Final poem draft, Week 14

Death’s Dinner Party

The Seattle fog condenses on our skin
as we walk from the Saturday house play; Antigone
would never face such a dense wall as we wallow through death’s
dinner party. We were his guests it seems as I clung to the arm
of your Armani suit. Our lungs breathe in what could
have been exhaust or the sky, depending on how you
look at it. Looking up from the balcony, I see a lone
mist barely formed across the cuticle of a moon, wipe
my glasses to hide the shiver from your cool touch. What
is there to fear as you turned to sip your bourbon?
When I was ten, the night sky was never so allusive nor fearful
as I squinted to find the lone figure staring down from the rooftop
across our building while the catacombs of the city loomed.
Turning then, I knew as if always knowing
that our deathbed tucked in so tightly could not bring back
what I had seen, the naivety of the unknowing would
hover over us as we dreamed of nothing.

Poem Draft, Week 13

Looking at my reflection, my vertical panel of teeth not yet grown glistened at my only friend. Nothing stood there. My knowledge of the canyon and its nightmares opening below me does not glimpse so easily from my gaze. I sit as if on a Windsor chair brightened by the faux sunlight, scrambling to speak but all that came were gutturals and half knowing smiles. I lingered at the ledge of my crib, spying the unknowable I would colonize one day as the pale window moonlighted as my heaven. I gazed through the mirror, unaware that its reflection was not of another. Welling from within, I did not fear the mirror facing itself. My face, within a face, within a face. I always knew what was hidden behind the closet half opened by its reflection before my lids closed, unhinged by the soft side of my pillow.

*Here's a rewrite of a previous draft. I still might need help with the framing.

Poem Draft, Week 12

What I must Have Thought When I Was Two

Looking at my face reflected the same guise,
a vertical panel of teeth not yet grown.
My knowledge of the grand Canyon
and its nightmares does not glimpse so easily
upon my face. I sit as if on a Windsor chair
brightened by the faux sunlight, scrambling
to say something but all that came were gutturals
and half knowing smiles. The ledge of my crib
was where I lingered, spying the unknown world
to colonize as the pale window moonlighted
as my heaven. I gazed through the mirror,
unaware that its reflection was not of another.
Welling from within I did not fear its nightly
gaze upon the closet. I always knew what was
hidden behind that door before my lids closed,
unhinged by the soft side of my pillow.

Poem Draft, Week 11

Elegy

Ask where you were when they built the wooden bridge across the Chattanooga from leavings of railroad pegs and the shed long abandoned on the border of Alabama, that space of illiterate signatures. What pine or oak originated

from those pillars and whose saw slid the chest of every ring? The homeless have no names and sleep under what we might call the crows feet of the wood. Like a bridge made of mortar and stone. The Appalachian sunset is not at war with skyscrapers.

Ask yourself: Whose side are you really on when the city lights mimic the stars so well, and paint a second sky on the Chattanooga?

Draft Revision Post I

There’s a photograph I keep, little known illusion of what was. Remembering that chimera of my family standing together like the paper dolls I used to cut out of stationary paper, bits of our address still peeking out from their feet. The photo fades each time I hold it. I never liked how we smiled anyway. It was my birthday then. You could see the towered cake in the back and Spike the Boston Terrier trying to escape from my sister’s grasp. My mother was never photogenic, her eyes always droop at the sight of a camera. Looking back at how my father could never look at us straight in the eye, his back always turned from us. He left soon after this picture was taken. We knew his back was always turned at us, at our mother. I still keep the picture and remember how to never have my back turned, nor my eyes averted from my reflection.

Note: This is an initial piece I wrote a while back that I would like to work on first. It seems to need some tweaking, but as far as critique goes I was wondering how to keep the more candid use of the language, but try to expand on the images of the draft. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Improv, Week 8

Poem: “Clouds” by Denise Levertov

The clouds as I see them, rising
urgently, roseate in the
mounting of somber power

surging in evening haste over
roofs and hermetic
grim walls—

Last night
As if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling, as if the last traces
of warmth were still fading in you.
My thigh burned in cold fear where
yours touched it.

But I forced to mind my vision of a sky
close and enclosed, unlike the space in which these clouds move—
a sky of gray mist it appeared—
and how looking intently at it we saw
its gray was not gray but a milky white
in which radiant traces of opal greens,
fiery blues, gleamed, faded, gleamed again,
and how only then, seeing the color in the gray,
a field sprang into sight, extending
between where we stood and the horizon,

a field of freshest deep spiring grass
starred with dandelions,
green and gold
gold and green alternating in closewoven
chords, madrigal field.

Is death’s chill that visited our bed
other than what it seemed, is it
a gray to be watched keenly?

Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,
clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning
into myself to see
the colors of truth

I watch the clouds as I see them
in pomp advancing, pursuing
the fallen sun.

Revision:

Seattle fog, the only marriage between the leavings
of the city and clouds who have fallen, are always
gray with a tinge of brown. It condenses on our skin
as we walk from the Saturday house play; Antigone
would never face such a dense wall as we headed
to our lighted apartment as if walking through death’s
dinner party. We were his guests it seems as I clung to the arm
of your Armani suit, our lungs breathing in what could
have been exhaust or the sky, depending on how you
look at it. Looking up from the balcony, I see a lone
mist barely formed across the cuticle of a moon, wipe
my glasses to hide the shiver from your cool touch. What
is there to fear as you turned to sip from your glass of bourbon?
When I was ten, the night sky was never so allusive nor fearful
as I squinted to find the stars of my youth that barely clung
to the night sky. Turning then, I knew as if always knowing
that our deathbed tucked in so tightly could not bring back
what I had seen, the naivety of the unknowing would
hover over us as we dreamed of nothing, nothing at all.

Calisthenic, Week 8

Our story isn’t a file of photographs.
The upended book falls from your
lap or from the kitchen tabletop
with the cover of victoriously armored
women perched upon a bow
or a balcony. You slow motion through
such tales of heroine afterthoughts
as if they were our story in reverse.

The shutter of the camera never captured
their story as much as ours, with words
that blew over every coffee shop we stalked
at 2 am. You mime the Virginia Woolfs
of our day, though she never existed
in my mind. What cyclical breathe calls
you so admonishingly to a day when our
story was, indeed, a file of photographs?
You never understood and neither did I.