Phases
by Amy Unsworth
The geese stitch the night with their cries
and the cold seeps through the layers
upon layers, wool, silk, skin, muscle.
Forget the moon in her longing. Who
can bear to be reminded of the immensity
of loneliness, her cold white face.
The cold white sheets spread clean
across our bed. The laundry in tidy
piles: five socks, the fifth folding
in on itself, waiting. The days
add minutes, in beginning and ending.
The dark, a cipher, un-coding.
Our dogs snarl and snap then stretch,
returning to sleep, the down
rises like glacial peaks worn smooth.
Showing posts with label Poetry: Poems and Drafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry: Poems and Drafts. Show all posts
Draft: With Light
It's spring again, tornado season in Kansas. Last year, we were witness to the aftermath of the one that touched down in Manhattan. This year, another one has passed closely by in my county. You can see a fairly close up view of it in this video. Too close for comfort in my opinion.
So, not surprising, that my draft for the NaPoWriMO ends up with a tornado in it:
With Light
(a draft, by Amy D. Unsworth)
All day the sky brooding
the children muddy, the dogs picking
delicately across the soggy yard.
The sky, oh pewter sky,
how tired we grow of your threats
your clouds bunched into fists.
The long finger of the tornado
scraped across the plains
a welt, a warning. We’re not
comfortable yet with spring
with the grass grumbling
upwards, the mosquitoes
writing their memoirs
across the face of the ponds,
the sun-drunk cows swishing
away the flies. We cower
under the stairs, padding
ourselves with pillows.
Nothing comes of this:
pajamas soaked with sweat
the night interrupted
with lightning and hail.
Oh give us back our sleep
let the leaves remain
the branches unbroken
the flowers cup’s upturned
the frogs in their amorous chorus
along the banks of the drainage
ditches. Why this swollen ground
the carcasses of the worms--
winter was unkindness enough
the world shrunken and cold.
Give us spring, the air filled
with nothing but light.
***
So, not surprising, that my draft for the NaPoWriMO ends up with a tornado in it:
With Light
(a draft, by Amy D. Unsworth)
All day the sky brooding
the children muddy, the dogs picking
delicately across the soggy yard.
The sky, oh pewter sky,
how tired we grow of your threats
your clouds bunched into fists.
The long finger of the tornado
scraped across the plains
a welt, a warning. We’re not
comfortable yet with spring
with the grass grumbling
upwards, the mosquitoes
writing their memoirs
across the face of the ponds,
the sun-drunk cows swishing
away the flies. We cower
under the stairs, padding
ourselves with pillows.
Nothing comes of this:
pajamas soaked with sweat
the night interrupted
with lightning and hail.
Oh give us back our sleep
let the leaves remain
the branches unbroken
the flowers cup’s upturned
the frogs in their amorous chorus
along the banks of the drainage
ditches. Why this swollen ground
the carcasses of the worms--
winter was unkindness enough
the world shrunken and cold.
Give us spring, the air filled
with nothing but light.
***
Drafts & "How To"
For National Poetry Month, it's been a good April. I've been participating in a poem-a-day project which has produced several drafts I'm really pleased with, plus several more that might have productive strands to work with as revision time swings round. Here's a sample from a longer draft:
Write from the square space of your office,
of the way the paper clips
can only think of tangling together
how these become us
boxed in the days outlined on the calendars:
blank squares marching across the page
And several more poems from the circus, a theme I've been working on for some time now. What I haven't written, surprisingly to me, are more poems for the manuscript-in-progress. I don't know what that means, really. I'm starting to feel like I've finished that narrative and now need to begin the slow tedious process of actually putting the poems in their best order so that I can send it out into the world. This may have to wait until summer, or at least for a long, uninterrupted weekend.
***
Just a few days ago, I was able to go hear Sandra Cisneros speak at the public library in Kansas City. Now, this public library isn't like the libraries I grew up with. The library is a beautiful venue for a reading, the evening light was flowing in through the upper story windows, fluted pillars stood guard around the neat rows of wooden folding chairs. By the time she rose to speak, the room was overflowing with people.
Sandra Cisneros read and spoke mostly about being a writer, developing into a writer. She read "buttons"- the small essays that string together to form her books-- from her new book-in-progress to be called "Writing in Your Pajamas." She spoke about thinking in two different languages, creating space for one's self, things she's learned about finding her voice (the voice of a person completely comfortable, in her pajamas)
The audience was very receptive to her and asked many questions in a mix of Spanish and English. She shared with us her "top ten" things to do to develop into a writer. (You'll have to buy her book; I'm not telling!) And she also shared that writing requires both humility and courage, and that we should ask for these things each time we sit down to write. There were several other ideas that resonated with me "You don't know what you're writing about until you finish" "You don't always like what you find out about yourself" and best, perhaps "Write about your community with love, because someone else will write about it without love" (These are from my faulty notes, so not really direct quotes)
She also defined her vison of feminism as "human rights based with a compassionate outlook towards women." She also reiterated the need for writers to write and shared that she struggled with "what good is my writing; should I be doing something more practical?" when writing The House on Mango Street. But it was evident just from the crowd's reaction to her that she has done good work with her writing, showing as one person put it "that voices from the barrio could be heard."
She also encouraged us that we could change the world through small acts, through changing ourselves. I think that's another point on which we agree. I am reminded of Mother Teresa's words:
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
It's nice to hear that writing counts as one of those small things.
***
Write from the square space of your office,
of the way the paper clips
can only think of tangling together
how these become us
boxed in the days outlined on the calendars:
blank squares marching across the page
And several more poems from the circus, a theme I've been working on for some time now. What I haven't written, surprisingly to me, are more poems for the manuscript-in-progress. I don't know what that means, really. I'm starting to feel like I've finished that narrative and now need to begin the slow tedious process of actually putting the poems in their best order so that I can send it out into the world. This may have to wait until summer, or at least for a long, uninterrupted weekend.
***
Just a few days ago, I was able to go hear Sandra Cisneros speak at the public library in Kansas City. Now, this public library isn't like the libraries I grew up with. The library is a beautiful venue for a reading, the evening light was flowing in through the upper story windows, fluted pillars stood guard around the neat rows of wooden folding chairs. By the time she rose to speak, the room was overflowing with people.
Sandra Cisneros read and spoke mostly about being a writer, developing into a writer. She read "buttons"- the small essays that string together to form her books-- from her new book-in-progress to be called "Writing in Your Pajamas." She spoke about thinking in two different languages, creating space for one's self, things she's learned about finding her voice (the voice of a person completely comfortable, in her pajamas)
The audience was very receptive to her and asked many questions in a mix of Spanish and English. She shared with us her "top ten" things to do to develop into a writer. (You'll have to buy her book; I'm not telling!) And she also shared that writing requires both humility and courage, and that we should ask for these things each time we sit down to write. There were several other ideas that resonated with me "You don't know what you're writing about until you finish" "You don't always like what you find out about yourself" and best, perhaps "Write about your community with love, because someone else will write about it without love" (These are from my faulty notes, so not really direct quotes)
She also defined her vison of feminism as "human rights based with a compassionate outlook towards women." She also reiterated the need for writers to write and shared that she struggled with "what good is my writing; should I be doing something more practical?" when writing The House on Mango Street. But it was evident just from the crowd's reaction to her that she has done good work with her writing, showing as one person put it "that voices from the barrio could be heard."
She also encouraged us that we could change the world through small acts, through changing ourselves. I think that's another point on which we agree. I am reminded of Mother Teresa's words:
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
It's nice to hear that writing counts as one of those small things.
***
January 3rd
and the day filled with melody
fingers on the keyboard
notes rising in the glint of afternoon
the murmur of conversation
punctuated by laughter and
the protests of a baby awakened
too soon from sleep.
fingers on the keyboard
notes rising in the glint of afternoon
the murmur of conversation
punctuated by laughter and
the protests of a baby awakened
too soon from sleep.
On the Year's End:Considering the Sun in Absence
On the Year's End: Considering the Sun in Absence
The sun has risen and fallen again, and elsewhere
must be rising on this last day of the year,
auspicious with eights and endings which
must be beginnings as the narrative will write
itself with or without adjustments and sidetracks
and lies. The year begins in hope, as it must, and the old
battered: a few photographs in frames, a number of lines
in neat order, piles of papers to file, stacks to purge and re-purge.
Sons taller, homes emptied, tidied and filled again. This
is how the story goes with false starts, with remarkable moments
once sworn to remembrance: but was it a sunrise or sunset?
Or, the way the half moon caught in the net of limbs, the prairie
covered in morning haze, smoke? Or, the owl posturing
as death reborn? There was a hill climbed, and the smell of paint
on a March afternoon, and many spiders removed stiff-legged
from webs, the stove’s redhead glowering and water rushing
into sinks and pans and saucers. Then whiskers,
on a son’s cheek, as he bends now to bid goodnight. And thus,
the sun rises and falls and the year begins anew.
The sun has risen and fallen again, and elsewhere
must be rising on this last day of the year,
auspicious with eights and endings which
must be beginnings as the narrative will write
itself with or without adjustments and sidetracks
and lies. The year begins in hope, as it must, and the old
battered: a few photographs in frames, a number of lines
in neat order, piles of papers to file, stacks to purge and re-purge.
Sons taller, homes emptied, tidied and filled again. This
is how the story goes with false starts, with remarkable moments
once sworn to remembrance: but was it a sunrise or sunset?
Or, the way the half moon caught in the net of limbs, the prairie
covered in morning haze, smoke? Or, the owl posturing
as death reborn? There was a hill climbed, and the smell of paint
on a March afternoon, and many spiders removed stiff-legged
from webs, the stove’s redhead glowering and water rushing
into sinks and pans and saucers. Then whiskers,
on a son’s cheek, as he bends now to bid goodnight. And thus,
the sun rises and falls and the year begins anew.
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