Univited

One Big Silence

two voices
reach my shores
hinting metamorphosis
within stagnation
i’ve had no expectations
only secrets buried under
awkward desires
with one big silence.

now an old order
bends
beginning a new story
but i idle
in the shadowy dregs
of how the story goes
wondering how to move
with this unrecognizable gesture.

dodging my blindside
i get stuck
fearing what else I might miss
if i don’t face the opening
step through the passage
pay the respect
of knowing
that i’ve got nothing to lose.

You Were the One

cherry pink
compacted losses
pretty feathers
you were the one
i completely screwed over
so softly i barely knew it
a shadow of a move
tracing backward
showered in shame
and emerged under the table
of a dog’s breakfast.

On the Shore of Everything I Created (Without You)

this quiet night
still, white
i am reaching
to sense
for the opening
to a calm
about the choice you made
to collapse your world
to shift
your focus
and to find your place
within the arms
of this new universe
on the shore of everything
i created without you.

there is a shakiness
that comes with this
heading out each morning
locking my front door
half expecting to see you there
when i turn to face the day
relieved at the impossibility
still, scanning the slushy streets
looking over my shoulder
on the streetcar, wondering
what you look like
to me, as a stranger now
from across a crowd of people.

and now that you’re here
somewhere tangible
within this city
i can get a little choked up
thinking of what you might be facing
but i know better
to not extend my reach
into the nothingness
that swallows our history
we have nothing there now
to balance on
this means something new
needs to be created
and there is simply
no place for that.

instead i see myself
settling into an order
that has been restored
you are here, integrated
with those you love
who i also love
and they all love us
and in turn,
i love you
and somehow feel happy
to know that you are nestled
into your part
of this wintry night like me.

I Do Love You

i do love you,
over and over
bright light eyes
draw-me-in grin
you make me feel
closer and closer still
curled into
the creases of your soul
i offer up
every part of myself
each day
like a completely novel idea.

If There Were Parts Like This (June 2000) [from the archives]

I’m reposting a very old poem. I’ve reworked this so many times over. I want this piece to be illustrated. And printed in children’s book format, with a paragraph on each page, rich with visuals. I’m hoping that Sandy and I can one day do that together.

I

Recently, the sky has fallen
and there have been cold flowers at dawn.

She slipped out the front door
one evening,
sat on wooden steps
in her summer dress
and said,
“I’ve been watching the stars fall.”

II

It had been a warm summer.
The landscape hummed when it was dark,
allowing silence a chance to be heard.
And it was in those moments
that she would think hard about the dawn,
the cold blue flowers
and why they might have stolen her wings.

She thought hard about other things
she may have said that would cause
such things to be taking place.
“I have been careless with my wings before”,
she said,
“but there have never been cold flowers at dawn”.
Not here.

III

A few summers ago, she watched a piece of the sky fall,
but thought that it had only been an accident.
And besides, she had her wings, so it helped;
she was always able to catch the stars before they hit
the humming landscape.
It was a busy night.

She hadn’t been getting much sleep.
When evening began
she would slip out the front door
and say to herself “I guess I’ll just sit on these steps
and watch the stars fall, one by one.”
She was clumsy, so she didn’t try to help the recently falling sky,
she thought it might make things worse.
She would just wait, until dawn
and then walk over to where they had landed,
look down at the cold flowers that had replaced them
and ask in a very low voice “Do you know where they are?
My wings, they’re gone, and I don’t know why you are here”.
She cried a little bit.
And walked back to the steps,
thinking hard.
“Sky. Cold flowers. I don’t know.”
Her white shoes were dirty now, from these
walks out to the flowers.
By this time, the sun would be out and she would
feel hungry and lonely.

IV

The kitchen was bright
and full of dusty sun beams.
She ate a plum over the kitchen sink,
and wondered why no one was noticing
what was happening.

“Or, maybe they have noticed.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.”
She realized there was a chance
that none of this really mattered;
because it happened all the time,
and that makes it right.
Something right, and not wrong.
Things happen.

But she was sad.
She couldn’t help but be sad.
She could only whisper to herself,
over and over,
about the falling sky
(long breath—“..the sky. it’s falling.”),
her wings
(heavy—“..my wings.”)

She mostly kept quiet about the cold blue flowers.
She didn’t understand why flowers
could surprise people,
at a time like this.
She wanted to ignore their existence.
She didn’t have time to be thinking
about new (beautiful) events,
she was busy
staying up all night,
worrying about lost and broken things.

She sat down at the kitchen table.
It was quiet, sunlight was moving in waves.
“I don’t know how the story ends.
I know how it started;
I know every absence, I know I was making it go this way.
Now, it’s stopped. Flipped. And, flowers have come
here, they’ve stolen my wings.
Making me sit here and watch.”

V

She was right.
The sky really had been falling.
The ground was scorched,
but people would just walk by
on their way to work, stepping over the debris:
half lit super novae, spinning stars, even rings from planets.

It was so quiet, and she couldn’t stand it.
There was no laughter, there were no smells,
there was no saving anything.

She walked around outside,
passing over the same things,
and felt split in half.

The flowers
in her periphery
stayed cold and blue –
but she noticed
they were growing.

With the utter of curiosity
she was compelled
to ask the flowers a question,
and with this
the night unfolded into day
as it does,
and she woke with the morning sun
to find the answer.

With My Arm Wrapped Around Her

I often dream of my grandma
glimmering Ukraine eyes
sometimes right up close
draped in her mink coat
overlooking a mint green sea
on a continent I’ve never been
my arm wrapped around her
offering her affection
she would not reach for then
but was claiming
here, now.

I moved from within
to enfold her
capable and sturdy
all 4 foot ten of her
my head tilted to touch hers
my chin itchy
on her cashmere beret
her sparkling brooch
dialoguing with the sea
looking down at her face
I see her eyes
steady and smiling
and I knew
that us meeting here
like this
was no minor thing.

Other times it’s over there,
I see her in saccharine mist
walking a leafy autumn hill
alone as she would have it
and I deeply sense
the deliberation of her choice
to be with me
extending vigor and clout
to take into my waking
sleepy morning darkness.

I Saw it Living Inside

the art inside me
seeped out on bloor st. west
the snow beneath my heel
i felt the art
that i’ve been reaching to create
i saw it living right inside
with me everywhere
spilling out so effortlessly
now, onto this moment and that
and i wonder if
this is what it’s like.

without the old tether
i see that things like inspiration
are right here
in the radiatar and red clock,
not perplexing me.

Perpetual Hearts (Inspired by Tony Hoagland’s poem “Migration”)

My writing coach sent me three poems in the mail a few weeks ago. She sent me this awesome package, with a letter, and print outs of four of my poems with handwritten feedback on them. She also introduced me to Tony Hoagland – amazing poet. Funny, piercing, uplifting writing. She asked me to venture into the same exercise of using another writer’s poem as a launch pad for something new for you. I didn’t use much of the poem for this piece – just one line – and it is the very first line in this piece: “The future ours for awhile to hold, with its heaviness -”

The future ours for awhile to hold, with its heaviness –
it’s endless projections
of who I am now
mapped onto a nameless terrain
with all my little hopes
contained in perfect glass structures
warming in the light
of my perpetual heart’s desires.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a miracle happening
in my home town
of smoke stacks and union workers
border crossings and strip bars –
a humble statue of the blessed virgin mary
sits on an average front lawn
in an average neighborhood
weeping at night
with oily tears,
and although she is smiling in daytime
people are talking
about her sadness
her weathered love;
people are praying and praying
at her feet, on the front lawn
a smokey stack on the horizon
feeling touched, being seen
by a presence wished for so mightily
that they too are weeping
and looking, loving and opening.

I don’t believe that Mary
has leaky tear ducks of canola oil,
but I think I do believe
that this is beautiful
this reaching and yearning
an exposed need so raw
human nature so willing;
I want to be there too
standing side by side
vibrating with the miraculous notion
of believing in a miracle.

~~~~~~~~~now Hoagland’s “Migration”

Migration

This year Marie drives back and forth
from the hospital room of her dying friend
to the office of the adoption agency.

I bet sometimes she doesn’t know
What threshold she is waiting at—

the hand of her sick friend, hot with fever;
the theoretical baby just a lot of paperwork so far.

But next year she might be standing by a grave,
wearing black with a splash of
banana vomit on it,

the little girl just starting to say Sesame Street
and Cappuccino latte grand Mommy.
The future ours for a while to hold, with its heaviness—

and hope moving from one location to another
like the holy ghost that it is.

~ Tony Hoagland

As Close (and Closer): An Exercise in (Re)Writing

So, I’m working with a wonderful woman, who is my “writing coach”. Her name is Chris Kay Fraser, and here is her website: www.fireflycreativewriting.com. I write stuff, we meet, or I email her pieces, and sometimes I meet with her and a friend of mine for some group writing. The process has just begun. Sometimes it’s hard to fit writing into my life in a more disciplined manner, as opposed to it just bubbling out of me at spontaneous moments. So it’s really good to be challenged in this way. I also have some goals and desires around how I’d like to see my writing evolve. I’d like my writing to weave more real-deal life stuff into it – as opposed to a more abstract-emotion-based approach….which is easy for me to write, but not always the easiest thing for others to connect with. I’m also just getting a bit bored with my style and want to push myself more creatively. And, I’d also love to write an “Urban Yarn”. But I’m not entirely sure what that is yet exactly. Hopefully Chris can help me with that too.

Anyway…one of the exercises she’s given me is this:

“I want to introduce the idea of the poem “response”. I read this great quote by Freud the other day, something like: ‘When inspiration doesn’t come to me, I go half way to meet it.’ This is how I think of a poem response. It’s a way of bringing our work towards us, so we aren’t starting it alone.

How do you respond to a poem? There a are a million ways, and since you’re such creative and amazing souls, I’m not going to make it too formulaic. Here are some ideas:

~ Take the title
~ Take the first and last line
~ Take the mood of it. The tone. Imitate it.
~ Write a poem on the same topic
~ Write back to the writer — your response to their images/opinions/message
~ Keep writing the poem, as if it didn’t finish where it finished.

… basically, just ask yourself, “What works for me here?” and work from there. Let the poem bring your inspiration half-way.”

ok! so, I took a poem she gave me called “As Close”, by Maggie Anderson, and worked with it. I included my poem first, and then Maggie’s is after that. I love this piece of writing. It brought me to tears.

As Close and Closer

I am alive in October,
and because of the leaves
I am reminded of fractals woven
into every single moment
between you and I,
this room and Markham St.

I know you’ve been let down
and pinched and pulled
by lovers and fathers
that have wrapped you up
into their storms
leaving you hopeless and cynical
recoiling from a gentle hand.

I see you there across the room
your face lined with grimace
holding back tears
and I can’t help but feel hurt
by what you said to me
even though I know
it was your inside-out way
of confessing
how fragile you are,
like wet webs on weeds
in early morning fog.

I have attached my eyes onto you, stranger –
I left that night so badly wanting
to take you aside and whisper:
“I don’t want anyone I’ve ever loved
to leave me now –
they helped me shine from the inside
with their bright lights.”

And if we begin to cry
I want us to know
it’s because of the way
our shirt sleeves brush against
our own arms
and each other’s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~now, the real deal:

As Close

I could stay awake for years driving the nighttime
streets of this West Virginia city in a rusted VW
that doesn’t belong to me. I am alive in October, ready
to record the rise in the wind. It’s because of the leaves.
How they shine from the inside with that bright light.
How they shift their colors from hour to hour, how they
traipse around the bends of the Kanawha like scrip
pulsing down to the coal towns. I don’t want anyone
I’ve ever loved to leave me now. I want all my friends
and old lovers and the children I know to stand beside me
and push their heals with mine into the damp ground
if it rains. I want us all to stand together in our red boots
in the early morning fog, watching the wet webs on the weeds
and attaching our eyes to their fragility.
If we begin to cry, I want us to know it’s because of the way
our shirt sleeves brush against our own arms and each other’s,
as close as the coming snow will be to the stark trees
and the black branches it will pack up into.

~ Maggie Anderson