An Update

This is my Final Poetry Portfolio for my Creative Writing class. The Gatsby poem, Prove vs. Sonnet, and Unfamiliar Territory are found poetry pieces. Some of the others are just edits of old pieces.
I am not proud of my work.

 

bed, n.

I. The sleeping-place of men or animals.

1. a. A permanent structure or arrangement for sleeping on, or for the sake of rest. In some form or other it constitutes a regular article of household furniture in civilized life, as well as part of the equipment of an army or expedition. It consists for the most part of a sack or mattress of sufficient size, stuffed with something soft or springy, raised generally upon a ‘bed-stead’ or support, and covered with sheets, blankets, etc., for the purpose of warmth. The name is given both to the whole structure in its most elaborate form, and, as in ‘feather-bed,’ to the stuffed sack or mattress which constitutes its essential part. (A person is said to be in bed, when undressed and covered with the bedclothes.)

b. Often used somewhat elliptically for the use of a bed for the night, the condition or position of being in bed, sleeping in bed, the time for sleeping, etc. Cf. also the phrases under 6.

Heartbeats dance quietly into the waterway of my ear, which lays on your chest. Darkness surrounding us both and the only sound I can hear besides your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen is the fan in your window whirr whirr whirr whirrrrrr. An occasional car down the street, and it seems so strange, seems so strange, four o’clock in the morning. Right after, you breathed “I love you, goodnight,” and mere moments later there was some slight amount of twitching. You are asleep, and I am awake. A sleep, a deep sleep, a sweet sleep, a sweaty sleep, a quick sleep, a short sleep, a good sleep. A wake, a sad wake, a haunting wake, a long wake, an alone wake. It used to bother me so, but I’ve grown awfully fond of the quiet where all I hear is your thump thump blood gushing and inhale exhale oxygen. The fan isn’t too bad, either. Whirr, whirr, a white plastic cat purrs in your window. After a while it occurs to me that we breathe together, you and me, our breath is the same, and it scares me. Maybe I’m not breathing at all maybe I only breathe because of you maybe if you stop breathing I’ll stop too. Then I remember the day where I was scared and you were passed out and I sat across the room from you with my head on my knees arms wrapped around my bent legs staring at your chest which simply had to keep moving up down. I am a professional at loving your life and ensuring that you keep it moving. Call me “Coach.” Thoughts falter when you talk in your sleep again. I may never be able to hear exactly what you are saying, but I would bet money that you’re telling me you love me in a language no one has discovered yet. I’m hearing hundreds of new words each night, different conjugations, different parts of speech, you’re a genius, baby, you finally found your own way to tell me you love me, too.

My eyes have been closed. I open them. No longer feigning exhaustion. I peer up at you through eyelashes that are still caked with mascara. Head turned away, eyes shut, my slim messiah, my softly dreaming Dionysius, to anyone else you would seem indifferent, but I know you are just asleep and your arm is still wrapped around me. To prove anyone else unbelieving, I squeeze your fingers and instantly instantly instantly there is a squeeze back. Exhale. Lips to shoulder. Eyes close.

Eyes open. I will never sleep. I am cursed to stay awake and love you. Turning turning turning over, tightening tightening tightening your grasp on me and my heart swelling swelling swelling. Has nighttime ever been so sweet? The glow in the dark stars on your ceiling might as well be the real thing and the glow of our cell phones in the dark might as well be the glow of luminescent bugs keeping the lover lying awake in the bed some company. The whirr whirr whirr of the fan might as well be gentle wind and your bed might as well be soft ground, sand, a bed of leaves. This all comes so naturally to me.

 

Untitled

Coming to us in a flurry, the news reached us as we stood three women, out together, cackling together like the fates and sharing a bond that we passed between us like some mystical eyeball. (Mine, not yours, ours, not theirs, mine, mine.) Shock. We did not cut this thread. Your thread. Denial. No. Running to the car. No. What? This did not happen. Denial.

We have no tissues. Unpreparedness runs down our faces. Someone finds a ball of cotton white, an eye, our all knowing eye, and we pass it between us. Smudge, smudge, liquid all over our knowledge, breaking it down, transforming it into the unknowing, the unseeing. Pass it on. Whisper the secret, pass it on. Wipe your eyes, pass it on. Pass what on? No. What?

Wet, our faces are wet, our eyes leak. Continuous worthless proclamations of the infallibility of the statement. He did not, he could not have, cut his own thread. Our grandson, our nephew, our cousin. A son, a husband, a father. What? No. I knew it, I knew this was going to happen. The oldest of the three is the wisest. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord.

What? No.

 

 

The Great Gatsby

“I’d be a God Damn fool to live anywhere else.”

Wouldn’t you?

On Sunday morning, while church bells rang in the villages along shore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on the lawn. James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally, his name. Something made him turn away from the window and look back into the room. Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound.

Our white girlhood was passed together there. The Sound. Reunited, we talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian colonial mansion overlooking the bay.

This isn’t just an epigram- life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. However, he managed to smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave troubles of the Montenegrin people. All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life.

“I’m going to have to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”  She’s locked herself in her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again. I was feeling a little sick and wanted to be alone. He had little to say.  He paused. “I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons.” I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half darkness.

“Beat me!” he heard her cry. “Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward.”Her pocketbook slapped to the floor. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch,” he said. Through all he said, even though his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something- an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.  Involuntarily, I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of the dock.

Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.

 

 

She Lays

She lays. In the crib, the hospital-mandated plastic wall see through tall unnatural crib, perfectly pink and new with no hair and a powerful set of lungs.

She lays. In my arms, for the first time, this small creature, so weak in her new body, but with such a grip on me that she is so strong- only a small fist wrapped around my pinky finger, but my entire life suddenly whipped into a new orbit, around a new sun- or daughter.

She lays. On her stomach, on the pale tan carpet of the living room, pulling herself forward towards some toy- I don’t know what it looks like, because all I can see is her, so strong, pulling herself, pulling.

She lays. A smile across her perfect, round face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sweetest plump cheeks. Little angel child, no wings, but the cheeks are just so round.

She lays. Laughter in the air around her. Walking now, a big girl now, in big girl underwear, asking big little girl questions. Why is the sky blue? Why does the princess always marry the prince and not a different prince? She wanted to marry that prince, Arriana. Oh. Well why?

She lays. Her feet across the grass, running toward me, leaping upward, totally unbound by gravity for the briefest, briefest, best moment. Summertime means we fly kites and play hide-and-go-seek in the backyard. Can summer last forever? she asks.

She lays. The big fat bright neon headache yellow crayola marker against the sheet of white paper. The sun. You can’t draw a picture without a sun, she says, unless it is a rainy day. Plop, the marker goes, in the right-hand corner of five different sheets of paper.

She lays. Her head in my lap, because there is a movie on, and it is dark outside, and her five and a half year old self is tired, so tired, but not when I remind her that I could make popcorn, and then she is awake, and is asking to pour the kernels in, and yes, you can, Arriana, and she lays the smile across her face once again, and lays a smile against my own, and the popcorn pops. Pour the popcorn in the purple bowl, and she scowls. Purple is my hateful color, she says.

She lays. Across the couch, eyes drifting to a midnight close, and she looks at me and raises her still so small but still so strong arms for me to put her to bed. Walking up the stairs, she clings to me as only a small child can cling to her family. It’s a language, it means I love you, even though I’m little, I love you. Why do owls get to stay awake at night, she asks, and not me?

She lays. Little pink bed, little pink sheets, little pink blankets, little pink pillows. A strong grip on a plump, stuffed dog. I can’t sleep alone, she says, I can’t sleep without my doggy.

She lays a tiny goodnight kiss on my cheek, and laughs.

Goodnight, Arriana.

 

 

Prose vs. Sonnet

Then

so I love you

for a moment

in secret, between the shadow and soul,

they faded into the sweet darkness

as certain dark things are to be loved,

so deep,

so close,

that they were darker than the darkness,

thanks to your love,

so that for a while

without complexities or pride

they were darker than the black trees-

because I know no other way,

then so dark,

so close,

that when she tried to look up at him

(your hand on my chest is my hand)

she could but look at the wild waves of the universe over his shoulder

(your eyes close as I fall asleep)

and say,

where I does not exist, nor you,

“Yes, I guess I love you, too.”

 

 

Unfamiliar Territory

It is a witty remark that occurs to you

too late,

literally

on the way down the stairs…

the feeling of being alone in the woods.
It is a person who is ready to forgive any abuse

for the first time, to tolerate it

a second time, but never

a third time.

A way of resolving a problem

without anyone losing face.

A state of torment

created by the sudden sight of

one’s own misery.
It is a person who asks a lot of questions.

The act of doing something with soul,

creativity,

or love.

A climactic show of spirit in a performance

or work of art,

which might be fulfilled in flamenco dancing,

or bull-fighting,

etc.
It is what it means to

borrow objects

one

by

one

from a neighbor’s house

until there is nothing left.

It is that feeling of being alone in the woods.

 

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