Musette

14 lines

In case you're wondering--OK, Brenda asked--I mostly work with 14 lines of 9 or 10 syllables. It's a form I like. These not-exactly-sonnets are interesting to me. Maybe 14 is my lucky number.

Writing with Julia, Part 2

While Julia was poeming away across from me, looking up occasionally to say things like "I just wrote a poem--it was easy!" and then "I did five revisions just now" I was trying to write about snakes, from a line "a man playing with snakes." Nothing. So I went back to what I remembered of the lines Julia had sent me, something about windows, and glass falling out... Here are the lines I didn't bring with me:

Working on the 40th floor

You look up Third Avenue
at the tiny cabs and busses,
the specks of people join and turn to clouds
moving across intersections, dispersing,
re-collecting, moving again, tidal.
At night lines of red tail lights
spread through the city's body,
the long wide avenue--an artery
taking the light away.
You are watching from the window
your forehead pressed to the glass.
If the glass fell out you would fall
but the glass won't fall.

And here's what I'm working on. It's awfully naked to post something truly in process, but the point is, everything starts somewhere. We have these verse-y conversations, and we keep working on them and eventually--or sooner--poems happen.

The vertigo of waiting rooms

If the window broke it would fall in rough,
blunt pieces, walls gone, cells blasted open
and something escaping, DNA
in blastospheres twisting apart, their
alphabets now spelling out the name
of a plague, a loss, your dis-ease. How
fleeting it felt, just a twinge, flashes
of a headache--a temblor, almost
imperceptible, tethered to the
fault line unzipping the other side
of the world. You take a breath, deep, slow,
trying not to think of this. The ground's
still steady under your feet. No one's
yet noticed the cracks in the tinted panes.

Accordions

You just can't say "reedy accordion music" and not deliver. Thus, the Cafe Accordion Orchestra. Just ask David about how long I looked around for this stuff before landing on it. Have a listen here and here for a taste. We'll pretend we're all in some place where it's playing, and no one's being ironic about it.

Writing with Julia

I have the week off, but I like to think that even if I didn't I'd be writing with Julia, poet extraordinaire, who works just up the hill from me. One of our routines--irregular though it may be--is to trade lines. I send her a few lines, she sends me a few, and we interrupt our workdays for a poetry moment. Sometimes it's happened that one of us will write "a keeper" right on the spot, in the midst of our deadlines and the rush of the workday. Sometimes nothing. Today we met up at Cafe, Cafe -- nice place--and wrote. She started with some lines I was carrying around from Carole Maso, whose work I love, and I intended to start with some lines she'd e-mailed me, but I forgot them. We're both back at our desks now, and Julia sent me the poem she wrote while we were together. Gorgeous, no? Like all of these pieces, it may be revised--it's a live, juicy thing....

There are swans, there

There are swans, there
are ducks, they are
out of reach behind
the fence. I throw

small bear-shaped crackers—
extravagant—next time
I'll bring bread. It is
the first time you can walk

here and the first time you
notice ducks. Your face
is the delighted face
I have not caught on film—

your mouth is the open mouth,
your tongue in and out
since you found I can see it,
although invisible to you, rooted

and yet able to move.
There are swans there
are sycamore leaves.
You sit and I heap them up

on you.  You wear the
delighted face until it
turns to the more face,
the more voice. You say

more, it is the first
time— very clearly, there
are not enough leaves
in the field to please you.

Julia Cole

A poem from Pam

I was hoping to see what fellow poets were up to--and happily, it didn't take long. My friend Pam Nagami, whom I met when she needed help with her first book, The Woman with a Worm in Her Head,is a doctor who specializes in infectious diseases. The book is a memoir that follows her into the field, sometimes quite literally, and it's fascinating.

What do you do after spending years  in the company of odd bugs, worms and  conditions?  Write poems and go back to school in English Lit--at least that's what Pam's doing. She sent this poem, which is still in the "might be more revisions coming" stage...

She writes: I was at the Keats museum in Rome in October visitng the room where he died. The bed is different, but the ceiling is the same. Keats was no stranger to Laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol), but for some reason his doctor withheld it during the last 6 weeks of his life when he needed it most.

                                       To Keats

                        Fellow physician, consumptive poet,
                        You fed your muse on arterial blood.
                        At twenty-six you were young enough
                        To feel sharp love for Fanny,
                        But doctor enough to know
                        That rotting lungs could not bleed life for long
                        Even into your poetry.

                        Imaginary beings you summoned:
                        Hyperion and all the Titans overthrown,
                        Who tasted death, yet could not die.
                        We moderns with our tuberculosis drugs
                        Can only guess
                        How these immortals consoled you, Keats,
                        As staring up at those monotonous tiles,
                        Laudanum withheld,
                        You asphyxiated wide-awake
                        In that narrow room
                        At the foot of the Spanish Steps.

                                      Pamela Nagami, M.D.

Gotta start somewhere

Sometime months ago I thought I'd start Musette as another way of playing with words, and a new way of talking about writing--what supports it, what gets in the way. I'm thinking that what helps is actually giving poems a home outside the drawer. It also helps to stop pretending that they come in rare flashes of inspiration, or that they're the fruit of a certain carefully cultivated mood or set of circumstances. Actually, they're all about exploring what's all around, whatever that happens to be. Thus, the photo of the Pelican Nebula (thanks Astronomy Picture of the Day!), which popped up on the computer screen wanting to be a metaphor for something besides space exploration and cute flightless birds. I haven't written a poem (yet) about this "larger, complex star-forming region about 2,000 light-years away in the high flying constellation Cygnus, the Swan." But it could happen. And may well.

I'm about to embark on round two of the "30 poems in 30 days" experiment I conducted in December. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The rule: Finish a draft of a "real" poem--no cheating, no taking up haiku all of a sudden to get it over with--before going to bed each night. Typically, things got written between 8 p.m. and midnight, with some sessions ending at 2 or 3 a.m., which took a certain toll on my work life. At worst, I was nodding off over a stalled piece, waking to chastise myself, and somehow continuing. At best, I was sitting at work when Julia the poet sent me a few lines of something and I clicked into poetry gear, whipped off something in response. The important thing was just -- doing it. Even when it felt impossible, silly or like "who am I kidding--this stuff is garbage."

In honor of the project, I'll eventually post all the pieces. A flock of 30, many in need of work, all containing  *something* that interests me. And then--time to start again.

#29

If only you could see your mind

You wait for evidence that something
has arrived, spread flour near the sills to
capture its tracks, however small—even
an ant would carry in some trace of
white. But soon you forget the traps you’ve
laid and your own pale comings and goings
mark the floor, perhaps obscuring the
presence of the new thing, perhaps only
hiding its absence, until the rooms
are full of your motion and you see it,
tangled path of a fly tapping softly
at the glass, bouncing to the next and
the next closed window. The waiting ends then,
begins again as you let yourself out.

#28

17 names of god

Endless blue of calving glaciers. A
mother’s soft fingers on her infant’s
silken arch. Jazz. Noticing, the act,
the instant. You/Yes/You. Idle stirring
of a hand in space, galaxies set
spinning. Flash mob of love. Somersault
of chaos and perfection. Laughing until
we cry. Ocean voyage that touches
every continent, names each species.
Our desire to name. O perfect
mouthful of watermelon. Bits of
mirror in a crow’s eye. The embracing,
the embraced. The lover whispering
“beloved.” The silence then. The noise.

12/28

#27

The single hitch

This is the simplest knot, rope wound
once around a pole
     curve and angle of their bodies
loose end nipped against an edge, a shoulder
     she nests her head there
the knot’s clasp resting in tension,
bite of rough surfaces, wood and jute
     how they mark one another.
This knot was meant to bear a load--
     the boat that carries them, drifting from shore
let the rope go slack and the hitch
spills instantly. How delicate, the balance
of gripping, pulling away. How easy to shape the loop
     each of them dangling a hand in the water
imagining it will hold.

12/27

#24

Hanging out with Procrastia, muse of misplaced imagination

Your muse pulls up late in a Lincoln
with suicide doors, her Camel filtered
glowing in the dark. She’s got a list
of bad habits that complement yours and
none of your cheap excuses, which in
itself is inspiration as she
drives you to a thrift shop where a Ouija
board suggests the cocktail dresses, a
camphored glamour you imbibe like
spritzers from some sacred spring, assuming
the calliope you hear in the lounge
later on is a sign of divine
design. Tomorrow you’ll be orphans
or au pairs. Tomorrow you’ll write that poem.

12/24

#23

As if there were any other color

Red, I want your red, the glowing tide
behind your eyes, red sky of lids that
pulls you in, closed petals secreting
your scent. I want your red, our fingers
pricked, blood mixed, red drops on slides the breath
inside, the wind on Mars, dust clouds of
stars, red giants, spectrum reading: deep,
dark red. I want your  pomegranate’s
hidden beads, your most forbidden fruit,
seductive red you’re dangling almost
out of reach. I want your fire siren
garnet in a glass, your crazy sparking
firecracker dreams. I want your red
wagon scream—I confess. I want your red.

12/23

#20

What survives fire

The door it entered through—the outline
of hills, their inadequate lock. Ashes,
ashes and everything falling. What
survives fire? Irreducible
whiteness of bones in grit. And paper,
oddly, lofted by the spiraling heat.
Memory, too, at least after smoke and
spark, erratic as your scars. Time snaps
into before  and after, veering
the way wind shifted the liminal
flames, the house cooling then but the air
shimmering with a sense of defeat, this
twin we move through life with now, wanting
to run away, wanting a reason.

12/20

#16.

It wasn’t an apple

Her naked curiosity—eager
reaching for soft knobs of figs that rest
against white limbs. Her hand slips past the
leaves, their five splayed lobes like fingers, wide
palms that shield the sweets or, like hers, curved
to cradle and conceal. Knowledge of
ripeness comes first by fumbling touch,
then the soft bites pulling the flower
open, anemone unclenched, tongue
rubbed across flushed blossoms crowding the
hollow, the tangled lushness that hides
within the synconium. For a
moment, her only sensation is taste,
the wasps still in their deep sleep, soon to wake.

12/16

#15

Daily bread

That trick you do: wires pulled through
heavy cream, a lightness of the
wrist, your sleight of hand, the liquid
thick and then the clouds that lift beyond
the clatter of the bowl. It’s more
quiet where I am, I’m wooden
spoon in dough, a stiffer push, a
longer rise. I cook the way my father
danced, the diagram, the step-step-step,
less sex than steer the shopping cart,
meticulous, but wanting more. We
make our feast of cumulous, boule, tart
flakes of snow. The quick transfiguration
the cool proofing, our kitchen tango.

12/15

#14.

Still sounding

Skimming sound from silence like salt from sea pools --
    Boys and their wooden rakes, the crystals they haul
   
Snow’s touch on white paper, evaporating, almost tapping --
     Boys and their crystal sets, signaling through walls

A single hand’s clap, a tongue-less bell --
     Boys sifting grains of white noise that vanish as they fall

And what if no one hears--will we have happened after all?
     Wrapped in the imperceptible, almost waking as it calls

12/14

#13

Lifted

A load of clothes, his wet heavy shirts
tangled in the basket, tails and plackets
wrung in her hands, which dip and lift to
fill the line up. He likes his cotton starched
and straight, likes to feel the iron’s weight,
her permanent press, the weight she hates,
the way it’s bent her – once she had a maid –
resents each pin she clips to wire, this
clammy trap. But when she leaves a breeze
picks up, the limp arms rising, a gentle
flap, chests lighter in the sun and floating
now, filled by the breath that feeds my
lungs, this soft spring wind suspending us,
our brief secret, we burdens, weightless.

12/13

#12 (in which the Virgin of Guadalupe somehow becomes entwined with Joseph Cornell)

A Cornell box: Missing doves/whispering virgin

Painted white balls set into a dovecote.
    A woman cloaked in stars, dark crescent at her feet.
Sound of the birds that would seek out each niche.
    The sudden scent of roses, heady in the rocks.
Sun mistaken for moon against the clouds.
    She gathers the blooms, hands them to her companion.
In place of eggs, these quiet spheres.
    Her image on his coat, the inexplicable golds.
A thin white circle rubbed into the gray.
    Fingering the tilma, thin and open as sack cloth.
Light playing over the surface like seasons.
    Guadalupe and its daily miracles.
A shadow, a feather, what’s been rubbed away.

12/12

#11

Millions and millions

In the new hall of planets, Saturn
is already sagging, rings askew
and a size too large. All myth’s been stripped
and a god who castrated his father,
ate his sons, is here a tame “gas giant”
known for its halo. Impressive, but bent.
Awe has always been a tough game. It’s too
easy to check your hair in the glossy
wall that maps the galaxies, maybe
millions, in a sliver of sky you could
hide with your finger. How small we really
are, we think, minds turning to manicure,
barely pausing on the vast. We’re just a
smile in the mirror as we fly past.

12/11

#9.

Kali says change your ways NOW

O flawed and faithless being, surrender
monkey in this jungle of temptation, your future,
as Kali sees it, is a question: Do you suture
the spurting wells of desire or just start the car
and aim for Vegas? Either choice will leave you empty,
but only one will make you a contender
in the sword dance of redemption. You could simply
stay where you are, though even that would leave a scar –
teethmarks from the gnaw of wanting. But if you disgruntle
the higher order, favor hind brain over frontal
expect hell-bent dakinis and no place to take cover.
You can’t charm your way free, sweet talk karma like a lover.
O mass of unchecked impulse, consider this vision:
When the muck’s cut away, you could be the elision.

12/9

#7

Wilderness

The vein I licked into you, just a faint
trail, pushed down grass, nothing I thought I would
ever follow back though I did, again
and again until you were familiar
as my own pulse and even lost I knew
where to go. Smooth places time and I
have made smoother, those silted pools at
your hips, sling of your thumb, the silken
tip of you--there at the edges of us
no friction, path worn soft by our constant
passage, our curious fingers and
tongues. Question and touch. Even when we
forget how we got here, why we came, we
can still trace the shape of us. The map remains.

12/7

#6

Snow back home

Falls. Handprints on dark water, white, the
fragile fingers. Each one disappearing
differently? Try not to think hip/crack/
cheek to gravel, a melted spot then black
ice. Storm brought down the top limbs this year,
dangling from straps of younger wood. Pulled
off by a truck and chains. Wish for the
quiet of handsaws, sawdust filtering
into the drifts.
                          Watching from windows
they’re old and far away. The neighbors
come by. Same walk you shoveled, never
easy, rock salt still untested alchemy,
rough-edged crystal on crystal. Chipping
the thick-slick glaze. Not everything melts.

12/6

#4

Road rage would be counterproductive, wouldn't it 

Somewhere your double is looking for a
parking spot, wrapping the axle
of you like a scarf of DNA, hoping
to slip in without jogging an alarm.
We share so much with even nematodes –
880 iterations
of the code – that statistics alone
say there’s a fat fundamentalist you
who speeds by the yoga mom you hitching
to Burning Man. But cosmology adds
that for every placid angel there’s a
fleet of wrathful dakinis out for blood.
Remember that as you glance in the
mirror, press the pedal, cut yourself off.

12/4

#3

The puzzle of existence

Dumped on a table it warps the boards
like black holes bending space/time into whorls –
perhaps they, too, drain clockwise in the
northern climes, or spiral, arms extended,
as a galaxy might, or the hairs on
a child’s head, eddying ‘round the cowlicks.
No photo on the box (no box), no
given set of pieces, just a sense of
echoing, macro to micro, string
theory becoming a game of cat’s
cradle that leaves you wondering about
the cat. The puzzle of existence?
It’s a game for all ages. You push
randomness to order, put out a dish of milk.

12/3

#2.

What we talk about when we talk about love

Level of complexity: simple,
at least for the purposes of this story.
We’ll make the woman buxom, beautiful,
the love interest stupid, smitten. Mind
you, I ought to mention she’s a poet
(that’s the buxom one), a sort of laureate
if truth be told, which it won’t. No, seeing
much beyond the superficial these days is work.
So we’ll play this the way Paris Hilton sings—
sex, grind, bump, rhyme. Fuzzy?  Fine. Want sonnets?
It’ll cost you. Uncertainty? Nyet. Hunger?
Sin? Sorry, wrong century. What lurks
in the reptile brain is all that’s left, streaking
consciousness, leaving spots. Grab your id, honey. It’s time.

12/2

#1.

Her soldier boy

Lullaby, or was it an elegy—
mother singing to a man in a helmet,
her intimate knowledge of him, phrenology
of soccer bumps, broken bones, his sextet

of scars: It’s still him, quiet, well-mannered
yet emptied out now, a cottony fungus
in his mouth, his skin pale, the hammered
tin of his eyes bright yet blank. She won’t fuss.

But outside she’ll gouge his name in a tree,
primal, enough, a way to extract
a sense of him, there again, an entreaty/
threat to some god of limbs for wholeness. A faint

shift in his face, reflexive, intelligent—
or so she hopes as she hums a spell
erasing what marked him as target.
She wills him invisible. Human. Full.

12/2