You All Know the Story of the Other Woman

He puts his bones back on,

Turning the clock back an hour.

She knows flesh, that skin balloon,

the unbound limbs, the boards,

the roof, the removable roof.

She is his selection, part time.

You know the story too! Look,

when it is over he places her,

like a phone, back on the hook.

◦ "You All Know the Story of the Other Woman"
by Anne Sexton

She thinks she can warm the stars

A woman who writes feels too much,

those trances and portents!

As if cycles and children and islands

weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips

and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warm the stars.

A writer is essentially a spy.

Dear love, I am that girl.


"The Black Art"


By Anne Sexton

autonomy

by Wislawa Szymborska In memoriam Halina Poświatowska 

In danger, the holothurian (sea-cucumber) cuts itself in two.
 

It abandons one self to a hungry world 
and with the other self it flees. 

It violently divides into doom and salvation,
 retribution and reward, 

what has been and what will be. 

An abyss appears in the middle of its body 
between what instantly become two foreign shores. 

Life on one shore, death on the other.
 

Here hope and there despair. If there are scales, the pans don’t move. 
If there is justice, this is it. 

To die just as required, without excess. 
To grow back just what’s needed from what’s left. 

We, too, can divide ourselves, it’s true.
 

But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
 

Into flesh and poetry. The throat on one side, laughter on the other,
 quiet, quickly dying out.

Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar* - 
just three little words, like a flight’s three feathers. 

The abyss doesn’t divide us.
 The abyss surrounds us. *I shall not wholly die

https://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146281183/wislawa-szymborska-poet-of-gentle-irony-dies-at-88

The Problem

Another Graduate school-era poem, written somewhere in years 1995-1996

the problem is not 

in the time 

for there is plenty 

of that 

no lack of days 

spent 

with books and pens

notebooks to be filled 

the mind eager 

bent to the task 

it loves the long sweet still 

consumption of 

lingering texts 

and lives at wide desks 

in library-silence 

no lack of nights 

lying there like paper 

with eyes wide-awake and lined 

to precision, the body 

folded, unquiet, largely alone 

and inelegant: stealing words from 

pillowed space, it hogs clichéd 

covers from the tossing-turning 

other shoulder, when I really should 

just shut my mind and 

maybe "take a lover" 

this abundant time 

is wrecklessly spent 

when body/mind becomes 

wildly aroused under 

heavy blankets, and 

there's no lack 

of inspiration but - 

I find my energy all used up 

with no thing created 

out of that all that crazy 

literary heat and friction 

the problem is the laziness 

and it all ends up being wasted 

the images lost to dreaming 

the ideas yield no precise 

paper production 

the problem is the giving-in 

to words that are eventually 

recorded,  my too-easy personal 

story, the whining 

and trite, cloying 

emotion 

the problem is the undisciplined 

days and nights of 

hedonism, the desire for it to be quick 

and easy like masturbation, how the 

mind & body love immediate gratification 

and in my covetous hurry the paper sinks 

into profligate time when I'm so tired and 

heavy (like Hemingway) I can barely lift the pen 

to describe things that should not be recorded 

the problem is that the greedy soul 

goes seeking poems in these excesses 

as if it can obscure an almost willful 

ignorance: as if I don't quite know how 

I got here, or even how I got 

an English Degree (from a really good college!) 

without reading Moby Dick? 

the problem is in the soul 

which tries to hide my lack 

with smoke-screen of so many 

cigarettes at the bar, as if my words 

will be more beautiful for the bottles 

the varied colors, shapes and sizes of glass 

as if I could somehow reflect myself ten times 

the size I usually am (since no one else will do it) 

as if in harsh morning light there isn't always 

glinting, grinning shards to rub against a tired 

paper body, saying: you drunk fool, 

to think that you could ever write!

How We "Hurt"

"Hurt" - by Johnny Cash
(originally by Nine Inch Nails)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Before the Holidays, 1995

Before the Holidays, 1995
I am stapled to this paper
that won't let me
say what I am reaching towards:
a generous room with soft
rose-colored carpet
and no more words needing
to be written.

I can't go home
yet, am stuck
in this cold
New England woman's mind,
stranded in her one stingy room
of a Puritan house,
laboring in this chilled
forbidding, midwestern town
for the 25 (below, wind-chill factor)
more pages of Emily Dickinson.

It's torturous
listening to my written voice
posing as authoritive
watching the pen
move in and out of darkness
wondering if I will dream
her words and mine tonight
knowing that tomorrow
I will eat them for breakfast,
with a little butter to take the edge
off her awe and a pinch of sugar
to sweeten her black-coffee bitterness.

If I only owned a computer
I could wrap modern
technology around me
like a rose-colored baby blanket.
And forgo those
freezing eight blocks
of heat loss and skin buckling
at the unforgiving elements.

I fold up in the face
of my self-sabotage anyway,
voice in my head that says:
you can't do it!
It overpowers me like the weather
the "Burglar! Banker - Father!"*
the poverty of loans and anxiety
of deadlines and doubts about my talent.

Whenever I venture out
I always come back again to this
one room with books that don't help
and my Imperial Ego that always
says I am better than anything
I've written and this scarred dark
Salvation Army desk
where I am trapped.

I am tethered to this paper,
stuck
out in the cold
like some poor dull
brown animal who plods
through the drifts
dying of the temperature
and not noticing it, for she
grows numb with uncertainty,
loses all sense
of direction, no answers
available and she'll never
get safely home again.
*The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson #49

The Job-Leaving Talk

So, I recently left a job I had for about 1 year and 10 months (not that I was counting), for another job and it was a good but hard choice.

In many ways what I left was a really good job that at one time I was extremely grateful for: a great company that seems to be growing, decent pay & no ridiculous hours expected, nice co-workers, challenging work (sometimes too much so though!), rewarding when the customers appreciated what I did to help them, when my co-workers felt they learned from me, and when I learned from them too...

But I had to leave. Like a not-terrible relationship that you could just hang onto, even though you weren't really getting your needs met, and you did not feel "fulfilled" - easiest to stay, especially if you worried you might not find someone/something else better, once you left. If you were willing to give up on the best things in you, and give into fear of being alone etc.etc.etc.

I almost did that, right before I thankfully met David, my someone/something better - who showed up at just the right time, which made the choice much easier. I got lucky, truth be told, I know it! :)

David, my husband - who is certainly not perfect, nor is he necessarily "the one" (I don't believe in that romantic kinda bullshit), and we've had plenty of struggles as a couple during these almost-16 years since then; but he meets me completely, right here in the middle of this crazy life we try to live together, as best we can.

I have way more fun with him, and lots more interesting conversations than I ever could have had with the one I semi-reluctantly let go. But what I love most is how he gets me, and I (for the most part) get him. And that kind of payoff is worth - risking - everything.

And so, I give you this: two poems, the first from a series I did, once upon a time in Graduate school (called "Graduate Student/Love/Sex/And Lament" - other poems from this series will be forthcoming, that's both a promise & a threat). The second poem just written, out of this most recent life-changing event, leaving a job I could have easily stayed with - and it would have been fine, but I just knew there had to be more.

Because leaving a job can be a little like leaving a relationship, in my experience & humble opinion.

The Leaving Talk
The dryness of a conversation
is nothing
next to being with a body
you have no use for because
the excitement has been wrung out
like a sponge;
your giddiness gone, by way of someone else
who caught your eye or ear
and now the trouble is your being tired
and unable to keep the wear out of your face
that annoyed tone out of your voice for much longer.

The dryness of living day-to-day
is nothing
compared to the lack of luster
in a relationship that's become
a requisite kiss from a relative
and early morning tenderness begins
to quease your stomach and all the unease
just means it's inevitable that you will leave him
leave him
leave him.


The Job-Leaving Talk
The dryness of conversation with co-worker
is nothing
next to this relief you feel
in meetings that will come
to nothing, about projects
that seemed doomed
from the start, for you
won't be there
when.

A company (that may come
to something despite themselves)
you have no use for because
the excitement has been wrung out
like a sponge;
your hopefulness gone, by way of awful
customer-support conversations
your allegiance spent
because of ongoing ridiculous
trying-to-manage-chaos
with a project plan.

Now something else
has caught your eye and ear
and it's not about the money or the benefits.

Now the trouble is your being false
and unable to keep that professional
smile on your face
the annoyed tone out of your voice
for much longer.

The dryness of living these last few days
(requisite two-weeks notice)
in weird worried limbo
is nothing
compared to how conversations
with your manager begin
to quease your stomach -
your worry that he might be shocked
and try to talk
you into staying.

But all the unease doesn't matter
because you know that you will still leave it
leave it
leave it.

Slim Slow Slider

Slim Slow Slider ~ by Van Morrison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMEExDZEgoo

Slim slow slider Horse you ride 

White as snow 

Slim slow slider Horse you ride 

Is white as snow 

Tell it everywhere you go 

Saw you walking 

Down by the Ladbroke Grove this morning 

Saw you walking Down by the Ladbroke Grove this morning 

Catching pebbles for some sandy beach 

You're out of reach 

Saw you early this morning 

With your brand new boy and your Cadillac 

Saw you early this morning 

With your brand new boy and your Cadillac 

You're gone for something 

And I know you won't be back 

I know you're dying, baby 

And I know you know it, too 

I know you're dying 

And I know you know it, too 

Everytime I see you 

I just don't know what to do

"In God We Trust" but...Men Dream of Rust

Men dream of rust:
broken
trailer parks and
long lonely red
plains filled with dust

no work

A vision of prosperity
their fathers taught
them to trust
collapsing on itself:
the disappointment
of promise that the U.S.
would prevail
despite Nixon & Vietnam.

It wasn't over yet
the fathers thought
(this empire)
they said so, and
so they taught
their sons to work hard,
seek the almighty
dollar to feed their families
(there are starving children in China
so finish the food on your plate and
just shut up).

That U.S. dollar diminishing
every day we go on
seeking to feed our families,
driving our fuel-inefficient cars
to discount-days
at Wal-Mart,
hunting want-ads
for decent-paying jobs.

Craig's List, Monster.com

"How can anybody afford it?"
anymore
anything we buy,
maybe it would get
harder than they ever thought
to sustain

The American Dream

to sustain that almighty dollar
which they diminish
daily for us

show the choice and make no more mistakes than yesterday

Dance a clean dream and an extravagant turn up, secure the steady rights and translate more than translate the authority, show the choice and make no more mistakes than yesterday.
- Gertrude Stein

There's a clean that comes
when you least expect it
when you're smoking your last
cigarette for the millionth time
you've tried to quit.

When you're fourteen
and you've drunk so much coffee
that you feel sick.

When you're sixteen
and in love and hating
that beautiful hurt you get.

When you're eighteen
bitter years into these habits
you detest but cannot kick.

When you're suddenly
twenty and come home
to drunken memory of all this.

You feel clean
because you know
life is long and you
are coming around
to accepting it.