Poetry Post #5

Neighborhood, Version #1

Your overturned bed sheets
and a hive of kamikaze bees -

the rupture of their bodies
in our backyard.

Your toes splayed over
red and white tiles -

the recollection of those little shards that
pitched downward into the night.

 

Wyeth Painting

There are things to come across her path/ The thinned summer sky pressing down on her dress;/ A static wind comes and then another.

A mouth-less, vision-less crawl in the dark./ She feels a temperature rise, a sea roaring distant/ There are things coming across her path.

Waiting for the hollow creak of the door,/ Or birds landing in their grounded nests-/ One wing catches her cheek and then another.

Giant hands, circus hands, the smile of her crooked elbow./ “Money” and “surgery”, like invisible bombs falling –/ The words accidentally coming across her path.

The collapsed trunks after a storm,/ Her legs slumped, tucked under and useless/ First one lame thigh – and then another.

So left in tangles of briar and ragweed,/ Twisted bones like tree limbs –/ Clever eyes moving on the things in her path.

An hour closes in on her, then another.

 

Both of these are impossibly old (1-2 years.) The first, “Neighborhoods”, is an early version of a poem I submitted to the Bridport Prize. Of course, it was rejected – but I don’t see that as really discouraging. It’s important practise to submit submit submit and be rejected. The second poem was a modified villanelle I did for a creative writing course, based on the Andrew Wyeth painting, “Christina’s World.” It’s not a shining beacon, but I liked working with the form and I’m excited about taking a class in versification next semester so viola!

Christina's World, Andrew Wyeth

Berlusconi Parmesan

My cousin Acacia, Vassar graduate and writer extraordinaire, is currently abroad in Italy on a Fulbright. Her blog juxtaposes Italian and American culture and it also serves as a satellite for her experiences as an English teacher in an Italian high school. She shares pictures and anecdotes. Her writing is colorful and thoughtful. Read on:

http://berlusconiparmesan.com/

You Were What Mattered Most

My friend Ryan put together a video of our mini-trek across Italy a couple days ago. Early into our trip, we realized that the best way to absorb the culture was to just be in it, rather than paying for it. Sure, we missed out on a lot of things (and to be fair, we did pay to get into the Accademia), but I think we ultimately had a better time than a very well coordinated museum hop. We spent a lot of time in laying in parks in the sun, dipping our feet in canals, trying to get lost in cities, sharing headphones, eating breadsticks and jam (the poor girl’s diet) and dancing.

Which is primarily what the video is of.
I think we really captured the best of Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice and Milan. And the very best of Keele too.

Of course, watching this made me really miss living in a state of mind and being where I could just decide to fly somewhere, anywhere in Europe I wanted. I miss Venice and how it smells, I miss the heat, I miss the train rides and observations and simple amusements. I miss old buildings and art. More than anything, I miss my Keele friends. Watching the video made me realize that more than anything. We had a really good life. We still, have very very good lives, of this I am sure. I just wanted to note that I could have been anywhere in the world; So long as the friends I made were with me, I would have had an amazing time.

When Ryan and I were doing our pants-dance, we were all just sitting around in Laina’s kitchen, eating olives and breadsticks. Drinking that pride of Liverpool, Lambrini. We had spent the entire day laying out on the lawn, doing absolutely nothing but enjoying one another’s company. How often are we allowed that now?

Two nights later, Laina and I trekked through her woods to the observatory. Just because we could. Just to enjoy one the company, the night sky, the reeling happy feeling. And the final months dissolved into walks in the woods with Pierre, guilty reality TV pleasures with Kelly, the development of a bad habit with Ryan, dancing with Amanda, baking with Laura…

I just wanted to clarify – in case there had been any confusion. All of you were what mattered are what matter the most to me.

 

 

November Comes

A crazy man peters up on a motorized scooter, looks at no one in particular and says,

“Daylight savings time
I have found is
The best time…”

His poem trails off in sunshine and the reprise of his tiny bike engine.

Another man with a guitar stops and asks me if he might play me a song. I may choose from three subjects: Protest, love lost and love found. I go with love found, sip my tea embarrassed as he stands over my body in the leaves, singing me one verse after another.
A pug is being dragged along the cobblestone with a dead leaf stuck in his whiskers.
It is sixty five degrees on November 8th in Maine.
I put my face into the sun and hope for a few last seasonal freckles.
A man poses with a plastic tommy gun. He wears black lipstick and jumps on and off and on and off a park bench.
I think about going north, towards Nova Scotia red tides, beards of pines on mountainsides. I think about being dirt caked for months, nails split with rich brown, guzzling sea salt.
Another man in the park with a guitar plays a slow wail of a song over buzzing cars.
The sun begins to sink to the other side of the world; I’ll begin again soon.

Something Missing

It seems as though everyone I know is yearning for something that is just out of reach. Our bodily experiences have nothing to do with what our minds crave… And loneliness is born.

What does it mean for someone to feel differently about their lives depending on their location? I couldn’t tell you how Edinburgh felt, exactly – it’s just different. Lately I miss Edinburgh and Liverpool.
When I go out to a bar or club or some limb of either, now – I expect to see certain faces that are not there. The weight of drink swirls inside my belly and evaporates to my head. Five months out and this disconnect is still completely palpable.

So, what does it mean to survive now?
My greatest fantasy has long been giving up my possessive ties over people and belongings. I want to be entirely untethered and poor and happy. That takes a certain amount of stupid, blind courage, which I lack. My ideas about being completely desolate and dependent on the kindness of strangers of course, is glamorized. I’m lower middle class, but I’m still middle class.
But the conditions under which my heart and soul seem to thrive and survive seem more impossible since my return to Maine.

They tell you to go and pour yourself into every experience when you are abroad. And of course no one knows how to handle the devastation of the return. And no one can tell you how to, because no one ever knows how to.

Over Edinburgh

On the Autumnal Coast of Maine

Eat your pizza on a kitchen floor, while spooning.

Watch mountain goats scamper

Hobo City. Do not enter.

Drink sparkling porter.

Mountaintop pinecones for mom

The point.

Everything smells like smoke

I can't dog. I'm dun.

Open Letters

Dear Keele and England,

Could you stop for one moment to consider that I’ve still got a life here in Maine? I realize you feel the need for me to include you in my dreams every night. It’s also become clear that amidst my good things here, you will steal my attention with hunger pangs and phantom limb feelings; so I break concentration and daydream my time away, thinking of when I’ll see your pretty woods and prettier faces again. Well that’s just not fair! I’m in Maine now, that’s just how it’s going to be. You’re making moving on extremely hard and I have a lot of things that require my full attention here, like coursework and a job and more fun things. Maybe not as fun as you… but… I… See what you’ve done to me, Keele? England? Own up to this! Someone! Anything?

Dear Portland,

Well, we’ve got a history don’t we? Not all of it good – but we saw each other through. Your summer fogs and storms were among the most sensual of weather; your sunny warm days and ocean smells are unparalleled. Remember that time we watched a man in a gorilla suit chase girls down Exchange St? I laughed and you just flickered your lights joyfully. You’ve fed me and clothed me. You’ve seen me fight and fall and I still feel like it’s a homecoming each time I return to you. It’s you I sleep with tonight. And no, maybe not entirely by choice… But we can build from our history. While Keele has caused a certain amount of devastation, you can repair it.

With Love -

Caroline

A Sudden Abbreviation

This has a tendency to happen, and I try to not be too hard on myself about it – because who can control the flux of creativity anyway?- but I have nearly ceased postings again.

In one week, I will have moved to Maine and started a full class schedule and a new job, so don’t expect the pattern in my posting to change.

I suppose that part of what this stall in writing means, is that I’ve been quite busy. My vacancy here doesn’t represent a lack of color or wealth elsewhere; it’s quite opposite. I’m one fortunate bird these days. This summer has been strange for sure and I’m still not adjusted to life here, but I’m beginning to understand that that’s not something I should even begin to expect. It should have seemed obvious all along: things can’t ever return to how they were, once they have changed. You can only expect to be thrown through loop after loop after loop – and I really do tend to like that sort of thing.

For now, it’s still a case of Wherever You Are/ Be Somewhere Else*, which is engraved  on a timepiece, that usually sits dead center on my chest, which opened – reveals that I’m still in another time zone.

*Scroll down. It’s worth the fancy finger work.

This One Time… #2

There is nothing wrong with complete madness for a period of time

This one time, I drank so much I  thought I was going to die. It was a particularly mischievous night and I was kicked out of the student union. The above picture personifies the revelry of a single night at Keele.

I am twenty three years old this morning.

This one time, we went to London. It was the weekend of my birthday. My friends woke up really early to blow up tons of balloons and put them in my bed while I was sleeping. Laura had baked me a cake and it traveled with her all the way from Stoke-on-Trent to London!

"Here's to just doing this thing!"

This one time, we all went out to the Keele student union with glow bracelets on. We made a promise to give away all our bracelets to attractive members of the opposite sex. It was the Anti-Valentine’s Day bash. My friends gave them away I think, but I simply lost most of mine.

Making Wise Choices in Poetic Wonderland

The current issue of Poetry Magazine is unbearably good. Just what I need. It’s currently doubling as my journal as well. The poems by Tony Hoagland stand out in my mind:

One poem will make you bigger.
The other poem will make you smaller.
Drink and/or eat them.

Strange creatures in a garden. Also known as peacocks.