(for R.M. because she is more a writer than me)
i don’t think your writing is finished. i've hit a dry spell myself, but i've
been reading a lot more lately so i expect the muse to hit anytime now. it
better get going soon,
because i'm feeling stagnant... you'd better keep writing K. or i'll
kick your ass.
-- part of an email sent to me from a friend named ‘Bek
part i
writing a poem
now
is useless—
the only images i
have in
my head are of
clean/sterile
shiny hospital
linoleum floors
i hear the soft murmured beeping
heart monitors(this does
give some comfort,
though)& i watch
the green
line bounce from
valley to peak
doctors speak
in quick jargon
filled medical
phrases while
i look from knowing
face to knowing face
begging
for an englisH i
can understand
my nerves fire
my stomach clenches
my head has a dull throb (over
the left eye, where it hurts the
most)i’ll pop
before long—
part ii
these images
(backing up like
ironic rush hour
traffic)are not images
one should put in
a poem
1 comment:
except you know what? they can be the perfect images to put in poems if you're quite masochistic. we all know i am.
i like this poem by simone muench. this is what i mean:
Viewing rain from a hospital bed
After levertov
Something sidles
Up to me in the dark, i
Taste it; this disease
I can’t speak
I listen to rain, tangled
Branches, scar on my chest
It shoots. You
Lick it.
How is it? Don’t go
Where you don’t belong
It’s how you hear it –
Scar emblem of chance
Unnameable odor
Pearling out of it
And over you
Stifling in your bed
But what if
Like an axolotl its
Quickness I visit
And slip coiling into light?
Not scar, not
That voice
Of ache and tomorrow; or bone
Crack for having moved too fast.
What if held beneath the sea
It turned a beautiful
Blue, an unpenetrable
Blue? Could all that liquid
Be the source of fall?
Here beneath flesh: is an i
With diamond bones, some
Split in rot, others
Rain sparks, sage
Blooming additions. Here it ends –
Could I erase
In lampblack rain,
The moon flickering? "
s'not quite as good as yours though :) i'm glad you couldfind something to jump start a poem in my dinky emails...
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