So Sweet, So Tender

I have a slight obsession with the concept of poets (usually male,) reading poems about their girlfriends, significant others, or wives to audiences in which their girlfriends, significant others, or wives are a part of. So many times we imagine a female poet being the one who writes about her personal life and the romantic, personal persons in it (guilty as charged), but there's something so sweet and incredibly tender and endearing about how when a man reads a poem about his girlfriend/S.O/wife, he never looks at her, never acknowledges her, never puts her on the spot, and yet, you can see the understanding pass silently between the two.

These two poems come from two different poetry readings I sat in on. The first one comes from a reading given by Galway Kinnell at the Burlington Book Festival, and the second was a reading by one of my professors at Champlain College, Warren Baker. Both were poems about their wives when they were younger, and I'll admit to watching their wives like hawks after I realized who the poems being read were about. Like seasoned poker players, neither woman had any sort of tell that they felt any sort of way about it.

I think I would dance on my seat.

The Pulitzer and His Prize

She sits like any other member of the audience,

Periodically fidgeting to get more comfortable in the folding theater seat,

As his voice slides over her,

Touching everyone else as well,

And she shares him equally.

Unlike other audience members,

She never looks at her watch.

Later,

As they walk through the dark,

Arm-in-arm,

She leans into him and sighs.

"I've always loved

When you read the one

About me."

Literary Couples

She sits,

Front row,

As he reads

Aloud

About watching her sleep.

So intimate,

So sweet;

What it's like

For all these strangers

To hear how he feels about her,

I always wonder about.

She sits,

Front row,

Silently,

Not moving,

And I can't help but wonder,

With longing

If I will ever sit,

Front row,

Silently,

Maybe moving,

But just a little bit,

And listen to a man

Speak about what it's like

To watch me sleep.

XOXO

(The Only Thing To) Fear Is (Fear Itself)

Fear is

A thief in the night,

A phone ringing at 2 AM,

A hushed voice from the other room.

Fear is

Seeing your on-again, off-again boyfriend's car

Parked in front of his on-again, off-again other woman's house

And having to think of them, twisted together, for over a year now.

Fear is

Watching your aging father

Do the old-man shuffle of caution,

Prematurely.

Fear is

Hearing the blue-collar voices of men

Below your window in the chill of an October morning,

And wondering if they're turning off your heat.

Fear is

Lying awake at night

Thinking about the heat, your father, and the other woman

And finding you can still sleep.

XOXO

With Rings On

She

Fell asleep with her rings on,

Fell asleep with her guard down,

Fell asleep with her voice gone.

She

Never told you what you needed her to say,

Never said things would be better this way,

Never promised what she couldn't keep.

She

Dreamed of Christmas morning,

Dreamed she drank the ocean through,

Dreamed the dog came back to stay;

...She dreamed of you.

XOXO

It's Only Smoke And Ashes, Babe.

There are some mornings when I wake up, and it's as if no time has passed at all.

Still fuzzy

Still dazed

Still noncommittal

To anything

But the next breath,

Still hesitant even on that option.

I wonder sometimes if what I'm doing now will fuck up the rest of my life for me.

The hard part if figuring out if I really want it to, or not.

I have no idea

How I got

Half these bruises.

I have no idea

And

At the same time,

All too good of an idea

How I got

Here.

XOXO

Perfect Strangers

I don't know what made me look up just then, so suddenly, like emotional whiplash. Maybe it's just because I'm used to having you around-- you still show up on my radar, a bright blip.

But instead of where you would have come over before, instead, you looked away.

Just like we were perfect strangers.

You're just another handsome guy in a Red Sox cap. I'm just another girl pretentiously reading in the corner. If we were perfect strangers, I may try to catch your eye. I may smile. I may run a hand through my hair so you could better see my face. But after our combined history, I know better.

Just like how, as an imperfect non-stranger, I know your Cassiopeia constellation of moles, and how you smell, the way you take your coffee, and the unmistakable sound of your first signs of smoker's cough. And you know too much about me.

I can't pretend we're perfect strangers, so I pretend to ignore you as you walk slowly by, instead.

XOXO

Tiny Wakes

Dock. Cattails. Dog. House on the hill. Barn. Field. Dock. Cattails. Dog. House on the hill. Barn. Field. Dock.

As my feet make tiny wakes in the still pond water, algae floating in random spots like the ubiquitous Snickers-bars-in-public-pools of urban city kid's youth, I find myself thinking, very hazily, that this is pretty much the life. That right now, right here, this moment in time, spinning in tight circles like a buoyant top with my wet thighs sticking to the black inner-tube, digesting a peppermint stick sundae like the same ones I've been getting since 7th grade, and the gentle splashing sounds of Nora, 10 feet away from me in the pond, rollicking like a young otter in, over, and around her tube, both of us higher than a pair of kites-- that this, this is it. I've stood in the Colosseum; I've been in Carnivale; I've watched freighters and cruise ships sail across the infinite blackness of the night's horizon from the beach as stars fell from the sky overhead. But none of this still compares to being home in Vermont. I would not pass up this feeling of bubbly joy and dizziness as I watch dock, cattails, dog, house on the hill, barn, and field flash before me for another pair of heels; not now, and not ever.

These were the moments I missed the most; the small, the mundane, and the entirely trivial. I missed morning jogs underneath trees with leaves so green and bark so dark from the rain. I missed the noisy buzz and crush of Church Street, and the humidity of packed house parties. I missed the tricky shift from first to second gear; the heavy weight of Saph's head on my chest and damp hemlines from where she breathed onto me. I missed the mountains, and the water, and the storms. My entire 4 months in Florence, we only had one thunderstorm. I missed them just as much as I missed blood-red sunsets over the lake, small psychotic cats, familiar hugs and faces, and buttermilk ranch dressing on Wings Over's honey barbecue boneless wings. Like I said, it was the little things that I wished for. In Italy, I got out of the habit of great big, grand wishes, because I knew upon returning, they would probably remain just that-- wishes, and not reality.

But here, this lounge in a pond-- this was more delicious than any wish I could have come up with, not in my most wild and romantic moment. It beat being spirited away to Bobcat. It beat being met at Logan. It even nearly beat that first American kiss back.

Those 6 things-- dock, cattails, dog, house on the hill, barn, field-- and the feeling of the water lapping at my heels in a way that seemed far too velvet and far to solid to really be water, ushered me back in to my life more surely than anything since the 18th, and I knew it then, that this was not a dream. This was the life that I had left, and the one I had returned to. The simplicity was beautiful, and staggering.

A storm rolled in at around 4:30 in the morning. I woke up to watch it, and went back to sleep with the sound of thunder still crashing in my ears. Some wishes are perfectly harmless and easily answered, after all.

XOXO

This Could Be Any Moment, Anywhere, But It's Here.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, tiny little effervescent bubbles still not popped-- a pinot grigio, lively, and bright in the soft yellow light of the nightstand's lamp.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, and the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, melding male and female voice, tenor and alto, one octave up, one octave down, reverberations and melody, and is soothing and sleepy.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, and the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious for the sake of being surreal and contemporary and pretentious, even though it was written by an Argentinian author in 1966, during what could probably be called the Age Of Writer's Pretension.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, and the ashes in the elegant blue and brown cut-glass ashtray (also a bit pretentious,) still smell like smoke, still just a little bit alive, still potent and pungent and arresting at the corner of the senses, trying to grab attention for another go, another full-frontal assault on health and good, clean habits and mind over matter.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, the ashes in the elegant ashtray still smell like smoke, and I am struck with the sudden crashing revelation that outside of these few mundane details in this scene, I am in a totally foreign country, and knowing this, listen to the rumble of trucks and small cars and the high whine of mopeds and the tic-tic-tic of high heels on the uneven sidewalk and shouting in Italian and the screech of bus brakes and that nothing (save maybe the cigarette smoke and the music,) is familiar and I am quite possibly living precariously outside of my own life, in this strange and beautiful new and oh-so-very-old city, just buying time here, (another 81 days, 1944 hours, and a fuck-ton of minutes, breaths, sighs, strange words, and laughs,) until I can re-enter Life As I Know It, Take Two, and then, that will seem strange and foreign, and I will find myself longing for the missing half-glass of wine already drunk from the half-drunk wineglass on this nightstand table, and for the high whine of mopeds, and the tic-tic-tic of wooden heels on worn-down sidewalks, missing my alien outlook on life, a spectator instead of a member in this sport.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

XOXO

Helen Keller

You told me I never told you how I felt.
It's true--
-----------I didn't.
I kept my feelings tight,
Under
Lock
-----------&
----------------------Key,
And when I felt like I'd lose control of them
And let them go flying
-----------Out
Into that great unknown void between
My lips
-----------And
----------------------Your ears and mind,
I wrapped myself tighter in them,
Like how I wrapped myself up in your sheet one night so tight,
I was like Burrito Girl,
And struggled in a
Silent,
-----------Full-blown
----------------------Panic
About being trapped for 5 minutes,
At 5 AM,
While you slept beside me,
Completely unaware
What was happening right beside you.
I was too used to forced independence
To even think or consider waking you up,
And asking you to help me out of
-----------All of it.
Completely unaware.
I neglected both myself
-----------&
----------------------You.
Like a dumb mute,
I kept things from you.
For fear of losing myself,
I lost you
-----------In silence.
I never laid a "thank you" next to your ear-drum,
For the things that meant
So much
-----------To me,
Like your vocabulary
And the fact we could discuss literature
Like semi-civilized human beings,
The 2 AM phone calls
When you knew I'd still be awake,
Even the
Bad puns,
Though
It was one
Constant
-----------Repeating
----------------------Refrain
In my mind.
I never told you, "I like being with you,"
Though
I never had the heart to squirm away from you
In the middle of the night,
When you were far too warm,
Even for me,
Because I would have rather been
-----------Tucked
Next to you and too warm,
Than beside anyone else and comfortable.
(Plus,
-----------You always followed me if I moved.)
I never said "I miss you,"
Though at times,
It felt like that feeling you get
When you're leaving for a trip,
And,
-----------As you walk out the front door,
You get that vague
-----------Yet specific
Feeling that you're forgetting something,
But you can't put your finger on it;
Until you've driven just far enough
That you can't justify turning back,
-----------When it hits you like a falling piano,
And all you can do is sit there,
And say,
"Well,
-----------Damn."
That is how I missed you.
And while I was missing you,
I was
Completely unaware.
I told you,
When the words finally came,
-----------Too late,
That the only person you can control
Is yourself.
Lies.
You can't even control yourself,
Some of the time,
As I proved,
By what I was too
Hesitant
-----------&
----------------------Too afraid
To say,
And as you proved to me.
I never asked for more because
-----------It was enough.
I thought I had learned,
That fear of rocking the boat,
Never got the crew anywhere.
Now I see,
Lessons remain to be learned.

XOXO

Nike of Vermontplace

"I wonder if,
When you have your arms around me,
You can feel me
-----------------Shifting
----------------------------------&
---------------------------------------------------Stretching
Beneath your hands,
And that is why
You try to hold on.
I wonder if,
In those moments,
In the
--------------Dark
--------------------------------&
-------------------------------------------------Silent,
You know that those tremors
That rock your skin,
The
-------------Shakes
-------------------------------&
------------------------------------------------Quakes,
Are actually the silent,
Unfeeling
Landslides occurring within me,
As pieces
---------------Fall
Into place,
Like so many shards of broken china,
Or
Plate tectonics,
Becoming
-----------------Whole
----------------------------------Again.
I wonder if,
When laying flat in your bed,
The silence stretches between us,
Like a tight-wire
Made out of nothing,
But the air that surrounds it,
You know what I am silently saying,
Over
-----------------&
----------------------------------Over
---------------------------------------------------&
--------------------------------------------------------------------Over again,
An unbroken hallelujah of
“Thank you,
-----------------Thank you,
----------------------------------Thank you!”
And
“Where did you come from,
-----------------------------And why?”
And
“Finally,
-----------------Finally,
----------------------------------FINALLY!"
Whole books could be written on how
I
-------------Have/Am
----------------------------------Changing.
Whole books I could write on what I want to say.
Whole books could be written on how
It is best to
-----------------Speak them,
----------------------------------Or not
---------------------------------------------------To speak them;
But
I am whole in the words I am not saying,
And that is the only thing that counts.

-------------------------------------------- …But time comes.

Time comes,
Like a truck bearing down,
Like a ton of bricks,
And you
-----------------Have no legs.
Time comes,
Like a thief in the night,
Like a heartless bitch,
And I
-----------------Have got no fight.
Quick!
Throw your arms around me
And hold on tight,
So that when I take flight
From your bed,
I take you with me,
And I can keep this silence,
This
--------------Silent
----------------------------------Revelry
As you keep your
-----------------Hands
On my
-----------------Arms,
----------------------------------Shoulders,
---------------------------------------------------Waist,
--------------------------------------------------------------------Hips,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ass,
Just careful;
Mind the wings."

XOXO

The Poetry Chronicles, Part I

We interrupt this previous prose programming to bring you some poetry, because due to the multiple readings I've been attending for classes and other events, that's what's been coming out of me lately. It only happens about three times a year, and only for a few days, like the guest appearance of a cosmic spirit, so I'm beseeching you to indulge me, briefly, for these are only brief snippets of full, raging, triumphant, un-humble, unfinished works. Ellipses mark where content is missing, for one reason, or the other. Or none. The first two are part of set poems. For all purposes, what I consider "done." The third is a complete and utter mish-mash of sayings and thoughts and advice and songs and lots and lots and lots of random things. It has something for everyone-- childhood memories, sage wisdom, simile and metaphor, decorating advice. It is my Chaos at the moment. Everyone needs a little. I'm entering Finals Week of school. I have a lot.

"...Because night is when I get
--------Real soft,
And in the dark,
If you look at me
--------Real close
----------------Like you do
And don’t blink,
You can see the cosmos in my eyes when I’m talking to you,
Not just one or two
--------Tiny
----------------Insignificant
------------------------Guttering
--------------------------------Stars,
But the whole damn thing,
& I have no words for this feeling,
The death-knell of my trade,
But it’s like
--------Holding your palm
----------------Up to the flame of a lighter
------------------------On the coldest winter day
--------------------------------Right before you light that cigarette..."

"...I want to see when you close your eyes,
Because I know, sometimes it’s just
--------Too much
To look at,
All of it at once, spread out before your eyes,
Like a feast, and you
--------Just ate.
I want to see when your lips open,
And your tongue
--------Darts out,
To lick the same dry lips that you use,
Faithful sinner,
To worship.
I want to see you completely open in front of me,
--------A book to read,
----------------A story over skin,
------------------------A tale that won’t lie.
Give me your mind!
At these moments, when there is literally nothing between us,
But these un-naked thought-things,
These
--------Looks
----------------&
----------------Sounds
------------------------&
------------------------Feels.
I want a light, like a blinding ray of truth,
Because,
I want to see you, as you are,
Not, as you want to be,
With
--------Layers
----------------&
----------------Secrets
------------------------&
------------------------Questions.
I want to see you, in that moment when you give in,
To know what I have,
And what you are,
And what that
--------Makes me."

"...You’ve got to call me to you,
Because sometimes, like a cat, I won’t
--------Listen,

To the meaning behind the command,

Instead, focusing on tone and context,

And not really
--------Getting it.
But still, sweetie,
You’ve got to keep tryin’,
Because what’s worth it in this life,
--------It isn’t free,
And it sure as hell
--------Ain’t easy.
Because I,
I don’t play with the things I say,
--------Like some do.
Getting me to admit
--------Is like moving a mountain.
Are you strong enough for that?
Make me
--------Shock
----------------&
------------------------Awe
At your conviction.
Make me want to burst into song,
You have never heard
--------From this mouth.
So you know, I like to kiss to both sweet songs of
--------“Hello”
----------------&
------------------------“Goodbye.”

So you know, I like to stay up late, and sleep until sometime,
And I am always,
--------Always
Down for some lovin’.
So you know, your room,
--------Windows,
----------------Walls,
------------------------Door,
--------------------------------Desk,
----------------------------------------Bed,
Are in the same exact places mine are at home,
And it knocked me into silence,

Like coming home, only to find someone else living there.
So you know, I only ever ask to come over,
Every third time I want to,

Because there's this thing called

--------Space,

And there's a difference between "want" and "want,"

& I am always trying to find the fine line between the three.
But I will wake up early,
Just to be there and know it
Like I knew it when I was five,
And was the child
Who was never told that she wouldn’t find
--------What she was looking for.
Responsible people never learned how to fly.
I never learned
--------How to jump.
But here I am,
Toeing the edge of this cliff,
--------Anyway.
Hello, my name is Mediocre,
And I am striving for
--------Majestic
For you."

That's more or less it for now. I'm pretty much straight bleeding poetry at the moment like a love-junkie suicidal poet, so I'm skipping class in the morning to stay home and write. Because it's the writerly thing to do, and I really have no choice. Sometimes, when these things are outside of your hands, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Scary, yet gorgeous.

You writers out there. Agree? What gets it flowing for you? Is it the first snowfall of the year? Fear? Love? Loathing? Inspiration from others? Sheer need and necessity? I'm curious. As always.

XOXO