Heirloom

Oooh, I am pleased with this :)

Semi-autobiographical, but also sort of messed-around with.

PREPARE YOURSELVES! Starting Saturday, I'll be composing 1 poem a day! I probably won't post them all, but I'll be doing a lot of writing.

"Heirloom"

I was born
beautiful as a potato.

Grandfather grew heirloom tomatoes
when he still had the energy to love
the arrival of earthworms in spring.
He sliced the juicy tomato insides open
and I ate them raw
with ground sea-salt.

Grandfather left one of his tomatoes in my hands,
one of his tomatoes like the saints he sought in church,
saints who stood over him when he became
naught but a candle
that Grandmother lit with the match bought
with a sacred quarter
rattling to the bottom of a little tin box,
rattling like the lid of a mason jar.

I hate the prickling fear-sound of my spinal chord
when I twist my neck too sharply—
the sound that makes me think I am a tomato vine
with a spot of darker green where someone's thumbnail has slipped
and I am now slowly dying.

I still love to watch the sea-salt catalyzed dehydration
of tomato-red flesh as it shrivels up,
just as I will watch my hands
become slowly lined and dry like corn husks.
One day I will be naught but a straw-haired scarecrow
and my sweet little grandbabies
will collect heirloom tomatoes around my feet.

Death, finally, is like lilies.
It is like the sickly butter of cannabis smoke
as it slithers down my esophagus to my stomach
and fills me like a mason jar.
I dread the taste of strawberry jam
as it slides too slowly
down my throat. 

Asheville, NC

Bit frustrated with this. Couldn't get some version of a Gaelic accent out of my head while I was writing this (probably due to too much BBC), so instead of an accent to match the place it was written about, you've got something COMPLETELY out of left field.

And even then I still feel like its not quite there.

Anyway, spent the weekend with my partner up in Asheville. I just love it up there :)


All comments apprecated!


"Swans 'n' Ducklins"

Oh, Swanannoa,
swan aye kno',
comin'round th' mountans, she is.

Th' clouds're descendin on these 'ills
like feastin pagans,
a great gray sea,
pregnan'n purple
wi' lightnin.

Th' Blue Ridge Moun'ins march
like ducklins,
still brown'n feathered wi' winter.

Ainno wind in these sails,
   ainno wind under these swan wings.

River of Lover

So technically this topic is the title of a song that I'm not particularly fond of. So I simply wrote about rivers and lovers.

Was watching the 2007 version of Jane Austen's Persuasion. LOL ANTHONY STEWART HEAD I LOVE YOU. He was awesome. But seriously, I love melodrama, but this thing went WAY OVER THE TOP. I love the book, but they spent way too long making Anne literally run all over Bath searching for the Captain. Seriously. Ten minutes of her running. Could have edited that out. And then they spent two minutes on the moment right before the kiss, as they got closer...and closer....and surpassed adorable and went straight into the territory of awkward.

But some of the cinematography of Anne running around Bath was lovely, so I wrote a quick little poem about it :) Sometimes short and sweet is the best way to go!

"Lover over the Thames"

Hush--
    I am still
       but for the beating
          of heart and legs.

I am an arrow
    flying to you
       across the bridges of London.

Magpie to the Morning

 For some fun info on magpies ('cuz I know *I* certainly didn't know much about them before), check out wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie and for its role in folklore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magpie.
I'm pretty sure this poem was meant to be, since I ended up referencing some aspects of the magpie lore ENTIRELY BY ACCIDENT. :D

Although written from a first-person perspective, this piece is NOT autobiographical. Inspiration taken largely from two songs by my latest musical obsession, First Aid Kit: Wolf  and The Lion's Roar . Some of the lines I used were taken almost directly from The Lion's Roar ("Don't you try to say I didn't warn you," and, "I may be a coward but so are you.")

Written for the topic "Magpie to the Morning," which is the title for YET ANOTHER SONG by Neko Case. It's lovely, you should go have a listen :)

Writing this piece felt a bit like when I was writing "Psalm for the South" - I had so many things I was trying to stitch together, and I'm not sure I accomplished it quite as successfully.

I'd really love to hear any comments.
In particular:
1) I was really trying to somehow convey the sense of "shapeshifter" with the characterization of the narrator. I tried to convey them as fitting into the body of someone else, as inhabiting their memories. Did I accomplish this, or does it need more work?
2) How is the imagery in general? I tried to establish the characters of the magpie, the coyote, and the narrator as basically the same, but I feel like I haven't conveyed this enough with the current imagery, and yet I feel like there are stanzas in there that still do nothing to demonstrate the connection. What do you think?
3) Trains. What? Do they make sense or should I just abandon that image altogether?
Last question is, do you think this needs a mature content warning?

Thanks so much for reading/commenting!

"Coyote Magpie"

Don’t you try to say I didn’t warn you.

You ignored the coyote’s howl,

ignored the cracking of twigs behind you.

Will I see your blood shining in the trees

at the next black crow moon?

I may be a coward

but so are you.

Coyote mother—

wandering and weary thing—

gives fading winter a smile,

laughs at the valleys of the earth that feed her

with a mouth full of teeth

clean with bone-crunching.

I could be a train

with the way that cities

all start to look the same,

with the way I spend my mornings

like a magpie

gathering map pieces in my claws.

I keep a witch’s cupboard,

a magpie’s nest full of strings.

One night when you slept

I threaded a red one into your chest

and if I wanted it to

my string would bring your heart back to me—

warm and beating in your chest

or otherwise.

Don’t you try to say I didn’t warn you.

I remember days

that don’t belong to me.

I remember houses on the river—

a day in May that was too pale a yellow:

much too windy

and not quite warm enough.

Like a coyote

the magpie sat in a tree, smiling,

clutching your tongue in its beak

and reminding you that you still cannot pronounce “hello” properly.

I remember

a snake by the pond,

your surprise at how easily the knife

sliced through its flesh.

The snake lay for a moment

with its spine glinting like a hinge

and its tail feebly twitching

until the man brought his blade down again.

I could have swept it up in my claws

and snapped its bones with my coyote teeth.

Snake meat makes

for an excellent breakfast.

Its blood is as potent

for circles in the dust

as chickens’ blood

drained from wrung necks.

Don’t you try to say I didn’t warn you.

Trains are like magpies

and I fly like a knife

through your heart.

I will grin my coyote smile

with a mouth full of your teeth

at the landscape that speeds by the window,

seeking new snake skin

with which to decorate my nest.