A Story of Blinking

A Story of Blinking
-inspired by a painting by my sister Madelene

Long after the home had grown
too old for the children,
the youngest returned to see how small her room
had become.

The bed lay tucked in around the shadows.
The lamps were lost
in a hazy sleep.
The stuffed animals watched
the intricacy of the wallpaper
not recognizing her
enough to turn their heads.
The curtains were drawn
and faded
like they belonged in a doll house.

Perhaps that’s what it had been.

A fairytale
like the ones that had leapt from their pages
into the midnight
beyond her tower windows,
the highest place
in her house.

Now the books slumped
against the scarce selection
of the bookshelf,
the memories she read too many times,
or not at all because
she never wanted them.

She flips through a couple
of the best ones
and remembers the beginnings
then the endings,
then reflects a moment on the anxiety
in between.

Her art hangs scattered on the walls,
real paintings and real emotions
she forgot to take with her:

a sketch of her father reading,
another of her mother playing her favorite melody
on the cello. She is listening this time;
it is surely her favorite melody.

A hidden garden and an orchard.
She can smell within the dried paint
the lavender perfume
and the maturing girl ready to plunge
far down
to a grounded world.

Almost she hears
inside the painting
from the acrylic background
the call to return.

And finally she discovers the last one, a small canvas
smeared with dusk
and words scratched into the clouds
like faint stars:

Once upon a time in a far
away place

he climbed to the highest
and she waited for him in the
and the moral of the story is
you blink your eyes like maybe
if you blink fast enough I’ll
disappear like a
frog princess

and they lived happily ever
after

She closes her eyes and imagines her spirit
as she was when she filled the room,
flitting from moment to moment like a butterfly,
gathering stories like they were marigolds.

The eyes reopen to a dying day. She leaves,
wishing it would rain, and descends
stairs that are steeper going down.

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I wrote this poem last night and revised it a little this morning. It's one of the longer poems I've written. It is probably still very much in the rough draft stage, but I like it and want to know what y'all think. Any themes you see? Any lines you particularly like? And lines you don't like or don't understand or you feel take away from the poem? Instead of me telling you what the poem is about, what do you think it is about? Yes, I have my ideas (otherwise I wouldn't have written the poem), but I'm looking for feedback here. 

Oh, and in case you were wondering which painting the poem is based off of, it is the last painting in the poem, the one with words scratched in. And the words are copied verbatim because I thought they were very interesting. Hope you enjoy the poem!

The Edge of the Fireworks

Happy 4th of July everybody! I wrote a new 4th of July poem so I'll post it along with the one I posted last year this time. 

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The Edge of the Fireworks
-You have freedom, now what will you do with it? 

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We celebrated freedom
from beneath the back porch;
ears pressed against the rain
to hear the thunder.

Lightning became our fireworks;
ignited by some unseen hand,
it escaped to every corner
of our eyes. David said

he wished his kids could see this,
and took pictures of the storm red,
the unfinished sunset, the moment
someone else was having.

I moved to the edge,
felt the tendrils of the fury
and the wind shift towards me
into my empty hands.

And I couldn’t go further.
I sat back down and remembered home,

while he continued to capture memories
from a confined distance. 

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Poetry is fiction. In actuality, at my camp, a group of us went out back to look at the fireworks, not just two of us. But while I write a poem, I begin to get a feeling for a theme or something. The quote is actually sort of unknown. A friend of mine put it as his status on facebook today, but I don't know if it's his quote or not; I only know it doesn't come up in google as a known quote. But to me, the quote captures a bit of what I wanted to capture with the poem: the sense of how we can limit ourselves in how we use our freedom. Did it work? Do you like the poem? Let me know what you think.

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Parting on the 4th of July

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These are the days of independence
when old things break
and pieces are lost forever.

Every final night at this camp
all the stars have dangled like white threads
being pulled a little closer.

These threads are slowly fraying.
It seems our destiny to spread out, to scatter,
to branch away from any home we make.

Once entwined, we are a gathering ready to disperse
like the fireworks bursting into the star-washed sky
only to fade and fall into darkness.

Maybe, mornings from now,
we too will find ourselves in hidden places,
but as children waking in the grass.

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I wrote this poem around 4 years ago while a camper at a different branch of the camp I'm at now. Funny, huh? Anyway, I really love this poem so I seem to post it every 4th of July. Hope you enjoy it too, and as always I'm open to suggestions.

Take care y'all!

Promises and Wishes

Often while on vigilance here at camp, I have time to revise older poetry, so that's what I've done and that's what I'm posting. Enjoy!

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“Only The Words Remain, Floating In The Air”
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In the passageway of his home, made of broken garage doors,
he told me this of unfulfilled promises, and I whispered it in my heart.

I imagined airplanes that never touch down, that circle incessantly
with giant whale shadows, sweep through the ocean sky,

and swim between the gathering clouds of more gray flights
and jets of smoke. It’s all I can do to hold my breath

when I’m a passenger, stuck where the air becomes thin.
But other marbled days I’m your childhood balloon man

who handed you the red and green ones at the fair.
Parents provide so many balloons; it’s not out of the blue

to hear that one more child has floated away,
clutching the thin strings of his rainbow cloud.

The wind pushes and some days I don’t come home either,
asleep in a silver current, as cold as winter streams.

At times my feet pounded down a steep green hill,
but more often I forget the grit of dirt and the force of gravity.

And somehow the words remain, floating in the air,
static charges waiting to connect, to return to earth.

This truth isn’t so strange as it is the dark side of nature,
these clouds rising, the ensuing fall of rain and thunder,

the light illuminating blackness, the sound, a crashing echo.
All across the world, lightning leaps the hollow chasm

between abandoned words that hang in the dusty air
and where we stand, as proud as trees on a crimson plain.

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A Wish
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My muse sat still across from me
while the outdoor café bustled beneath the glimmer
lamp posts, car lights, a weary moon
Somehow, we talked about dreams
and I said they were like fortune cookies
printing happiness with fake futures
adding color where there was only gray

She said that rainbows did the same
the hues were as hidden as the pot of gold
when the sunlight hit the final raindrops
I expressed a wish to see beyond such dark clouds
but she only smiled because it wouldn’t be enough
Certain dreams drizzle on the mind forever
and some make sense and others make art
The restaurant paintings I began to recognize
the people eating at the wrought iron tables
were schoolmates family and friends

This is when I realized the gray about her
The hair the eyes I couldn’t remember
or why we had come together like this
When did her voice begin to sound like mine?
It was then the morning pricked at my eyes.
Above me, shutters shadowed the ceiling
while my body struggled under a quilt of falling stars.

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The first one is about, as should be obvious, unfulfilled promises. I want that, at least, to be clear, and if it's not I have a problem. All the images that follow are based off of that and trying to describe through images the effects thereof.

The second one is about wishing for unreal situations, especially about being with people that you haven't seen in a while. Hopefully it should be clear, by the end, that the first part is all dream, doing exactly what I describe dreams to do within the poem. I'm still not sure about the title. I though of others like "Adding Color" or "Gold" or a couple other things, but in the end I just stuck with something near the original title, which was "I Wish". Perhaps it ought to go back to that?

If you have any suggestions for either poem, or comments (which I love), please post :)

To check originals go to March 24th 2011 and August 22nd 2010.

Vigil and a revision

First the poem, then my comments, then, hopefully, your comments.

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Vigil
---
Inside the edge of the forest
and surrounded by an abandoned path,
I watched a orange butterfly drift
from dandelion to yellow dandelion,
chasing the cotton-like seeds.

The path was a garden of lost flowers
encircling me. Home was through the trees,
out of earshot. Yet I thought I heard
melodies in the distance, and the laughter
of wandering children.

So many movements escape me.

For this reason, I traced with my eyes
the butterfly’s patient dance
an inward spiral, closer to me.
Flies, squirrels, and birds
appeared wherever I turned.

Yet the children never came near
this precarious place. I left this glade
alone, tired, dizzy.
A new road led beyond,
towards a growing silence.

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I wrote this poem while actually on vigilance duty at the camp I'm working at. Now, poetry is as much fiction as any other form, so what's written here isn't necessarily what happened. I just tried to take certain parts of my experience and see if I could capture the feeling of being on the lookout for something that never comes. I'm not sure if I did that great of a job of it though. I don't know; this just doesn't feel like one of my better poems so I'm very open to suggestions: lines you liked, liked you didn't like, lines that didn't help the poem at all, themes or images you wish I'd have explored more. Whatever.

Anyway, I'm also posting a revision of an older poem (Posted April 30th) as well, one that I think has turned out pretty well. Enjoy!

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For The Hands That Hold Us High
---
Tonight I want to say something gentle

like we are the blankets of suckling babes,
swaddling them as we entangle ourselves

because I recall my father,
the nights he tucked me in
with hand-woven stories.

and my mother,
the mornings she rose before the sun
to set a place for me.

Tonight I imagine the fatigue that weighs on them
is my world, kept warm by their hands,
held high above their bowing heads,

shaped like bent bonsais
tendered by the sturdy fingers
of past angels.

Tiniest branches,
spread out like wings,
become the prayers I raise.

They gave me shade and feathers to rest my head.
Though I was restless and a light sleeper,

tonight I am wrapped in dreams to carry worlds.

Spanish Poetry (And Some English Too)

Posting one new spanish poem and a couple older english poems. I'm pretty busy here as a counselor at Spanish Camp, but even so I like going back over my poetry and taking out the the ones that express well my emotions even now. The second one I've changed a bit recently, so it's almost new.Enjoy.

El niño por la ventana

Se ve una plaza silenciosa lleno de bancos vacíos
bajo lluvia, que cae                   como la risa ansiosa,
como el tamborileo de pies escapando o la corrida de un río
rebosando en primavera.
                                        El invierno reposa
adentro, donde un niño mira por la ventana oscura
el espacio afuera,
                            libre y mojado de imaginación,
mientras los secos se le olvidan en su apresura;
se meten y se pierden en su programación. 

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Memories of a Lantern Festival

A returning:
the sun sank within horizon’s arms
like the loved returning to her lover;
the sound of birds took flight into the sky
to the pink paper lanterns
setting sail.

A separation:
the fire, the paper, the candle between,
the glow wedged between black water and blue sky;
our thoughts had left our bodies
to float offshore in the waning tide 

and join the spirits of the dead.

A memory:
smoke rose into the disappearing light
as if giving tomorrow some prayer of returning;
the lanterns carried loved souls of a different day;
even we were like ghosts going home,
watching ancestors wave in the flickering wind.

 

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Walking Out on a Movie 

I could explain the right and wrong of why.
I could tell you it's a form of death,
but you wouldn’t understand me.
We have had this conversation before.
You told me,
“Give it a chance.”
I did, against my better judgment.
But I have been here before.
Not in a past life, this one.
I inevitably walk out with wasted time.

Maybe you look at me as I go.
I don’t look back.
Maybe you think I’m intolerant
or I need to loosen up.
I don’t need more loose screws.
Maybe you think it’s as harmless as chocolate ice cream.
For your sake, I will translate my mind.
What if I don’t like chocolate ice cream?
Perhaps I like vanilla and sometimes strawberry.
And what if I don’t like ice cream at all?
There’s too much sugar
that gnaws at my bones.
I’m tired and I want to sleep,
so no more caffeine or whatever.

I don’t like the bitterness in the back of my mouth. 

Would you begrudge me a choice
when the choice is mine?
You say it’s worth it in the end.
But there are so many of them that are worth it
when the nuances of taste leave the memory.
So many flavors and variations that I enjoy.
Or millions of movies that I could otherwise watch.
It takes time to watch a movie
when I could be driving home from here,
the wind reeling like film through the window.
The steering wheel takes me around the corner
to the back road that opens up to green fields
and leaning maples that line the banks of brooklets.
There, the autumn leaves descend like rain on houses and yards,
as if they are creating paths where even children can wander. 

Give me that landscape.
I will watch it for hours.

In between moments

Hmm... "in between moments" sounds like a good poem title doesn't it? Well that's not the title of this poem. I have some poems I'm working on  but while waiting (in between moments) I present one of my favorite poems of mine. Normally I format it with more interesting spacing, but I haven't found a way to do that well on blogger. Even so, enjoy!

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Layers of a Moment 

The back door hangs open;
the front door clicks shut.

The mother stands past the doorway.
She thinks briefly of him, of them, of how they will be,
as she carries a bag full of lettuce,
beets,
and onions,
whose layers are breaking, beginning to slide inside,
And then of dinner and evening obligations.

The father sleeps on the couch.
His mind twirls with what never was,
is,
or will be,
The wind blows in from a nearby window,
lifting a page from the open book on his lap.
That page is always on the verge of turning.

The brother sitting on the carpet imagines an adventure,
in one hand a red truck,
in the other, a blue plane.
A story at dawn in the desert
where the dunes
are slipping away
and neither can see through the sandstorm.
It’s sad, but they must collide.

The sister in the mirror has left the faucet running.
Her washcloth is wet with dabbing her eyes.
Yesterday is tugging at her hair:
a comb caught in the knots of memory,
leaving behind
the tangled strands of youth.
A fresh breath is slow in coming.

And no one notices the clock stuck on the wall
or hears the definite tick of the second hand.
The mother calls out to all the family.
The father awakes as his page falls back in place.
There is a crash of toys and a gasp of surprise.
The moment runs though the back door.

The Sun in the Stream +

One of my favorite instrumental pieces is a song called "The Sun in the Stream" by Enya. I'd recommend listening to it while reading the following poem. There's a Youtube video that plays it along with pretty pictures (but you don't need to look at the pictures, just read the poem)

The Sun in the Stream

The Sun In The Stream

- Inspired by a song of the same title by Enya

A reflection at rest between the leaning oaks,
the heavy day slides from the cradle of branches
into my hands
when I take water to drink.

I let it wash over me and back to its course.
Just like sleep reaches us at the end
of a race, so too I am caught
with warmth
grown from my fingers,

the roots feel from the weight on my shoulders
to the weakness in my heels,
to wrap around my heart.

Truly sunset is like my mother’s arms around me.

The door of night swings on gentle hinges.
Shadows pass through; I sit and watch them go by.
The lines in my eyes are like untrodden paths,
all choices I left behind.

I remember: my father and I rode airplanes across the sky;
shooting stars evaded me like fireflies.
my siblings and I swam across the lake
leaving trails of ripples I could never calm.

And here, letting the sun drift downstream,
I let go for a moment;
the leaves fall from before me
until the current carries them into the fire.

Ashes of memory mix with the horizon;
the darkness swirls with the deep red,
like hundreds of pomegranate seeds,
but I recognize the taste of each one
the tart, the sweet, the bitter;

I would swallow it all
if only it would glow within me through the night.

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I think it could still use more; perhaps some more and perhaps better concrete images? Anyway, I'm also reposting my previous poem about the tennis ball in the dryer, with some changes.

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The Tennis Ball in the Dryer

It was the unruly heart of my home;
an inconsistent beat shaking
dreams out my left ear
where they joined the clutter
of closed books.

Late into that night
the nervous
rhythm
echoed like the coming and going
of loud footsteps,
or banging on the door,
keeping me awake.

The games we played as kids resounded inside
that rotating drum,
while the clothes continued the battle
back and forth
over who would win
beneath the dry heat.

My mother once told me a ball is good for beating
the fluff in pillows, the down in quilts,
like a fist,
but I wasn’t so practical;
I found it in the woods,
leftover from a dog’s mouth,
and decided to wash away
the smell of sweat and anger.

We had no history;
it had no purpose,

merely something to toss around.

Yet even now when I come home weary,
heart holding the moon like a muted candle,
I bounce against the wall my ball of memories
and hear it return on the other side of silence.

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Hopefully you enjoy them! I won't post for a while since I'll be busy working for the next 7 weeks, but hopefully I'll have more to post at that time!