Enigma

After A BAJILLION YEARS I'm finally posting a new piece. Sorry it took forever ^^ Life's been busy lately.

I still feel like this piece isn't quite right; it's been fighting me. But I don't know what else to do with it - as it is, it says what I mean, but perhaps not quite in the right form. Does it seem jumbled to you? Bleh. I'd love to hear if you can make anything of it. If not...yeah, suggestions on what to do might be helpful there, too, haha.

For and about a dear friend of mine. Ours is a strange relationship, haha...but he's the closest thing to a shaman I've met in a long while, and he is rather like a cooling summer rain for my spaz of a spirit.

"Poem for the Ocean"

  Cure me of this drought.

You have been known to call down the rain
and my forest fire-heart, heaving and sun-sparked,
needs the coolness of summer storms.

You are a sea; and I can do nothing but cling to your shores like sand,
hope to be swept off to the depths so I might understand them.

I am a knowable thing, clear and crisp;
the smell of pine forests, moonshine—
a distillation of all my youthful restlessness.
I want to run til I can drink the air like vodka,
clear and crystalline in my lungs.
My spirit is hungry, an Appalachian wendigo—
a wind eating its way across the Kentucky border,
carving great bites in the mountain flesh.

Though well-acquainted with the contours of lace,
often weaving its silky strings myself,
I am no spider, and your sea swell lace crests elude me.
I am no sea captain, cannot read your ocean currents
but the restlessness that sits beneath my lungs
and crawls its prickling way up my spine
makes me feel that I’ve never been better.

Though you may sound of sadness there is a peace in you.
You bring the sweet quiet of thunderclouds in early evening,
a premature twilight dusk that for once I do not fear.
I recover from my scrapes and scrambles; I am still
picking blood from my ears, grass and reeds from my teeth.
But for once my fingers cease their skittering and
in your rains I find my heart able to settle down to rest
where it may grow roots into mountainsides

so that I may wander freer than before,
learn to trust my sword-arm again.

Herbalism

Okay. This is after HOURS of trying to hammer this thing into some kind of decent shape

Ugh. I've just not been feeling as good as usual about my work lately. This still feels clumsy.

Anyway, I was trying to convey something....hideously complicated and convoluted, and I have a feeling it came off as equally convoluted in writing, but I've hit a point with this piece where I just have to let it go and come back to it for some more editing later.

PS. Mature language warning. Didn't want the cuss words to be a surprise to anyone. And if there's any occasion, to me, when cuss words are called for - it's this one.

"The War of the Ivy and Holly"

We are at war.

We are at silent, stifled war.

We are a waltz,
and I am a quiet Ginger Rogers,
not smiling
for fear of doing or saying too much,
for fear of the wants that eat our garden hearts.

When I travel to you I carry garlic bulbs
to keep me safe, to prevent drowning.

Dancing rings around the rosies
Grabbing pockets full of posies,
What's the point of making nosegays
If they all just fall to ashes?


I grow thistles by my door to tell me
whether you are friend or foe
by the way you catch your clothes,
by the way you curse the spines
within the fingers that pluck them from your jeans.

"Shit" and "Damn it" are safe
and occupied,
like glances,
with something else.


You are a lone figure
rising from a wheat field white with sun,
you are riddles in the dark of my head,
the dark of my mountain cave—
the bay leaf dream sent to me,
uncomfortable and leathery between my teeth.
But true.

At night, you are the holly sprig
at the lintel, keeping the darkness out.

We are at war
in the juniper pauses
where our spirits try to speak
directly to each other,

"Do you remember how I

"Yes I remember, and how I

"Yes. Like the moon."


You bloom in deathly cold,
a capsaicin heat that floods my veins
spiked and chili peppered—
a cool, calm red as you appeared
that night when the fire rose in your eyes.

I try not to climb the cracks
in your brick walls.

You have become, in the early morning,
a kind of silent yearning that stretches
beyond the confines of my nearly-woken dreaming,
across the mists of the Virginia fields between us
stretched out in the yellow light.

You are a new snake
cutting wide streaks
across the gold desert
that ate my garden-heart. 

Constellation

Whew. This one's a doozy. Another madness-themed piece, but I'm not sure how well it worked.

I desperately need critique. On EVERYTHING. I would particularly appreciate comments on these topics...

This is really supposed to show a person's disintegration into madness, but I'm not sure how well I showed that.
1. Plot arc. Can you see the character's trajectory? Can you see a story there? How does it end?
2. Consistent perspective and tone. Although this is supposed to be a madness piece, I'm concerned I'm too inconsistent in POV, at the very least.
3. Do you like the way I've used line breaks/capitalization/punctuation (or the complete lack thereof)?
4. How well do you think the imagery progresses? Despite being a madness piece, do you think there is some kind of logical flow to or connection between the images?

I guess that's what I keep coming back to - although it's a madness piece, I think I need to make some basic level of sense, and I'm worried I haven't done that.

Comments appreciated.

"Звезда"
(Star)

i. I was still, once;

a rock amidst constellations that

flapped like birds.

Their spinning gravity wells

have strung me—

a glittering necklace of asteroids.

Madness is only a quiet hunger for those

who do not live within the skull

that is being broken apart by too many stars.

ii.

as a fox kit i will wander russian forests in winter hoping to be taken in

longing for bright red curls but silver furred and searching hungry for the mice beneath the snow

ringed round with chicken wire and caught amongst the hens wishing for the

russet hair that would blend me in

if i were catherine the great i would not have to feel the rising fear every december

and as virgin queens go i would be more of an elizabeth than a victoria always

turning tailward to devour enemies of the throne

but the most i may hope for by march is to be caught by the forest witch

and have my boiled bones strung like constellations amongst my fox kin

outside her chicken legged house

gravity and greed are just hunger of different kinds

iii.

come close child and listen to me

listen to the story of when i went as lovely vasilisa to the witch’s house and came back out again with the star light of the insides of skulls and listen to how i became the doll given to me by my mother and of how i set my own eyelids on fire trying to convince queen cassiopeia in the sky that i already had my own constellations and how people would not believe that she was trying to come get me

and how i was abandoned by the scarecrow that hid Beetlegeuse in its heart

and how my antlers came in early and i tore them off to keep it secret

and how this one time i caught my hair in the willow tree and spent three lifetimes as a fortuneteller

and how it is russia i keep coming back to with its name like winter trees fore telling me as a collection of ice and fur beneath a night sky empty of everything but my paranoia and the way orion from his height keeps looking at me with hunger in his eyes

and i have seen hell

and it is white white and leaves nowhere to hide

iv. Even buildings are not safe.

I am allowed outside if I am good.

One of these January mornings I will be good enough

and they will find me months later when the thaw comes

sleeping with the dead river

and all the other fish

who cannot swim.

Odysseus

Thought about how Odysseus' wife must have felt when hearing about his adventures.

I know I'd be pissed.

Ottava rima completed for DFC '12 day 3. Again, not entirely happy with it (I'd love to spend more time getting to know these forms a bit better, but I'm still behind, so I'm still simply trying to catch up at present!), but I think it's better than the Isaac Asimov one I did the other day...

"I am no Witch-Queen, but I Bide My Time"

I waited for you, my Odysseus.
For ten long years I waited, all alone.
Men have called for me, lusty, pitiless -
and you, yes, you passed beyond all you've known,
found comfort in other arms - delicious,
weren't they? Distractions from the voyage home.
And, love, I'm no Medea, no witch-queen,
but I will bide my time, and act, unseen. 

Qualia

This is a canzone for day 2 of DFC '12. 11 syllables per line, rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef aa

Those two mathematical sets TOTALLY DON'T COUNT TOWARD THE NUMBER OF STANZAS just sayin'. I wanted to space the lines out to reduce the temptation to make this too singsong-y and keep the rhymes spaced out a bit.

Used the idea of set theory. See Georg Cantor (sneaky use of his last name, no?) if you'd like more info. I don't really feel like trying to explain math at the present...

Hope you enjoy! I'm not entirely happy with this, but there you are, I suppose. 

"You and Me - Set Theory"

{0=n-n}

"Truth," he said, "truth is pure multiplicity,"
and I suppose he was thinking of sidewalks—

I've been chasing concrete cracks round the city,
planting face, hoping for the growth of beanstalks

to clear out my heart-cracks of your name.
My cheek against the sun-warmed slabs of concrete

touches your cheek, sets my whole body aflame
with you—here, I see where earth and heaven meet.

{Ø{Ø,Ø}…}

My mathematician, if only you could sing
to me about the universe, my Cantor,

could tell me of the pavement to which I cling;
we are a set in stones, small and granular.

Though truth cannot be found in simplicity,
still, like sidewalk cracks, truth's in infinity.

Isaac Asimov

A rispetto! In iambic tetrameter. I chose to go a bit silly ^^
Despite the minimal imagery...I hope you enjoy, haha.

"A Love Letter, Written for but Never Given to, Isaac Asimov, From Mars"

I am still new to writing verse.
Forgive me, I know it's ghastly,
But you're my entire universe,
My love, you're the laws that bind me.

Mars is lovely this time of year,
Please, my love, come visit me here:
The red dust in our eyes like dew—
My heart-gears will turn just for you. 

Carbon

WHOA ANOTHER FIXED FORM PIECE? Crazy talk. This is an alliterisen, base syllables 11.

I'm doing a fixed form challenge this month, so expect more posts! I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoyed writing them, internet. I'm finding the challenge of fixed form to my taste :)

"Carbon Winter Heart"

I welcome winter with still, stalactite heart,
a new creature of carbonite, mirrored and mirthless.
I grow grizzled and old, December-dead,
diamond-dreaming, but graphite-grained and losing myself,
organic only by carbon content.
Lacking heart-valves, void: free of my changeling-child,
I am fully frozen, a newly caustic queen. 

Buddhism

So. I wrote a sestina. It was hard.

The end.

Enjoy!

"December Buddha"

December cracks open like hazelnuts,
crinkled brown and brittle, dry from the fire,
cold-crisp and crunching as needles of pines.
As usual, wisdom comes just in time,
reminder to hold on to my forest,
to my stories, to make myself buddha.

I am lacking, no quiet rain-buddha,
born, as I was, a tight-curled hazelnut,
but I do send roots into my forest,
and in summer spread Colorado fire.
I find that more and more I pass the time
among the kings that are my totem pines.

In North Carolina, December pines
not for sun but for a softer buddha,
a figure to remind the month that time
ends not with January; hazelnut,
it curls in on itself, warm with the fire.
It is my roots, winding through the forest.

Some days I wait for rain in my forest.
I love how it trickles down my crown-pines
to soften days and keep away brush-fire.
In the spring I am not a flame-buddha,
want only streams for floating hazelnuts:
all my riddle answers are, "time, time, time."

The mackintosh flesh marks the passing time:
it still remembers which of the forests
was its home, that the roasted hazelnuts
were its brothers, and softening, it pines
for who I was in Virginia, a buddha
of spring, among the hay bales, soothing fire.

Then, I was water to cool the fire,
too small a paragon of space-time,
not seeing myself: quiet wind-buddha.
Now, December returns me—my forest,
in a whispered winter of silver pines
that will birth me again—a hazelnut.

I embrace my fire, my sprouting forest,
the water that with time stretches the pines;
settle as my buddha, my hazelnut.  

PUBLISHED!

I'm so pleased to announce that my poem "Divination as a Means of Finding a Way Back" has been PUBLISHED! So so so many thanks to the wonderful staff at Alliterati!

If you're interested in reading the piece, or seeing some of the other WONDERFUL visual and lit pieces that have been included, take a peek at the emag version:

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

PS. This week's music:

Bogota

This piece was inspired by the lovely Natalie Royal's song, Chimbote.

monachopsis
n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your society as a seal on a beach—lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognize the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.
(For similar words, see this page:http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/)

As you notice, I took some inspiration from the definition ;) I'm planning on recording myself reading this, because when I write in Spanish, I write for the sound. The problem with writing in Spanish, is I'm really trying to write for native Spanish speakers, so I'm trying to make use of all the possible meanings of the words I've chosen, if that makes sense. I suggest that those of you who don't understand Spanish look at the original and the translated version together.

"Santa Fé de Bogotá"

Simón Bolívar found you como una Flor de Mayo.

I know that in your swelling city heart
you long por el mar, por la sal del mar,

but instead you straddle the roads,
hunker down over your landscape and breathe
your car fumes, inspiras las fumas como sombres,
espiras tranquilidad inquieta.

Colombia, madre, you have become
bloated in your old age, have grown your
ankles, pálidos e inflamados;

you should have been a sea lion,
morena y rapida y a la cresta como la espuma.

Mi alma, I will bring you the sea salt to run through your hair,
diamonds with which to crown your sea-mane.

~~~

Simón Bolívar found you like an orchid.

I know that in your swelling city heart
you long for the sea, for the salt of the sea,

but instead you straddle the roads,
hunker down over your landscape and breathe
your car fumes, you breathe the smoke like shadows,
breathe calm restlessly.

Colombia, mother, you have become
bloated in your old age, have grown your
ankles, pale and swollen;

you should have been a sea lion,
brown and quick and cresting like the sea foam.

My soul, I will bring you the sea salt to run through your hair,
diamonds with which to crown your sea-mane.

Hinduism

Feels like AGES since I've written anything. Played around with style a bit, so I don't feel COMPLETELY lazy about this piece.

Composed during Ara Batur by Sigur Ros
Imagery inspired by this gorgeousness:

Firestarter

I know I didn't mention much Hinduism, but...there's a kind of wistfulness for Shiva here that I'll claim counts ;)

I should add:
Pyrokenesis is the psychic ability to create and manipulate fire (essentially).
Spirography was a toy I had as a kid - you used little interlocking gears to make cool designs with your pen.

"Spirography and the Gift of Pyrokenesis"

Already I feel stiffened,
wrapped-round with my wedding-bangles—
circumscribed, a horror amidst spirographs,
the ballpoint-pen circles that have transcended themselves
into curling picture frames or paper cages.

In my gown I am become a pillar,
I have not tasted curried air,

but already a river will still my tastebuds,
the mirror into which I shall be sunk, prow-like,
with the ship,

and the curling pen-lines that drift in my eyes
prepare the currents that will wash over me
and make of me nothing.

Shiva I would rather be—
would that I could pour my flaming heart
over my ashen and lace body,
leave its embers in the grass like seeds;

I would go up in smoke, no Helen for Troy,
only gasps making their own way for
Calcutta.  

Voodoo

I dunno how I feel about this one. I was feeling the pine trees, but I also wanted to write something for the topic "voodoo," which I've written into a lot of poems, but which I haven't had as the main sort of "theme."

Comments appreciated!

"Totems and Godhood"

i. Confronting giants.

I take the pine tree as my totem,
learn to love the nakedness of its nether-regions
and its northerly fibers stretched and waiting
for the weft to its warp.

Girlhood is still a part of me as the
learning what I am. In the end,
I haven't climbed a tree in a long time;
I am small, and scared, and ringed round with walls,
and I beg the moon to teach me
to use my pine trees as a ladder.

ii. Young love.

You, sir—
you are pine chips, and I carry you
like a fetish in my mind.

You are a vampiric sweetness
to suck the breath from my body:
unknowing, the feeling of yearning;
I am fibrous—celery stalk,
pale and clutching my thread self together.

iii. Transmogrification.

Watch as I become a giraffe,
stretch until my bones
will not bend to let me drink.

With age I become a god,
brittle-boned and cackling; with age
the osteoporosis will leech my fibers dry
and my pine sap blood will freeze in my chest
to keep me warm in winter.

My fingers—blue-green and spindly,
and though never-married my insides
are ringed-round with bands.
And I'll settle down with a cuppa,
tinged with the whisky my grandmother loved so much.

iv. The autumn comes to lead me home.

With no god to forgive me my ghosts,
I sink down into November brown,
and let the wood-rot take my roots. 

Divination

Wow, I just realized I was a LITTLE late on posting this one. It was written for a lit-mag theme of "Tabula Rasa," and received recognition on the art site I belong to! :) I'll probably update when I hear back on whether this has been accepted to the journal or not.

I'm not sure the piece is evocative enough or flows well. All comments most welcome!

"I Have No Names of All My Teacup Babes"

I feel always like I am starting over.

As a magpie I gather trinkets under my pillow,
bay leaves and bags of herbs to bring the next lover to me,
to call the next dream-face forward—a picture
painted in the tea leaves.

But truth be told the start-again
is never clean, is never gentle,
and the sweat of all that labour
is a fire on my skin, telling me
I will never resist its wind-cry.

The moon comes when I call, to help me;
midwife, she is, and she carries into being my new selves
like the babes they are, teaches them to
fill long footsteps like hers.

Truth be told, I tire of the destiny
I was given once—I am a teacup,
and I cling close to my china womb,
to my cup tipped over, upset
by careless elbows.

I imagine Mother Moon climbing her way back to me
on the backs of pine trees, sweeping across the Appalachians.

South by Southwest

For this topic, I couldn't help thinking of the wind, somehow. The wind and the Grand Canyon.

Written for a Halloween contest! I'd love any and all comments ;)

"A Kiss for a Ghost, Not Given"

I remember the bar in Ocracoke,
the chill that came like a wind from the Southwest
as he told me where he was from.

There was a moment when he looked me in the eye
and I could see my walk
one morning along the southern edge of the Canyon,
my hurried scramble from the oracle-birds
that had guided my steps

—and a moment of realization in the car
when I had rejected him, and, heading for the highway,
found my eyes searching the rearview mirror,
hoping not to meet his gaze.

Flightless Bird, American Mouth

I challenged myself for this piece by following a prompt that asked me to compose a poem backwards. This poem was quite a challenge. Ultimately the way I did it was write a poem, then reconstruct it roughly backwards (though I've obviously taken some license with the phrasing so that it makes SOME sense when read this way).

I'd REALLY love some critique on the piece:
1) Title - I've tried to come up with a title that signals to the reader that the chronology of the piece is backwards, but I'm not sure I've managed it. All advice to this effect would be IMMENSELY helpful.
2) How much sense does the piece make as it is? Do you like it as is, or does it still feel like it should take place in the other direction?
3) Punctuation: Do you like it? Does it work?

"End to Beginning, Lived Life"

Christ.)

to the dying of the light
and to Hades to pay my respects
my solemn flightless way
make I ,Ophelia and Virginia Woolf

.the sea to the lifeblood
mountain stream ,followed I the path
that burnt had been ,cold and clean

,to Georgia ,lonely and looking
at my own wingless bird-back
,bore I myself as a pilgrim

.(shuffle I may my Merlin feet
,but never still will I be 

Ice

From fire to ice. Huh.

Short piece this time. Not something I REALLY like, but it's something I needed to get out.

"Winter-Heart"

 Still, I can again feel the growling winter
     dawn over my thawed insides,
     can sense the sweep of the Arctic
     and the crystals that will build me,
once more, into who I was.

It has been a long summer,
     but my heart is a season
     and you, my dear, are gilded
     and brown.

I only hope you say the words before I do.

Bonfire

GAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I'M STILL NOT HAPPY WITH THIS! PLEASE LEAVE CRITIQUE!

CRITQUE IT! CRITIQUE IT INTO THE GROUND!

The flow of this thing is just driving me nuts. I feel like gnawing my own fingers off in frustration.

I wrote this for a contest with the prompt, "color": "The theme is "Color". You can choose to write about one color, or many. You can describe a situation, person, object, scene - anything, but describe it in color(s). How it looks...makes you feel."

 I decided to approach the prompt sort of like a painting. I suppose another title for this piece might be "A Study in Brown [and orange]". I'm worried I didn't quite address the prompt, though. Thoughts?

As usual, all comments appreciated. Enjoy!

"Hunger"

Fire in the wild isn't the color you think it is.

It's all amber and umber and
terra cotta, one great roaring tower of orange
like the Wrath of God in a chestnut tree.

I can't go back again to Devil's Hollow—
just like so many wolves he will wait,
until I am ready, blazing burnt sienna and shining,
all teeth.

But I'm not ready to give up the ghost yet,
I'm still waiting for an excuse
to travel the galaxy empty-handed.
I want to see those bronze nebulas
gleaming like forest fires.

Oh, lover—I have watched you swim volcanic craters,
have seen your flaming eyes amidst the snow drifts
all brown with dirt. Dragon, mine, you bring
the mists in the morning, set the roads to smoking
after the evening rains, and you came to me as
a henna dawn that time when I
opened my sleepy eyes.

But this really isn't about you, you know.

I am always hungry and like a forest fire
I am eating the cedar crowns brown and bare
just like me, and one day I will call you a fool

And then the sepia, crackling gods will return
from the ends of a caramel sky and race roaring
to meet the great wolf and his brother serpent
and I will go down to die in the heroes' hall,
and become russet, stinking, crow-picked
on the exhausted battlefields.

And then: my hunger at last will die ash-like
and I will not be left to gnaw on the whitewash bones
of the post-apocalyptic paradise, and I will leave you like a widow
tanned and sunburnt and empty of me, hungry on your own.

Barefoot

UGH, Sonnet, I HATE YOU. I'm so terrible at fixed-form poetry, but a poetry group I belong to convinced me <a ref="http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d59gy0a">it was time to have another go at a sonnet</a>, so here I am.

I think generally I did pretty well. Except for all the places I didn't....SONNETS ARE HARD. Gah, for me just getting rhyming and iambic pentameter was hard. RAWRAAWRAWR

Anyway...enjoy?

"Hold, Youth"

You are verging on knife edges, wild youth:
The pricking of the blade in your bare steps
Marks trees of paper cuts, spells out the truth
that like lime juice keeps the wounds fresh -

You're not yet the person you'll want to be,
And that boy 'cross the room for whom you long,
Wild youth, will swallow you down like sweet tea;
You must feel your bones curled 'round, and all wrong.

Tightrope walker, do not let yourself slide -
Sense the vice-fear like spikes beneath your skin;
Use them well, cliff-walker, toughen your hide,
cling still to the walls, hide even from winds.

Hold - hold, for a boy who shall not, Grendel-
like, crush you warm and wet, small and spindle'd.

Elementals

Ha'adam is the Hebrew word for "earth-creature," and was the word used in the Hebrew version of Genesis when describing the first being that the Abrahamic god created.

All comments appreciated! Enjoy!

"Ha'adam"


I was born beneath the sign
of the hazel tree, ideal for
wands or divining rods.

On my bad days, like Merlin I
look backwards on the days that are to come,
carry the memory of my future forest-prison.

But on days when I am fearless,
I become Morgaine and I
turn my lacy leaf-petticoats
to face the sun.

Where Our Destination Lies

Holy mother of god. This thing is huge. It originally began as my response to a contest prompt. It is my attempt to write in the style of my amazing friend's poem "Lay Bridge": http://azizriandaoxrak.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d4po01j.

However, after several hours of working on this piece and pouring my heart and soul into it, I have decided: this piece is for me. You are most welcome to comment on it, but for once I will not be accepting a critique on a piece. There is so much about this poem I want to improve, and perhaps at some later point I will go back and really try to hammer it into something. But for now, this is for me. :)




"Divination as a Means of Finding a Way Back"

            1.  I SAY NOTHING I AM THINKING.

For twelve years I have wanted

to do exactly this but suddenly

pronouncing my own name calls up

the question of who it belongs to

in the same breath Like

Solomon I was born a singer

but in the wrong key and my

chords will not carry me

hither and thither Will not

summon the wolves to me only

packs of hungry dogs

stupid with domestication

but nearly feral And like

a hungry ghost I have learned

not to speak against those

who will give me food

            2. A SKETCH OF MYSELF.

                            He says I must have been born

in the wrong culture, he says. I got a taste of

the crackling heat here, heat to drive you crazy,

and suddenly I open my wide arms for

New Orleans, find myself needing the wind from

the Great Plains. Like a buffalo I have the spirit

of the Sun and I carry it with me. I am a plant

of burnt umber,

                            brown, ready and waiting like

sage bushes, like the hill you go to that is best

for collecting juniper sprigs and telling stories. I

fill myself like a teakettle, dress myself in the

handmade poncho from Guatemala that my

mother hates but

                            that I can read with my fingers,

a kind of multicolored Braille, gathered into

sunset, stories that say I don’t really know what

it is I want to do with my life. I told my friend so,

one night when we’d had too much to drink

of beer named for a line of mountains like

Satan’s spine and I said I can’t remember

what it’s all for,

                            can’t find my way back and

there’s a side of me living for future generations

and one side living for the ancestors that fill my soul.

            3. I SPEAK AS A SHAMAN BECAUSE THE SPIRITS LET ME.

An yenow. An yenow th wrst part

sI can’ en remember when I stopd.

When I stopd wanin wateveritwas

in th firsplace. Anislike—Im old,

Aluvasudden. An Im middleaged.

An I really wanna new car, an Im

waitin on the divorce papers, yenow?

An all I really wanna do is tell stories

but slike, there someone tellin me

I can’ do it thaway, thadIm stuck.

            4. I SAY NOTHING I AM THINKING.

It’s just that sometimes I think

it’s psychosomatic Something

I do to myself like yawning or a

headache or the feeling of spider legs

against my skin after I’ve walked

through its web And I am Loki

or Iktomi or Anansi always

bringing it upon myself Like Saynday

I want to be able to dictate

that my stories must only be told

in winter after dark But I am always

fleeing before the forest fires watching

wolves take my nice fat goose feast

away at dusk And I can feel my age

starting to show like Thomas Eliot

once did Can feel the pressure

of childrearing over my head

like a cold front in the

summer mountains Can feel it like

little peaches in my hands

fuzzy little peaches

            5. I SPEAK AS A MEDICINE MAN BECAUSE THE SUN GIVES ME MY WORDS.

                            They will all come to me at some point,

I think. I’ve always had an aura for gathering little chicks

about me, and though I talk some days like coyote I’m

really Momma Bear.

                            I picture my future in many colors. One

in bright blue, pastel like the sky, and in it I keep everything

separate. One side of my toast is buttered, the other plain.

throw it up and it lands always, as luck would have it,

face down. Another is gold and red, the color of earth

and heaven as I sit among the saguaros and learn to sing

again. The last has the colors of the earth, browns and reds

and greens, and in it I choose neither path and both paths

and I stride beaded and gasping across the Plains.

            6. THINGS I ALWAYS SEEM TO SAY.

I have taught myself most rules.

Poe has guidelines for short stories.

Aristotle has requirements for plays.

They all seem to end up like sauces.

Introduce characters, plot, simmer

until reduced to the proper length.

Add ground sea salt to taste.

Fairytales, too, must always begin—

Once upon a time, in a land

far, far away—; conclude:

happily ever after.

There are better rules for horror films.

The Virgin survives, always.

The slut is always the first to die.

Jocks are never intelligent,

but seem nevertheless to have

a talent for leadership.

He will kill everyone, eventually.

I analyze myself like Faulkner.

I am a rage and a thunderclap

and like his novels the most

terrifying parts of myself are

the chapters I least understand.

But still there is something

horrifying about the chapters

that are written in crisp English.

At twenty-five I will marry.

At thirty I will become pregnant

with my first child.

At thirty-three I will give birth to my second.

Tenure achieved like a magic charm by forty.

Live forever in North Carolina.

Travel for two weeks every summer

in a foreign country.

Keep my camera in my fanny pack.

Fill my house with photographs

of my trips, because I lack the will

to describe them otherwise.

            7. AT LAST, MYSELF, AS A PERFORMANCE.

How my morning dreams always look like giants up

on the mountains and how I’ve felt as they said I would

the trial starting and the call like a white wolf’s howl

rising cold and reverberating against the snow

casting the pine dust into my lungs and how I’ve

never told you of all the faces behind my eyes

in the evenings and the ones that rise to greet me

in the mornings just like so many lovers.

            8. I SAY AT LAST WHAT I AM THINKING, WITH TREPIDATION.

Since I moved here, I’ve come to feel this Southern-ness

not like a single culture that can be boasted by a flag

but like a psalm. Like that feeling as you drive the last

thirty miles up the mountain sides and your ears pop

as you crest the last rise to see the thunderstorm that’s

been there all afternoon, waiting for you, waiting to

fill your lungs with heat, and scour them of their dust and

collected pollen clouds.

                                   

                            God is here. He is here and he draws

me and my sense of the South westward, and I can see

it fan out like a map in my head. I think of all the money

it would take to get me to Phoenix, get me to the

Grand Canyon again, and its beautiful red dust that

runs in my blood and calls to me across the distance,

get me there alone.

                            And out of the horizon my in my mind

comes the memory of how I began this poem thinking of

my fear of childbirth, of the nightmare I had when I was

sixteen about telling some future-husband I wanted a divorce.

And how I began this whole poem to say I’d rather write

like Isaac Asimov, and how I wish I didn’t write so

damned much like Wordsworth.