I like before my parents met, and
what was I like when I belonged in my body, when all of the
edges fit, and the pieces went together.
Who were you, you cried, before you wore the falsehoods of flesh
and bone, what did you believe
when you were unencumbered by the trappings of the world?
Did you see what came before the clay and the flesh, shaped and
worn so easily by prodding hands, seeking shapes of themselves.
Form and mold, all false things fallen to dust,
would there be anything left to be seen?
What did you see in me, the smooth edges of my body that opened
to your words, raw and bleeding?
You claimed kinship with the wolf, beautiful lupa.
But it was the seals in your Maine harbors that I thought of
when I looked into your eyes, liquid sadness singing through you,
so passive from a distance, sleek and shining in your depths.
There were shapes moving in your waters
that even you did not know about,
silent dark, and dangerous as sailing at night.
Sedna, seal woman with mangled hands, betrayed by man,
hated father for her only company.
Bringer of storms, mother to the creatures of the waters,
a comparison that I never dared to make.
Eyes dark as you take your bow and sea-shell knives,
ready to rend and smash.
There was cold rough green rug- and your aunt- below us
when you touched me.
Not the first time for either of us, and not clean -
We ran with the green and blue markings of our tribe of child-savages,
painted on with the brush strokes of false worship
and hungry clinging loneliness.
We lay together, or lied in a self made ritual space.
You took things that I could not give, and I held myself at the
edge of understanding.
You enveloped me under layers of understanding and talk that
was not cheap - every minute cost us.
When words were all that we had, we used them well, but when we
could touch, we played games of wordless communion,
and miscommunicated, unable to make our bodies speak the same language.
And we could not find peace or understanding - of ourselves or of
the universe in each other, so we searched for other things.
We sought life together, looking for the enlightenment we could
not find in school and found that living was only another trip.
Innocence and knowledge, death and other things, and we found
that in everything that we looked for
the answers lay in opposite directions.
And when we should have parted, we only hung on,
one minute longer, and there was more comfort in familiarity than in knowledge.
In the smokey summer night your long pale fingers looked like wax
as you lit the candles for shabbat, face as solemn and hollow as a mask.
It was my first ceremony, and I saw beauty reflected in your face
Strange words and signs that perhaps my blood should know,
written on the edges of the plate - special food that I had made,
with the mandates of your new illness in mind.
Three days till I left for another new road, and we all ready
knew, my first ritual would be our last, there would be no second coming.
We had taken too much, and had run out of words with meaning.
When ‘Pass the chicken’ has become the extent of conversation
between literary lovers, it is time to call it the end.
We spoke once more, and with our last dry words did not say
goodbye, not enough left perhaps, to bid farewell to.
But you told me one last thing, wisdom or irony. When it all
comes down to dust, what is left is what is real.
And if we found no truth in each other, and only dust, then
perhaps that is enough.
This is so not my usual style, but it worked well for this particular poem. I'm not actually all that fond of this as a whole, but there are a few lines that I think work.
It is strange to think of you now, with out the pain that comes
from falling touches and fallen words.
We sang together, tuneless, the night we met. Fifteen other
people around the bonfire, and I did not know you then, when
your eyes turned in one way, and mine in another.
And I cannot find your memory without some attachment of pain.
You held yourself so that your lines would not match to those
of the world, and you drew screams from those around you.
Dusty wooden floors, groaning in time to our uneven steps, you
and I and Naomi, dancing around each other. You two moved
in clashing orbit, and I circled, wary.
Touch and leave and touch again, I watched you and her from a
distance before I left too, away over empty roads, silent
watching as you tore each other out,
bleeding where you would not cry.
December and screaming and tears. You and her,
you and Naomi and tragedy as your third, spinning out in unstable orbits,
running ever closer to your own final end, and even then when
you both were empty, when you had drained her dry,
canary bright wings stilled, no more tragedy or anger to run on, you
clung to each other, pillars of pain and rage broken down into
dust, all that was left.
When you came again, wandering and looking for something that
you could not find in the empty space between your bones,
I found empty spaces to match, mysteries singing like december
ice in the places that I did not know as mine.
Back and forth- we went in circles, and there was no love song
for our childhood as we touched each other,
and learned to worship our land, high and stark.
Dancing hands on a high hill, snow and mud and trees and wires
above us, circling birds, and a dead fox.
We hid in the trees, and called the hills ‘mother’, cold curve
of grass in place of the warm curve of hand and face
that we missed and did not know.
Mother, we cried, mother. We looked for the truth behind the
ideal, and failing to find it, we made our own, false ideals and ash.
Fire was cold comfort in the winter, and even when we curled
together in your nest of blankets, we found ourselves
with too much heat and not enough.
We froze together at night, and found that our edges
had run together when we melted with the sun.
We drank our mysteries together, foolish children falling in
our own depths, never knowing how to find land.
You found shapes in me, and drew them out with gentle fingers,
singing stories of witches and wolves and being wanted.
And I believed- was it so strange that we found ourselves
together, forgotten and unwanted, making myths of our own
small tragedies, waiting to be seen or to be ready.
We sought together, looking for our own quests, and when I found
a new road, and left myself behind, you kept me together with
your voice and your words.
Lines of wire connecting us, state to state, we traded words and
sympathies, moving through our paces,
stopping and starting and stopping again
as we tried to find a way to communicate things of scared and sacred darkness, clinging and binding.
You cried the night your Lady died, and told me of her dark
eyes, of her fear and pride, of her vicious defense
of that which she held dear, small warrior fighting for her clan,
eked out of the stone with tooth and claw, family bound by shed blood and fear.
You told me of her trust in you, her soft sweet open love for
you and no other, and I wondered, was this what you wanted from me,
a love that was only yours, or was what you wanted
what she had, the strength and pain of your fears
honed as a weapon to turn on those around you.
Warrior fighter weakness strength fear pain and loss were
the truths you taught to me through the long empty spaces
of our winters’ nights, the battles all fought inside.
I told you of loneliness and order, the feel of ten year old
blue paint smooth under the palm, the holy dark silence of
three a.m. behind the couch. Life behind a glass wall,
watching as things pass by, observed but untouched, fear after
fear parading by in bright colors, and comfort only from within.
Clan and family, you said, packmate and cub, things to seek for
and find and loose. Home and den and place of heart you cried
for, never found and always lost with your words.
Quiet was the word I spoke. The peace of hidden things clutched
between fingers scrubbed raw and bleeding.
Flickering lamps, smooth pages and Gigue for comfort.
Remember these things when they fall apart,
make touchstones of what you can.
And you asked me, what was I like before my parents met, and
what was I like when I belonged in my body, when all of the
edges fit, and the pieces went together.
Who were you, you cried, before you wore the falsehoods of flesh
and bone, what did you believe
when you were unencumbered by the trappings of the world?
Did you see what came before the clay and the flesh, shaped and
worn so easily by prodding hands, seeking shapes of themselves.
Form and mold, all false things fallen to dust,
would there be anything left to be seen?
What did you see in me, the smooth edges of my body that opened
to your words, raw and bleeding?
You claimed kinship with the wolf, beautiful lupa.
But it was the seals in your Maine harbors that I thought of
when I looked into your eyes, liquid sadness singing through you,
so passive from a distance, sleek and shining in your depths.
There were shapes moving in your waters
that even you did not know about,
silent dark, and dangerous as sailing at night.
Sedna, seal woman with mangled hands, betrayed by man,
hated father for her only company.
Bringer of storms, mother to the creatures of the waters,
a comparison that I never dared to make.
Eyes dark as you take your bow and sea-shell knives,
ready to rend and smash.
There was cold rough green rug- and your aunt- below us
when you touched me.
Not the first time for either of us, and not clean -
We ran with the green and blue markings of our tribe of child-savages,
painted on with the brush strokes of false worship
and hungry clinging loneliness.
We lay together, or lied in a self made ritual space.
You took things that I could not give, and I held myself at the
edge of understanding.
You enveloped me under layers of understanding and talk that
was not cheap - every minute cost us.
When words were all that we had, we used them well, but when we
could touch, we played games of wordless communion,
and miscommunicated, unable to make our bodies speak the same language.
And we could not find peace or understanding - of ourselves or of
the universe in each other, so we searched for other things.
We sought life together, looking for the enlightenment we could
not find in school and found that living was only another trip.
Innocence and knowledge, death and other things, and we found
that in everything that we looked for
the answers lay in opposite directions.
And when we should have parted, we only hung on,
one minute longer, and there was more comfort in familiarity than in knowledge.
In the smokey summer night your long pale fingers looked like wax
as you lit the candles for shabbat, face as solemn and hollow as a mask.
It was my first ceremony, and I saw beauty reflected in your face
Strange words and signs that perhaps my blood should know,
written on the edges of the plate - special food that I had made,
with the mandates of your new illness in mind.
Three days till I left for another new road, and we all ready
knew, my first ritual would be our last, there would be no second coming.
We had taken too much, and had run out of words with meaning.
When ‘Pass the chicken’ has become the extent of conversation
between literary lovers, it is time to call it the end.
We spoke once more, and with our last dry words did not say
goodbye, not enough left perhaps, to bid farewell to.
But you told me one last thing, wisdom or irony. When it all
comes down to dust, what is left is what is real.
And if we found no truth in each other, and only dust, then
perhaps that is enough.