sounding

Hey, Joel. I'm finally posting the poetry for you. :)

This is the piece I wrote last Wednesday -- I ought to be churning one out per week from prompts in our textbook. The subject we were nudged towards was (guess!) family, and I had no trouble with that, but I'm not utterly happy with the quality...it was too easy. Read it aloud, and tell me if you can hear it. Or perhaps it's just incomplete -- when I planned it out, this was only the intro, but I ran too long-winded. I have so many things to write on, but they don't fit on a single page!

Oh -- and in class, I got an idea for an amazing piece on Grandma Linda, and an image of her stuffing five-year-old newspapers to take home to Chicago -- remember that? Couldn't that make something nearly as pathetic and dully horrifying as dementia? Maybe next week...



Antecedent


She catches me in a moment of quiet, wanders
Carelessly in from the kitchen to snatch
A seat next to me. She plants a coffee cup claim on the table
Like a flag; I start at the bright black clink and glance up at my grandmother.
She smiles down to me.

She sends me unwinding about roommates and ethics and algebra,
Leaning one elbow among plates
Still globbed with Wal-Mart-blue icing and half-burnt candles.
Her age-purpled eyes flutter off to another room, where the voices
Of five children wheel in ribbons, dancing and dizzying each other
Until they collapse onto the floor, breathless from sugar-spangled happiness.

The youngest sings out, “Chocolate cake is
Superior!” and vaults over the couch arm.
She laughs, low and quick as pebbles
In a jar. When she turns back to me,
Her eyes are twined up at the corners;
They pat my hand, wile words from my mouth. My face
Mirrors hers, all hills and valleys, with the same sudden
Open-arms reflex, the same gratuitous love
Blinking out. My nose crinkles, too;
I smile up to her.



Then this next is from two weeks ago...if the metaphor/subject matter confuses you, just go upstairs and open my closet door. And come back and read it again -- it'll all make sense. Or, rather, it'll all make sense except the title -- I don't really like it, either. I apologize for that, and the point of the poem, too...but it's exorcism, and it does help...



Staking Out


I am cleaning house, sweeping
My life into Rubbermaid buckets
To carry elsewhere. Dusting.
There are fountains of dead
Flowers along the cedar chest; the sharp petals
Of a chrysanthemum have dropped, remembered
Like teeth after a fist. They gum to the dust.
I scrape it all into my hand,
Brushing shards off over the trash can. Some vases
I set by the door to throw out; others
Will sit on the closet shelf until I come back,
Sit in front of the picture frames. If I am thorough
In my journey, when I return,
I will only find topsoil.



...love you, brother! And I promise to attempt to make this a regular thing...just keep reminding me.
(And if anyone else actually reads this [Bryce?], I appreciate your time, too!)