Tangerine and Blue

Finger prick crevice sound, wired belly drowning out
And how the bass moans deep into summer’s early sleep.
Something shifts in mood, colors take on different hues
From the cemetery cue to tangerine and blue.
Finger glide on ivory tusk then trigger ebony -
Right hand lift from left hand side, carry over once then slide.
Cerebral dance from shutter bloom, flicker fast yet smooth
From the lullaby snooze to tangerine and blue.
Stick beat the pulse alive out of synch but drawing lines
From blackhole slumber room to sunlight afternoon
Finger click to jump feet tap, smile forces out a laugh
Darkness strips its layered muse to tangerine and blue.

The Bishop

Last summer I bought a book a little bookstore in Northampton, MA entitled Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop and Alice Quinn. It includes 108 poems and 11 prose pieces, were not previously published, including 16 drafts of one of her most famous (and one of my personal favorite) poems "One Art."

The book in itself is incredible - to have access to unpublished pieces by one of the most prolific writers of a generation is always exciting. But I think one of the things I admire most is seeing the drafts and handwritten notes of "One Art" and the amount of labor spent over its creation. Most times, I'll write something, thinking it sounds great; when I reread it - not so much. Any writer can appreciate the process of creating and revising...and revising until it's just right.

I'm not going to make this posting a biography of Elizabeth Bishop's life, although, as one of my favorite poets, I'm sure I'll write about her from time to time. She died when I was a baby; yet, her impact has resounded throughout generations. I love her imagery, the way she can be intimate and have you see through her eyes without getting overtly personal, and of course her natural flow of words without sounding stuffy.

So, for your reading pleasure - "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Running in a Race That's Long Ended

To have crammed my development
within four years of juvenile transition,
to have expected full plumage in adolescence,
and eloquence of my description
would have been a sorry misjudgement
of what I truly was, just about invisible,
and now mostly disappeared from memory
to those who sat in front, those traceable
still, and excelling the way I should be
(a competitive streak that is unbearable).

Back during those years, I tried to run beside
those in the lead; never much attention was paid
to the way I just couldn't connect pavement and stride,
and perhaps lack of ambition or direction plagued
what could have been triumphant instead of implied.
Confidence was never quite the ally, so still
I am running alone in a race that has long ended -
don't inquire about the stakes...just a whole to fill...
achievement to be counted, although now, I'm winded,
lagging as the precedent of enviable will.

Types of Poetry

I'm always caught up with the notion that poems have to rhyme. Well, no - that's not entirely true. I write quite a bit that doesn't rhyme and could be considered free verse. But I do have a nagging voice in the back of my mind saying that poems need to be structured, have a form and a rhyming scheme. That gets to be so boring, doesn't it?

There are many styles of writing. I found this site that lists and briefly describes different Types of Poetry and they say it's only a very few examples. I haven't taken any sort of writing course since college (in my not-so-distant past) but the impression was left that there were just a handful of poetry formats. Not so, my friends - not so.



Just yet another reason why poetry rocks my sox.

Keep the Car Running

I first heard this song in the beginning of the year - even though it was released on the album Neon Bible by Montreal's Arcade Fire in the beginning of 2007. On the surface, it's a fast, upbeat, very "pop" kind of alternative song (I still love to listen to it when I'm driving), but when you listen to the words, you know there's something going on that's a little deeper.

Everyone interprets the lyrics in a different way, but the most compelling is that it's said to be about the Rapture (see: Book of Revelations in the Bible) and the Christian perspective on that belief. Basically - if you're baptised, you'll be welcomed into Heaven when Jesus comes back to Earth at the end of the world to gather all the true believers. Nonbelievers and those not baptised don't get invited to the party. There are many blogs and sites out there that discuss possible interpretations. I may not particularly share the religious belief that is so cleverly manifested in these song lyrics (and I don't know whether the band members do, either), but it's an interesting concept to put into a pop, non-Christian song. Perhaps it's just a mockery of belief?

Listen: "Keep The Car Running"



Lyrics:
Every night my dream’s the same.
Same old city with a different name.
Men are coming to take me away.
I don’t know why but I know I can’t stay.

There’s a weight that’s pressing down.
Late at night you can hear the sound.
Even the noise you make when you sleep.
Can’t swim across a river so deep.

They know my name 'cause I told it to them,
But they don’t know where
And they don’t know
When It’s coming, when It’s coming.

There’s a fear I keep so deep,
Knew its name since before I could speak:
Aaaah aaaaaah aaaaah aaaaaah

They know my name 'cause I told it to them,
But they don’t know where
And they don’t know
When It’s coming,
Oh! when It’s coming
Keep the car running

If some night I don’t come home,
Please don’t think I’ve left you alone.
The same place animals go when they die,
You can’t climb across a mountain so high.
The same city where I go when I sleep,
You can’t swim across a river so deep.
They know my name 'cause I told it to them,
But they don’t know where
And they don’t know
When It’s coming,
Oh! when is it coming?
Keep the car running
Keep the car running
Keep the car running

Becoming Currer Bell

By the grace of God I thank my stars that I'm alive and we still are
advancing now although still slow come equity to those who co-inhabit
this space with men who know we serve as we did then;
no need to hide identities when writing farce or tragedies.
The skeptics say we cannot hold ourselves up to the manly mold -
just stories of romance and dreams of girls who play in make-believe,
just poetry that won't add up or earn such praise or test enough
of will and strength, no image clear when dreams just have no use here.

But no, now times are different, right? Women are heard and in well-sight
of earning posts as high as light and are judged on merit as all men might.

A culture sewn together well by threads of cloth slit to sell.
And films where men in nudity are shown as much as girls may be.
Magazines that push the skin to rub enough, absorb within;
the human form was made to sell; that's all I need - no talent fell
before your eyes, no need to blind you
with the wool that I may toss in verses lost by my chest size.

Luckily, it could be worse as we have seen in journals' terse
accounts of women in the Middle East where women are thought less than the beast
that runs amuck in city streets, in blood of men through desert heat.

We have the liberty to speak and fight and vote and drink and sleep.
We are allowed to work alone outside the house and choose our own way to live
if choose we must, but ask not what this means for us.
If you don't know or understand you'll never know; so must I stand
and beg you for equality in stature, sexuality, and strength
you've never given out of fear you'll lose your own?
In all the years since Currer Bell, I hope we must have grown.

If the only way to sell my art is to sell myself as a sugar tart
and flaunt my ass the way they do to show that trash is worth a ransom, too,
than maybe I should find a church to re-baptize myself for another birth
so that I can avoid all the trappings still net and inequalities that have not balanced yet.
Perhaps I’ll become the next Currer Bell and then, by merit, my art will sell.

Saroyan

I just came across an article, written back in April in the NY Times Book review section about the release of the Complete Minimal Poems by Aram Saroyan. The article sounds as though Aram is someone I should be aware of - a poet of poets that expanded the meaning of what poetry can be. I suppose he is, but in my bourgeois knowledge of the world - I have never heard of him. Forgive.

What strikes me is the simplicity of his work. I'm not giving an opinion on whether I like it or not, because that is irrelevant. His work seems so base and uncomplicated; yet, I suppose to alot of people, there is great meaning and the words seem tangible: Sample of his work

I have been writing since I was 12. Sure - it hasn't been all good stuff. In fact, the majority of it is terrible - and I won't even address how bad it was in the early days. But perhaps in my Catholic school training of formalities, I feel the need for proper, meaty poems, when in fact, they can be a single word. Lighght is not poetry to me, but perhaps I should open my mind to it. So...

SuNnnshiine. There, I wrote a poem for you :)