Poetry is not a warm and fuzzy thing

That's a misquote from a student of Richard Hague's. He read at the Poetry Forum Monday night, and passed out a little broadside of poems inspired by his high school students afterward. One of them used a quote from a student, which was to that same effect, but I don't remember the exact words.

He was a good reader, and he read a few uncomfortable poems, which liberated me to read an uncomfortable poem. I posted a draft here awhile back. It's called Playing Dead and is inspired by something that really happened in my hometown shortly after I had gone away to college. The story has haunted me for years. I'd never read it aloud before, and wasn't too sure about reading it then, but I got a great response, and it read really well. It still makes me cringe a little, the story of it, but as a poem, it seems to have value.

I'm not sure how I feel about the value of making art from horror and violence, except as a way of encompassing it within our minds. But is that art, or is it therapy? Can it start as therapy and become art through revision and a certain distance?

September 11, 2008

September 11, 2008
for Tom

I woke this morning not knowing why
I had one of your songs in my head, and not
a song I ever really liked. It wasn’t about me.

I walked my dog this clear, chilly morning
singing to myself. I could have been
your Valentine, now I’m just a tale to tell.

I was almost your wife. I didn’t like
your songs, but I tried to be supportive.
I remember waking seven years ago,

today, to your panicked voice on the phone.
Turn on the radio (we didn’t own a television),
turn on the radio, something’s happened.

I sat alone on your scratchy plaid couch
in the wood-paneled apartment above
the pizza shop, and I listened to true fear

in the voices of the reporters, shock,
and something more like excitement than sorrow;
it was the biggest day of their lives, the type of thing

they’d been trained for. I was not prepared
when I finally saw the footage that night
subtitled above the bar. I walked outside

into the dark, let the wind blow through me.
You followed me, and held me, and even though
I knew I didn’t love you, I clung to whatever it was

you offered me, a man’s arms, a promise
of stability, a shared place in the world, shelter
from the wind and the debris.

Sacrifice

Metaphor or horror story, take your pick....

She offers her beauty to you -
spare and white, a bloodless
body curled on a silver platter.

You could cut her open -
the knife glitters so beautifully
in the candlelight - and she
would not complain as you open
a long straight line from her slender neck
to the heated spot where her legs meet.

You could reach between her breasts
and pull her heart still beating
from its protective cage of muscle and bone.
She would allow it, watch it pulse
in your hand, stain your arm as you raise
it high and marvel at the light reflecting
ruby and garnet and pearl.

You want it.
You know you do.

Spinning Wheel

A beginning of something, or maybe an end. I wrote the last four lines last night along with a couple of other stanzas of fairy tale allusion, but didn't love anything but the beginning, so today as I sit here at work and talk about whiskey with my colleagues (seriously), I took the lines I remembered and just expanded that one scene. And when I wrote it last night, it was "You are the spindle/around which I wind" but I like it better without the I.

Btw, thanks for the comments recently! Keep them coming :)

You are the spindle
around which she winds
her silken threads,
the gridlike loom
stretching her taut,
the hands that pull
her strands, your fingers
under her and over her,
creating the helpless beauty
you see in your mind.

You are the spindle
around which she winds,
the polished point
upon which she falls.

Playing Dead (tentative title)

so, this is the poem i was talking about not being able to write.... tried a different approach, and got closer to what i wanted. will come back to it and try again....

She was nothing
but a body, pretending
to be dead. She was
in the grass and bleeding,
and then in his arms
her hair dragging the ground.
She was lifted up, cold metal
beneath her back, her legs
swung up over that same metal
railing, held still for a moment
and then dropped, or pushed,
or released.

She was nothing
but gravity, a body falling
and trying not to move.
She hit the water half wishing
it was ground. Muddy water
slapped her body, closed
over her head, added its insult
to her injuries, cold reaching
almost instantly through her
fingers, up her arms, reaching
for the hole that hadn’t reached
her heart.

She was nothing
but instinct, freezing
for a time. Her feet
kicked enough to keep her body
afloat, she breathed just enough
of the icy March air, and after enough
time had passed, her eyes opened.
She could not see the bridge.
or be seen from it. She swam
for the nearest shore.

She was nothing
but the cold, numb arms
pulling her pain through dirty
water, heavy legs kicking off
heavier shoes, finally finding
the muddy riverbed, wading
through shallows rimmed
with ice to fall on her knees
in the wreckage of last year’s
weeds, seeing the miracle
right before her eyes, the very first
green shoots of another spring,
the pieces that had survived.