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It’s National Poetry Month…and I’m In Love Comments Off

Filed under the man
Written by Annie on 23rd Apr -10

When we were engaged, my husband bought a book of Emily Dickinson’s poems. Now, if you know my husband, you know he’s not so much a poetry reader. This was a pure act of love for me, his bride-to-be, who was (and still is) an avid poetry reader.

I tell him about sonnets.
He tells me about mechanical workings, string theory, economics, and how to get from Point A to Point B.

We learn things from each other like that. It’s a nice argument for bringing back the bartering system.

So, SuperMan, here’s my trade for the day: a little poem Ms. Dickinson wrote. You are the atom I prefer.

Of all the souls that stand create

Of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away,—
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!

–

Sources

1. Emily Dickinson’s poem “Of All the Souls That Stand Create” taken from this website.

Images

1. “fresh love” from viZZZual.com on Flickr.

Why I Do Not Watch the News 2

Filed under the world
Written by Annie on 6th Jan -10

The sound of the dishwasher, whirring louder than it has to,
The coffeemaker, burbling and brewing and needing to be cleaned out,
Overwhelm the t.v. evening update of disaster; she lets them,
Unstirring, eyes sliding down to a semi-glaze.
Blue chair, feet up, work done,
Until another eight hours go by, then
The same messes, mouths, dirty fingers, footprints,
Asking voices.
Oh can we Oh will you Oh why Oh watch.
Her head reels, end of day, with the drain of information, life-blood lost…
She needs a refilling but this litany, ode to the awfulness of the world, fills no reservoir.
She becomes the mother grasping, gasping for air while the reporter makes sympathetic faces.

She gets her decaf, stirs the cream in,
Takes slow sips in the silence she craved at
7 o’clock when they woke up too early, at
10 o’clock when the baby wouldn’t nap, at
12 o’clock when there was no peanut butter, at
3 o’clock when the questions were endless, at
6 o’clock when he was home, dearly come home, and
They smiled at each other across the roar of life.
Now peace, the roar tucked into various beds with blankets, kisses, promises, and
She sits beside him.
It is too much, after all that, to watch the tragedy of a child
Lost, wounded, silenced.

She clicks the button, erases the concerned serious faces,
Pushes away the guilt of not hearing, the
Dread of her own possible losses, the
Fear of being too lucky, too long.

She puts away the words of the worst reality,
Picks up a book of poetry,
A magazine,
A notebook, a pencil,
The phone.
This small quiet space is what fuels her, fills her, defines her,
So she chooses.
Carefully she fills her cup with what is delicious and rich,
Refusing the bitter,
Ready, in the morning, to be again poured out.

Poetry for Morning {Frank O’Hara} Comments Off

Filed under the world
Written by Annie on 31st Jul -09

Morning

by Frank O’Hara

notes.

1. the last line of each stanza is often a mid-sentence break, which continues in the stanza below. insert mental punctuation where it gets confusing. for example, the first stanzas: I’ve got to tell you how I love you always. I think of it on grey mornings, with death in my mouth. The tea is never hot enough then, and the cigarette dry. The maroon robe chills me.

2. the feeling, often expressed in cliched phrases – I love you always, I need you, I miss you always – is balanced by the little details, the particulars, the things that don’t seem to fit a love poem, exactly, but they end up making it more real: the buses glow, I stand rattling my keys, were there lots of anchovies.

3. the words in this poem are simple; the verbs are “to be” verbs or very low-key action verbs, such as “look,” “hold,” “stand.” Even though we end up with several different place images (the speaker’s home, the dock, the city streets, the parking lot, the beach, the night sky), we don’t notice the movement as much as the the same feeling of loneliness and longing that stays present in the whole poem.

4. the last stanza – the culmination of these feelings – feels right because the earlier poem gives us “passenger” images: buses, car, bicycle. So when we get to that metaphor, it clicks into place and reiterates (without repeating) both the feelings and the images of the poem.

I’ve got to tell you cmorning
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you’d be proud of

the parking lot is snowmorning
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I’ll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

Images courtesy of Igor Dugonjic and .Pete.

Open Mic Corner: Gerard brings it. Comments Off

Filed under the world
Written by Annie on 1st Jun -09

I’m just saying: it takes a talented guy to use a phrase like “the ooze of oil” in a poem about the grandeur of God and make it work. Read on, read on. airview

God’s Grandeur

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? continue reading…

With Thanks to My Husband 1

Filed under the man
Written by Annie on 16th Feb -09

I see you when I look into our laughing children’s faces
I sense you in the most familiar and most foreign places
A part of you has gone through me and settled in my heart
Without you I am half myself: unpainted piece of art.

Those once-upon-a-time romances never did come true
Till I stepped through the looking glass and woke up into you.
You scared me into life, you shook me out of the mundane.
The too familiar ruts I walked seem pitiful and plain.

My black and white, my up and down, my theories tried and true,
My safe and sound went upside down since I fell into you.
 

 

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