11.24.15

Sometimes the explanation is as beautiful as the poem. I get my poem-a-day fix from poetry.org, and their format has a little blurb from the author below (unless the poems are older and in the public domain). Often I don't choose to read the blurbs, because sometimes contextual explanations seem "too easy" when doing a close reading. I.e. "Oh look, here is the author explaining the inspiration for this work" versus digging through my own thoughts to pull something out. However, they are often worth reading, since the authors clearly have something to say, often in more than one way.



Poet of an Ordinary Heartbreak




by Chris Abani




Who hasn’t been tempted by the sharp edge of a knife?
An ordinary knife cutting ordinary tomatoes on
an ordinary slab of wood on an ordinary Wednesday.
The knife nicks, like a bite to the soul. A reminder
that what is contemplated is as real as the blood
sprouting from a finger. As real as a bruised eye.
Instead turn back to the meat stewing on the stove.
Scrape pulpy red flesh into the heat and turn.
Say: even this is a prayer. Even this.




And here is the author's blurb:

About This Poem

 

“I wrote this poem from the point of view of my mother. There were sometimes difficult moments between my parents, and I have since wondered how she mediated her pain and anger and what I would have done. It is really about the fact that our most ordinary moments are often poised on the edge of a very deep abyss and that only an uneasy grace keeps us from going over the edge.”
—Chris Abani

Isn't that beautiful? 

11.23.15

Slightly belated, slightly terrible weekend words for you.

11-21-15

Who am I speaking to

when I address the void?

A chorus of skeletons laugh coyly

their ears only in tune to vibrations.

Electricity no longer touches them;

they are freed of impulse.

An audience of empty chairs

is a mocking audience.

A council of shadows gathers,

their darkness overlapping

like the Venn circles

of nothing and no one.

I wonder if my voice will echo

or be swallowed up.

11.17.15

I've been thinking about the echo chamber that is social media lately. It reminds me of the play "Void with a Chesterfield", so I've been wondering about poetry of the void. Let me know if you have suggestions of literature on this theme, to add to my brain-stew. 

Anatomy of a leap into the void

By Miroslav Holub

A.    Use of the lift

       going up

       is permitted, provided

B.    Use of the lift

       going down

       is not permitted, provided

C.    Use of the lift

       going up is

D.    Use of the lift

       going down is not

E.    Use of the lift

       going up

F.    Use of the lift

       going

G.    Use of the lift

H.    Is      Is not

I.    Use

J.    U--

11.16.15

From my email, delivered Friday the 13th early in the morning. Could not have been more prophetic. 








The Needs of the Many


Brendan Constantine



On the days when we wept—
and they were many—we did it
over the sound of a television
or radio, or the many engines
of the sky. It was rarely so quiet
we could hear just our sadness,
the smallness of it
that is merely the sound of wind
and water between the many pages
of the lungs. Many afternoons
we left the house still crying
and drove to a café or the movies,
or back to the hospital where we sat
dumb under the many eyes
of Paul Klee. There were many
umbrellas, days when it refused
to rain, cups of tea ignored. We
washed them all in the sink,
dry eyed. It’s been a while,
we’re cried out. We collect pauses
and have taken to reading actual
books again. We go through them
like yellow lights, like tunnels
or reunions, we forget which;
the older you are the more similes,
the more pangs per hour. Indeed,
this is how we break one hour into
many, how healing wounds time
in return. And though we know
there will always be crying to do,
just as there’s always that song,
always a leaf somewhere in the car,
this may be the only sweetness left,
to have a few griefs we cherish
against the others, which are many.

11.11.15

A Veteran's day poem for you from Shane Koyczan today.



Poppy


They appointed the rose
with its many petals
to be the ever blossoming symbol of our heart

fullest when it is open

poppy

your shade
is not without the same lush meaning

but with you are charged also
with the heavy burden of memory

the weight of our past
is the crushing loss of our fallen

you carry it for us
and so

we wear you

the softest honor
the lightest medal.


Shane is a spoken word poet from Canada with a new album Debris out. His band is called Short story long, and he founded a trio called Tons of Fun University. Here's his wiki entry.

11.8.15

I was thinking of this tonight after watching a special on Nikola Tesla--that is, this blog. The choice to name it "Sport of Infinity" was derived from the document name wherein my poems were stored at the time I started it.

Generally, I store all my typed poems in word documents on the computer and on the cloud after having handwritten their originals in a journal or on a scrap of paper that was to hand. The current one I'm writing in is called "Loud on the Brink", but at the time of starting this I had another. The idea of Sport of Infinity came from the lyrics (well, what I thought the lyrics were) of a song as performed by Reilly and Maloney, a folk duo. The song is called A Delicate Balance (here is a recording), and I thought they said "And it's all such a delicate balance/ that the spark of infinity gives", and I loved that thought. The idea that a simple spark, perhaps of inspiration or growth, would spiral on into forever. I changed it to "sport" because I thought life was a little like that; searching for that spark that will keep you moving into forever, that which always keeps us moving. (The spark is what makes it relevant to Tesla)

However, I didn't realize this song was a cover of the artist Tom Dundee who apparently was close friends with Reilly and Maloney, who covered it in homage to his career. And according to the internet, the lyrics actually are "sport of infinity". It reminds me of Elizabeth Zimmeman's "unventions", things which come from your mind but are certainly not unique to you but still feel clever and useful. Here is a recording of the same song performed by Dundee.

Did you ever surprise yourself with your unventions? I love it when long-held things are wrong in a lovely way.




Deep within there is a vision
That time is nothing but space,
And between every minute and mile that is in it
Somehow there is a beautiful face.

And its all such a delicate balance
That the sport of infinity gives,
Expectations we have can lead down the path
Where that devil discouragement lives.

I dreamed I was barer than naked
And it scared me so bad that I called,
"Help me back to the prison, with the chains of the living"
Although nothing had hurt me at all.

And its all such a delicate balance
As it turns through the circles of air,
To worry does nothing but steals from the loving
And robs from the pleasure that's there.

To worry does nothing but steals from the loving
And robs from the pleasure that's there.

Deep within there is a feeling
That love and understanding's the door,
And honesty is the key that was given to you and me
To open it and so many more.

And its all such a delicate balance
Takes away just as much as it gives,
To live it is real, to love it is to feel
You're a part of what everything is.

11.7.15

Weekend words

10-19-15

I tend to say

this is where I was

and these are the things that happened

on the day.

Tonight against the rain we made a fire

small and content with its proscribed surrounds--

safe as iron houses, filled with smoke.

Imagining other small things against the night,

I wondered how they dealt,

and if they feared

as the wind drove forward the misty rain

to do its tasks.

We let it fade, the little fire

because we are in control. Our words

can summon more.

We don’t think of this

or the light leaking into clouds

from the freeway

when we hear the first coyote cry.

10.26.15

This post I have been writing in my head for at least a week. I discovered the literary magazine Ghost Town the other week, then got sick. (A friend is published therein and shared the works via social media). I like the idea of a "ghost town" as the name for a collection of arts. The town might be empty of people but the structures for the lives are all still there, if a bit cobwebby. I like the idea that art is never finished, only abandoned, so perhaps the ghost town's emptiness is merely a pause in its existence.

From their Issue 8, you can look at some art (these are the artists from the issue, I didn't see which pieces were featured in the issue or if that's something you only get in the print version).

Jacqueline Schneller has an interesting page, where each thumbnail is accompanied by (and inspired by) works of music. Amy Maloof has an interesting gallery of wall objects. Mike Stilkey makes painted sculptures out of books.

Read a series of vignettes of memory in Harrison Fletcher's Imperfect Blossoms. Similar in style and substance, Jacqueline Doyle discusses her life and Dorothy's in The Ruby Slippers.

And here are some poems for you. Camoflauge by Terry Ford:

I removed my wedding ring today.
After thirty years, I just took it off,
rolled it between my fingers,
and gazed at the track
it left behind:
deeply incised upon my finger,
a thin, pale, bluish band of skin
the color of an oxygen starved infant.

I selected the ring myself,
much as if a slave
had selected her own shackle,
a prisoner, his own chains.

The hand lay empty,
freed of its metallic bond
but deeply marked by an
ugly, ineradicable strip
of repulsive, lifeless-looking skin.

I slipped the metallic circlet back in place
where it settled into its accustomed task—
hiding the stain of an ugly little scar.

Here's Ma, by Amanda Tumminaro:

Someone grabs the rouge from the sunset
and dabs her with nostalgia.

The cruel winter waitresses
her Atheism.

Roles reversed, I always see her
at the sink, soaping dishes.

She has the resolve of a solid,
but the travel of an apparition,

for her sneakers are winged.
She has her fist in the air,

but I see her as the olive
in the Martini.

Go forth and read!

11.3.15

I know Frost is kind of a trope at times, but I've had this running through my head for two days.




Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay.

Autumn is winding down. I look forward to more on this theme once I get my act together.