Tupelo Press 30/30 Project - Poems 16–20

Poem 16

Gradient

  

A storm petrel flutters

over choppy water, flicking

drops into the sky

that touch the waves

any number of places

invisible in this wind.

All fear and softness,

the bird’s body gives

muscle a rest, expanding,

bracing its hollow bones

against the moving air

hoping, if birds hope,

land of any type

makes its way through

the shifting horizon, arriving

sooner than tomorrow’s dark.

I want to yell

into the coastal fog,

tell the storm petrel

it is not much

better here on shore:

turn back, the mindless

mist remains in spite

of all our striving.

But the wind sweeps

all my warnings out

to sea, performs again

the ritual ripping away

it knows so well.

Almost extinct, the bird

feels things inside it

tilt now, almost tumbling

out of their places.

This is the moment

I start walking again

farther into something not

water and not rock.

The storm petrel cries

or sings a note.

It punctures, hovers, fails.

_____________________

Poem 17

Density

It is not the opening of eyes but the opening of blinds

to snow that starts this day. I roll over, quietly naming

things not in this room: carpet, food, a body’s rearranging

of sheets in a different direction than that I rolled.

Heat is held back by the door, an inch of cold hovering

inside the threshold. I reach for the handle, the only exit

emptying into another inside. It turns the same way

as always, it barely fits the curve of my hand, quietly

holding in or holding out, I do not know which.

Twist and pull—the balancing begins: one air curdling

into another, wood floor catching light in new angles,

something quietly moving that is not me. Not even close.

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Poem 18

Make it Sunday

I need not describe it

in terms of loneliness. It is a depth,

approximate at best, a center

housed in a body defined

in relation to foreign things.

_________________________

Poem 19

Paraselene

A slope rises to the horizon, only a few inches from my face

if this were a painting. I would say that the snow glitters

but snow only covers, and it’s a flimsy dusting at that.

I want to name the snow, to call it you because it is

cold—it is a cliché falling from the sky, barely

less obvious than the moon, which has itself

changed shapes since last night. On the road

I can see the aftermath of wind silhouetted

against the asphalt: the shadows of things

more substantial than they themselves.

Out there almost no headway awaits.

Test your weight. The surface holds

a moment, then splits: a tilted body

sinks, stops, steps again knowing

each future footfall sinks anew.

I could turn back to see all

the hollow proofs of flight,

but all the sunken scars

I leave this landscape

point up the slope

to me, a traveler

who feels, but

does not hear

the quiet

filling.

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Poem 20

Utterance

                 —For Maggie

May the wall crack

your back. May retreat

find you screaming

without artifice,

without guile.

This is the art of sacrifice:

not a hole—a shift

in the heart, a pulling

toward something

outside

the body, an animal weight

jamming the chest, breath

the only struggle. That other

blood-filled body

pulses just like yours.

May you be the foreign object

splintered into wood.

May your skin break.

Tupelo Press 30/30 Project - Poems 11–15

Poem 11

[Under Revision]

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Poem 12

Winter Morning Walk

The wind biting

one side of cars,

every cross street

pushing it under

your coat, swirling

around the torso,

up through the arms.

Bad circulation pilfers

blood from your fingers

sooner than last season.

This must be

getting old. Plod

uphill, the bus stop

funnels the wind chill

in either direction.

Cold, inescapable cold

tightens the skin:

you know right where

your keys are. Clenching,

unclenching hands,

lowering the chin

to breathe the warm air

out, hang the wetness

leaving the body,

a promise of more

cold to come

but not now. Now

there is waiting.

This is not new.

Lately the letters

do not return

in the same month

you sent them,

not even months

that end in embers.

At this point

you could not

lick the stamp for fear

it will not stick.

But this is not

the hard part;

the hard part is seeing

soil harden, glass snap,

water turning white

and cracking underfoot,

a type and shadow

for skin, your skin.

_____________________

Poem 13

Blight

Snowflakes fall

through the night-colored windows

into and out of sight,

unaffecting from your looking place

where you raise your eyes,

lowering them again into so many words,

symbols of senseless things

never caught at the end of a tongue,

never melted in breath,

their comings and goings unknown

to the world’s insides.

________________________________

Poem 14

Setting

This evening holds nothing extraordinary. Not even the chives in my soup

are restless. All the major religions have heads on their shoulders again

and the pilot lights to all my old flames have gone out the open window.

I even had time to read today—a book, even. Imagine reading a book.

I met the author in college, a friend of a friend. She was older. Forty-something

pages into not being able to put her down, I read a letter she had chopped

into lines. It set me somewhere between spotting her name on a poster and peeking

through the blinds when I knew she’d be naked. Those hormones have ebbed,

mostly. She tells me about the moon: we are forlorn, she says, thanks to her place

in the sky, drawn to her majesty precisely because we can see it. There is no reflection

not conceding its surface to her at some angle. I was thinking about her tonight, wondering

which of my windows she’s chosen to smear as the soup steams itself back to sleep.

________________________________________________________________

Poem 15


Visible

A nearly full moon
Layers of ice under snow
Your breath in the air

Tupelo Press 30/30 Project - Poems 6–10

I am floored at the wonderful response I've gotten for this project. I've already got enough donations and pledges to be over my goal, so a huge thanks to everyone who has my back. Seriously.

I've decided to put the poems on this blog every five days, so here are poems 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. If you want to see them as they come up, you can still see each one on the day it is written by clicking here and scrolling down.

~

Poem 6

Waking

In the second dream, a bird pilfers

all of the scraps from my desk.

None of the typing ceases or slows.

Unfamiliar but comfortable, this place

takes its grayness for granted, even outside

the rooftops nearly disappear

in fog. Dropping into half-veiled places,

chirping once, the bird only wants to be

found. Another someone supplanted

here takes notice, moving backward

despite the nature of walls (useless:

the sky is right there) remaining the same.

The bird and the other someone are quiet

now. It is time. That something moving

inside the pillow is your heart

keeping cadence, thick like a hollow bone.

_______________________________________

Poem 7

Flight

Rolling over, a train

in motion, silence:

these are all the ways I move

away from you.

________________________________

Poem 8

Windburn

Received unwillingly, a warmness under

skin confuses the body. Closed

eyes veil the room: you have not left,

no, the place has shifted in neglect.

Do not speak to me of want.

Every rearranging understands itself

in relation to the floor, window lit

on certain mornings. A man passes

my house, a grocery bag in tow.

He passes every day, the same burden

in his fingers. There is something

he does not wish to carry into night

let alone tomorrow. You are enough

whatever it is you want for today

for both of us. You can take these words

for granted, if you wish.

I will catch the singeing scraps,

impaling every one, a sapling.

___________________________________

Poem 9

Splintered Things

We become these things. Or rather,

we turn these things to pulp, ingest them

in some form or another, and carry on.

Never mind this piece of paper

spent years rooted among its cousins

in a forest or part of a forest that endured

so many fires and the exploding cold

only an arid winter understands,

the closest it ever came to touching

the other trees (not counting wind)

being when squirrel leapt from its neighbor,

bending its branch with the unfamiliar

weight of a body built for climbing.

Never mind that at all. It is nothing

like grasping a hoarfrosted fencepost

hoping what pours forth is not blood.

___________________________________

Poem 10

Revision

            —for Anie

the knife in position

the body’s division

the mind’s indecision

eyes shadowed, masks

the body’s rescission

the mind’s imposition

the knife in decision

bleeder

the mind’s indecision

the knife in precision

the body’s derision

incision, excision, suture, and out

Tupelo Press 30/30 Project (Scroll Down for the First 5 Poems)

Hi Kids,

I've just started a month long poetry marathon called the Tupelo Press 30/30 project. I’m going to write a new poem every day in December and all of them will appear on the project website (you can see my face here and find the poems somewhere in here [or just scroll down in this post]).

The project is also a fundraiser to help Tupelo Press do what they do (printing interesting books, defending the cause of poetry, validating my existence, etc.), so I made a goal to raise $400 through the course of the month.

I hate, hate, hate asking for money, so to ease my conscience a bit I'm offering a bit of a payback system for anybody who wants to help:

• A $15 donation gets you a poem dedication (I'll write "For ______" at the beginning of the poem).
• A $20 donation will get you a poem written about you or the subject of your choosing.
• A $35 donation will get you the above, plus I will write and send you your own poem (a new one that won't appear on the site).
• A $50 donation will get you the above, plus a kiss, and I will write the new poem on fancy paper and mail it to you so you can keep it forever (Christmas presents, people), AND I will send you a hand made chapbook of all 31 poems when I finish.
• A $99 donation gets you all of the above and 9 books of your choosing from Tupelo Press.

If you want to do one of these ^ please let me know and I will write you down. First come, first served.

~

There are three ways to donate:

1 - Subscribe to Tupelo Press by going HERE, filling everything out, and remembering to put my name in the "comments" field.

• You get 9 books for $99. You can choose the 2013 series, another year's series, or just handpick 9 books that sound good to you.

2 - Complete the Tupelo Press Donation Form by going HERE, filling everything out, and remembering to put my name in the "honor" field.

• You can choose the amount (be sure to tell me if you're over $15 so I can give you your reward) and submit it.

3 - Donate Using PayPal by going HERE, clicking on the orange link that says "Quick Donation via PayPal," and remembering to put my name in the "message" field.

• Yay.

You can get a tax receipt for items 2 & 3 (not 1, since you get 9 books) by providing your mailing address when you donate.

~

Please don't feel any pressure whatsoever to donate. If nothing else, just follow the poems and enjoy your December.

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Poem 1


December

Not long ago, the wind was full
of things: leaves mostly, occasionally
a plastic bag. It filled them
the way wind does, imitating water  

and, some nights, pausing

to consider itself, accidentally

sharing with the ground
all the once wind-filled things.

Morning makes its way

through my skeleton, the wind blows

what’s left of the unseen sunrise

into my unprotected eyes.

Keep your finality, I can still see

through you and into the future.

______________________________________________
Poem 2


Cover

     —For Chellee

A song that is not your own

picks its way through a crowd

almost shrouded at the edge of one

fire’s reach. The outdoor amphitheater

lends itself to leaning forward,

a patient strumming at the tipping point.

This is all of us: landlocked.

Here the boundaries are built of dirt,

there are two tomorrows, stars

in their normal places and farther

downhill and through the trees

more stars bounce off the lake.

Between verses I remember

you are left handed: some would say

your guitar is strung backward

but your fingers fit the chord

without a first glance, the way the blind read

braille, another language we don’t speak.

A song is no religion, but close

enough to soften rocks

or at least coax them from the water

you have chosen for your backdrop.

Silence keeps the secret of itself

in the tree line. The fire burns.

If we waited long enough

you could show us the size of darkness.

_________________________________________

Poem 3

Bound

The crosswalk lines, newly painted

in a warmer month, dissolve.
That is no way to say it
but to say decay is too much
against the shadows stretching
into what was once an afternoon.
I am the only quiet thing
left in this city. I want to sleep
the way I always sleep: curled
away from nothing or something
without a heartbeat. Not now.
Around the corner a house (not yellow
enough to be yellow, too yellow
to call it cream) sits. That is all.
It sits. On the other side of a fence
two tennis nets sag, the weight of color
lifted long ago, the way it leaves
the beards of young men and every tree
that has not learned of permanence
through release. I am nearly home.
There, where the yard starts, movement
pried my gaze from the concrete once:
I thought it might have been a bird

choosing not to fly away in fear.

It was a leaf, something heavier

holding it down just enough, too much.

___________________________________________
 
Poem 4, which contains a secret message.

I’ll Call You Back

                    —For Danielle (You asked for it.)

 Certain duties have me

Restrained for the time being.
After dinner I was forced to
Poop in someone else’s house.

Ordinarily, I’d stay on the line, but

Ring me in fifteen?

Going here is all off. I’m impeded,

Every side an obstacle: a crotch-encroaching sink,
Toilet paper disorientation, texts.

Oh, my feet have fallen asleep

Five minutes sooner than normal.
Fear settles in. Is someone outside?

That was a footstep. They know I’m here.

Hum and haw, run the water, pray it doesn’t
Echo.

Press forward, push onward, forget

Or repress the phone-sized splash in my panic:

The door isn’t locked.

_______________________________________

Poem 5, whose title has two meanings.

Syncope

In darkness I feel the human desire

to diagram the heart, an artist’s
rendering, beautiful and incomplete
enough to label the ruptures without
naming them. It is possible
to feel guilty for being wronged. Try
catharsis in the old sense of the word:
sketch the necks of geese.
I stole that line from a gallery—
it fled an open mouth, I found it
in the stealing place. I wrote it down.
When I kneel at my bed at night
I do not ask for justice. Justice hovers
out of focus, out of sight.

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