Poems and other Animals: January 2008 Archives

"Take me now, Subcreature."

If you need me to identify the source of that line for you, you clearly weren't enough of a geek during the '80s.

Anyway.... Home again. Had an unexpectedly nice time, even though I was there to be a temporary wife for my sister and her hubby, while she was laid a bit low. I got to play with my extremely adorable and funny niece, who has a special nickname for me, which she says in her tiny girl's voice. And I got the kind of magical, just-hanging-out time with my sister that I almost never get these days. It was lovely to just drive her around to do her errands, and keep her company, and read stories to the niece while she laid her little head against my chest and put her little hand against each page.

And now I am back on my couch, watching TV and listening to a rumbling purr in my ear (she's perched over my left shoulder) and IMing with Miz Fury about yarn and knitting and how I've completely hooked her on both of those (insert maniacal cackle here), and that is basically the story.

I am back to my life here, and I'm a mixture of blue and relieved. It was, in some way, a break to just be away and be focused on someone else's needs for a few days. Especially since these are all people I love. My life is mostly very self-centered, and there are good reasons for that, and I mostly do need it to be that way, but once in a while it is good to get out of my head, and not think very much at all about the work I have and the work I need but don't yet have, or the boys I don't really have but would like to have, or the money I don't have but really kind of need pretty soon, and so on.

Poem #2:

In the dark that heart
beats into your ear
its voice the other voice
you hear sometimes in sleep

its hands the hands at your throat
when, silent on the grass,
you drink of the night-veil
and sleep the sleep of the drugged.

***
In its answer the voice
never calls to you
only whispers
-- pieces of styrofoam
clogging your sight
with their soft white hands

-- his heart the beat in the dark
an ancient drum
or a landmine.

copyright 2008 Lizbon Grav. All rights reserved.

Is it wrong to kiss one's camera on its forehead? Some days when I am getting dressed I happen upon a combination of colors or fabrics or textures or shapes (or any combination of these) that makes my heart do a little zing! as I look in the mirror. It's like painting oneself in the most beautiful colors - or becoming a living Bonnard painting.

Today I was all flame-colored, dipped in small suns, or sealing wax. My favorite new orange corduroy pants and an old pale orange t-shirt, and knitting this glorious tawny yellow yarn. Immediately after I woke up and put it all on, I also put on some Clash, and danced around the apartment while my tea was brewing.

Every day should begin like that.

Of course, as the day went on, and I ran, and hurt my other side while doing it, and went to PT, where the therapist practically begged me to hold the running down to one day a week while we're working on building up my strength and flexibility, some of that glow wore off a bit.

He did say I could ride, though, and so I will try to get my needed bike maintenance (tire changes, chain cleaning, new pedals - and yes, I can do all of those by myself, thank you) done by Saturday and give myself an inaugural ride up the west side path. Or in the park. Or something. Maybe the blonde would come with me. He would match the yarn so very well.

Postscript. I think that instead of imitating Cari's fiction fragments, I will do something slightly different that's in a similar spirit. Once a weekish (or whenever I want to) I will put up a little poem or scraplet from my notebook. The rules are these: it will not have appeared anywhere in print, and it will be straight from the first handwritten draft, with little or no messing about. In other words, raw. We'll just see how it works out. I may decide I don't want to put so much of me "out there" and withdraw them. Or people may hate them and I may cave to that (though I doubt it. I am stubborn.). Or it may be a short-lived phenomenon. Or who knows what else. But here is #1.

Sun setting over hot water
The colors melt into the sea

as the girls play marbles on shore
tossing coin after coin
to the giant fish's mouth

He swallows, belches their fortunes
their wide warm futures at them
puffing little clouds above their heads

When the bubbles pop, the girls
are wearing crowns.

copyright 2008 Lizbon Grav. All rights reserved. And furthermore, my flesh-eating intellectual property lawyer ex-boyfriend (no, not Boywich; a different one) will come after you with knives, sticks, and the long arm of the law.