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Thomas Hood wrote:
Sweet juices, I think. Friction definitely belongs in your book of poems. It has immediacy, involvement, tangency, structure -- objective features of a good poem. I could defend it in court.
Tom
Why thank you, Tom. Very kind, encouraging words; just what I need to hear today.
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Mango Passion
Reaching into the refrigerator the door brushes against my breast
like his hand gently reaching out to caress.
I close my eyes.
He's gathering me to his body
bones fit
flesh to flesh.
At the sink cold water runs over the fruit in my hand
splashing shivers over my body
like his nose against my neck
I close my eyes
little moist kisses
tingle and burn.
Slicing into the mango
the knife slides into the silky flesh with a push and a pull
like his body into mine.
Juice drips from the open fruit
I close my eyes
His hands pull me down
The mango meets my lips
like his
wet and sweet
sliding softly into my mouth
I close my eyes
I can taste him.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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And this one is me too.
Poetry (A Perspective on Life)
It sustains me, carries me into the morrow
And the next and the next
it floats me gently on an old inner tube on a hot July Afternoon
cool & shady
trees dip their branches in for relief
like my own toes dragging in the water
leaving a long ripple that follows me
a wake, my imprint momentary
And gone like the water it is written on.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Last edited by Saffron on Thu Oct 02, 2008 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Yum, Saffron!
You have a very lush and delicious sense of imagery. Educators talk about how some people are auditory, visual, or kinesthetic in their dominant mode of thinking and processing. It seems to me that you are...what would it be called? Gustatory? Expressing and processing through taste. I have a sense of chewing and savoring these poems, of your images melting in my mouth. Maybe it's a kind of kinesthetic processing. I like it. And you said the "voice like chocolate cake" thing, too.
I did see the boxing poem before, but I guess I was having some kind of memory gap between that poet and you. Now I'm having an "oh that Saffron" moment: you posted many of the really good poems here, went to the poetry festival, had an illegal picnic, like REM...now I know who you are a little better. Thanks for reminding me where the original poetry was. I get tired and act even spacier than I am.
_________________ "Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton
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GentleReader:
Quote:
"oh that Saffron" moment: you posted many of the really good poems here, went to the poetry festival, had an illegal picnic, like REM...
Yes, that is me.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
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Here's another of mine.
Listening to Mary Oliver and Annie Lamont
I stop my car
The honking is incessant
The words are coming sharp and clear
Must write you into a poem
To hide in a box
In the back of a dresser drawer
To contain my longings
Those not appropriate
For one not available
Trying hard to push my desire
Into the lines of the poem
Stuffing it discreetly between the letters of
Ordinary words
Hello and good morning
Pin you to the page with each syllable
To contain the unmanageable
So the wetness will leave me
And my knees will not buckle
Listening to Mary Oliver and Annie Lamont
I've stop my car
The honking is incessant
I'll never get to work
And if I do my knees will surely buckle
Because he'll be there
And no poem will hold this.
Last edited by Saffron on Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Gita at Walden
How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the East!
I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions.
When Arjuna draws his bow geese in arrowhead formation
Cross the sky, needles of pines glint in the rising sun,
Sagitta pierces the Milky Way, winter twigs make cheval-de-frise,
And Damoclean icicles hang from the cabin's eaves.
In rhythm of tension and release he draws his bow.
Between taut string and curving bow he makes
The space of birth and death and drives deep sorrow
From the soul's dark pools. Such arrows halt the flight of time.
Birds' nests are built of what once lived. Life lives on death.
When Arjuna draws his bow, cranes call in the shade,
And radiances of pulse and particle and wave,
disclose the inner truth of skeletal remains.
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Work in progress
This poem has no title - a work in progress really.
trying to make sense of the world that makes none,
not desolate, almost joyful and yet there is sadness.
little shards stepped on when not attending.
like when I was a kid in the summer
walking to the little store for candy
in bare feet the heat of the tar
the yellow line conversation
and the shards of shattered bottles stepped on
surrendering to the discomfort of my bones
so that I can stay close in
pulled up to his chest to the movement
listening to the sounds of a man with a head cold
hoping the sound will carry me up and over the sadness
to rest and relief
Feed back welcomed - even solicited.
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
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Thanks for the poem and the invitation to comment. I can see these things in your poem and am fond of "the yellow line conversation" as well as other images. Do you think there could be a way of changing or even eliminating the introduction of the first two lines? They could be too, I don't know, expository. Maybe when you do think of a title, that would give a little bit of direction for the reader if you thought the poem still needed it?
DWill
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DWill wrote:
Do you think there could be a way of changing or even eliminating the introduction of the first two lines? They could be too, I don't know, expository. Maybe when you do think of a title, that would give a little bit of direction for the reader if you thought the poem still needed it? DWill
Yes, you are right about the first two lines. I knew they were a problem and I know it is the title that will replace them. This is the precise reason why the poem is a work in progress. The original poem is somewhat longer. I've already pulled a few other lines like the first two. I really am trying to give the reader credit by just putting down the images and allowing him/her to make what he or she will and not hit him/her over the head with the idea.
....humm, how about In Bed as the title...no, not quite there. I know what I was meaning to get at, now if I can just find the words to pull it all together....
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
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Shoeless
Try # at least 3
I know the following titles are not quite there.
Without protection
_________________ " How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry, What Are People For?
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” -Thich Nhat Hahn
Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
Thanks: 270 Thanked: 215 times in 172 posts
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I think I got it.
Shoeless
Little shards stepped on when not attending.
Like when I was a kid, in the summer
walking to the little store for penny candy in bare feet.
The heat of the sticky black tar scorches
yellow line conversation
and the shards of shattered bottles stepped on.
Surrendering to the discomfort of my bones.
So that I can stay close in,
pulled up to his chest, to the rise and fall.
Listening to the sounds of a man with a head cold sleeping.
Hoping the sound will carry me up and over the little unintended hurt
to rest and relief.
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Saffron,
I like it. Thanks for sharing your writing process, too; that's really interesting. Would it be too pedantic and missing something if I suggested eliminating the "penny candy in barefeet" image of walking candy by changing the syntax of that line? It could be either "walking barefoot to the little store for penny candy" or "walking in bare feet..." or something like that. (?)
_________________ "Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton
Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 2638 Images: 5 Location: Round Hill, VA
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GentleReader9 wrote:
Saffron, ... Would it be too pedantic and missing something if I suggested eliminating the "penny candy in barefeet" image of walking candy by changing the syntax of that line? It could be either "walking barefoot to the little store for penny candy" or "walking in bare feet..." or something like that. (?)
Thanks for the suggestion. I had moved the lines and words around so many times I hadn't noticed the bare footed candy. Ooops. I'm dropping penny and will rearrange the wording a bit. I wanted to keep the long e of feet to match the sound in heat.
Little shards stepped on when not attending.
Like when I was a kid, in the summer
walking in bare feet to the little store for candy.
The heat of the sticky black tar scorches
yellow line conversation
and the shards of shattered bottles stepped on.
or is this better
Like when I was a kid in the summer
walking bare footed to the little store for candy.
The heat of the sticky black tar scorches
Last edited by Saffron on Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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