Another Direction

They fit me like a glove.

I like when classic things
are sent into another
direction.

I never wore them.

Color has changed everything.

Magical.

It has to be worn young and modern. 
We want to encourage people to play. 
You know, you've got to seize
the chances you got….with fierceness
and urgency.

An act of the imagination. 
This insane, hallucinogenic
                                          contemporary/period
                                                   mashup…like emoting
                                                   in a poetic way-

Like big, long words and sex and sighs.

Screw it, let’s go play.

Margo Roby

Source:  various articles in Vogue, August 2013

Inside Her Woods

Inside her woods:  the mind’s
                                    midwinter;
goddess
of the rainbow; trees
(of course); the hush
of things; sleep;
the last red squirrel;
a wave,
                                    a winged form;

 fingers
                                    rusted;
the very lifting edge
of evening;
a coin stuck in a slot
for many years; the sound
of water pouring; a matter of terror;

a gentle little thing;
craters and mirrors; a circle full of light;
     its conclusion;
a bent-down bough
     of nothing; children racing;
pollen; a new world; bubbling

                                  breeding pools;
woodnymph’s Joints
and Kracks; bright and blowy
enclosure of weather;
                          a flood
                          across
                          a plain;
                          a thread;
                          a bridge
                             built
out of the linked cells of thin air; a rose;
one foot; green; roots; opponent eyes;
a scrapwork of flashes
among billowing
clustered on its branches;
various Danks
of Dusk; the moon,
a waspish whiteish; more than one North
Star, more than one South
Star;

Christ; silence; dawn closed and containing everything;
                           the rock’s heart
under darkness;
                        small-seeing
flies; the dead tongue;
the dandelion
like heaven concealed; a man;
prints
on the wall, etc.

Margo Roby

Source:  Woods, etc. by Alice Oswald

Detour

But what is the use of that?

                            So, there is a bit of a detour.
                                  The way the sciences return to life
via the scenic route

What makes this a Poem of Knowledge?  Why do we write-
                                          fill in these blank spaces?

                                  For power? Insight?  

And could it be that sorrow persists
longer than knowledge, longer than wisdom,
and certainly longer than Stuff?

                                 It conquered time and distance.  And of course,

bewitchment suggests discomfort.

       The obvious answer is we write
        to communicate. 

        The balance of writer
                 and readers has changed. 

We are not the hard gem-like flame but the smudge glass
which happens to contain it.

Margo Roby: Oulipoem 25

Wojahn, David. “Not Releasing The Genie:  On The Poetry of Stuff vs. The Poetry of Knowledge.”  The Writer’s Chronicle.  May 2014. 49-50. Print.

Proulx, Annie.  “Why Do We Write?”  The Writer’s Chronicle.  May 2014.  60-65.  Print.

(italics mine)

Friday

In this one-eyed, starless night,
     the moon glows lonely,
casting shadow
on the skeleton trees,
their limbs outstretched.
The night birds
gather
and with crooning
song, profess
that this dark is new.
Whatever
soft, white light
of orb exists
creates
an eerie mood.
He cannot sleep. 
The gloating crow replays
inside his
mind to remind
of his betrayal
and too, his
own words-
the declaration,
“I will not
deny you.” 
He weeps. 
He cannot sleep-
the night before
he could not
stay awake.
He replays words: 
the blessing over
broken bread,
the wine they drank,
and the blood
shed. 
Then the scenes
replay: the soldiers
coming, the kiss,
the scandal,
the swords raised,
Jesus seized.

Will the sun rise at all tomorrow?  She cannot tell.  She has not slept. 
        The light of her entire world is gone. Stolen. 
        Her strength is gone.
Her tears dried. 
Her body numb. 
Ringing in her ears, the mocking. The cries of the vicious crowd – “King of Jews.” 
His cries.  She shudders,
tries to block the sight
of his flesh, lashed, the nails in
his hands and feet,
the spear that pierced his side. 
Her head
aches
where they placed the crown of thorns upon her son.
These visions, etched like every word he spoke, these visions.
She recalls his birth, the indignant voices of those who cursed
her choice but rocks now the memory of her infant son,
hope mirrored in innocence’s eyes.

It is Friday. 
We are millennia
away. 
The sun knows not to shine,
though any other day,
 I’d think it just forgot.

This Friday, the sun remembers,
hides and her concealment
hurts our eyes. 
The clouds
keep her secret, patch the sky. 

I read the words of Matthew
to the children, the story of the lamb,
slain; I tell them that this day
is christened good.  I begin

with The Last Supper
and begin to weep when
the crowd chooses Jesus. 
I hear the scoffing jeers. 
I see him carrying the cross

and I cry because I know him
as a friend and because he is a friend
I’ve never known.   Because as a child
I dreamed of him and so they crucify a man
I’ve seen- a man I love.

My body tingles and I’m reminded of my betrayal. 
I know the son will rise- that Sunday’s coming but today I cry.

Body- Held Secrets

I.

I am a secret,
           sealed in skin, 
kept
even from myself.
            Fragment.
Section of a story.
Mystery of a manifold. 
Known only in tidbits
            traveling
like gossip on the lips of women.  Related.
Relished.  Narrated
like old news made new
                  with the retelling. 
Retold
with occasional omission
                  or embellishment. 
Hoarded.  Mess of fact and fiction
upon arrival. 

At times, I am sedulous in my search
for self, sorting
through, separating
whites and colors, or hungry
for more, I cup my ear to glass to soul-door, hoping
to hear what my grownup self might know. 
And, too,
         there are times I turn away,
tired of trivialities,
tired of teleology,
the bother
of knowledge.

I am mere whisper.
Breathed, hushed in the dark. 
Created
        unfinished,
            forming still.  A season –
the blush of fall leaves rustling
under feet or the blossom springing up
pink quick just before summer.
Held by space and time by body
feigning reality. 
Flesh of fiction. 

           And the earth
seems to be more than landscape,
rather memoryscape,
though I can’t recall if this is paradise
or hell. My body
             bridges the lacuna
             between the tangible
and the abstract, refusing
to follow rules of unities. 
My body both belongs
and aches for another home, so I search
the deep, attempting to unravel
                     mysteries
engrafted in my DNA.
I am skin, bones, guts
covering
                    truth
so I creep
cautiously down
to core to excavate whatever’s pure. 
This interfusion of flesh
and soul
       seems so accidental. 
                                    I am in touch,
                                    out of touch,
more than what is seen, seduced
into disbelief by mirror’s reflection
and my own movement. 

II.

My body with its sudden aching
rebels like the feverish child
sent straight to bed,
the child who still wants to play

The day stolen by the sway of illness,
this lassitude, unallayed

The legs on strike so confined and laying stretched, my limbs sink into the sheets

This pain more acute when still. 

Tossing,
turning, left, right, I settle on my back,
hands clasped at chest like death pose and I begin
to pray

First, the furious bargaining that accompanies grief….

Then, finally, in acceptance, abandonment to the discomfort,
the self-admission with some small amount of shame
that this is what it takes to slow me, to draw me
           in
and out.

I cease fighting and the near constant percussion
in the background of this house seems to lower as the paradox
of a newfound, familiar gratitude rocks me
into an almost sleep
where my sight is sharper than when awake
and where when weak, He is strong and I or He prays.

I’ve laid down my one expectant request:  I will still,
here, as long as necessary, only rising when I’m certain
the hour’s purpose has been fulfilled but, Lord, when
I reenter space and time, I must be returned to form,
if only  for remainder of today.

So now, it’s just mostly names, uttered, silent, as I’m reminded
of who but not necessarily what and when my eyes open,
I know what I don’t know, that I’m a little more whole when broken. 
That I’m unfolding and that search for self is only realized in abandonment
of self. 

Only when I am quieted by strain
can I most fully realize
that beyond all
this exists a full reality.

These are mere whispers heard in the hush of light and heaven is closer,
nearer than I fathomed prior.  The earth is just a dreamscape,
His body bridging gap between abstraction and understanding
and his reflection is moving through me.

The Sunday Whirl

East of Eden

East of Eden  we are in limbo  deceived
by belief in earth and I lie 
                                     limbs outstretched 
palms open  petitioning
pleading
        in need
of rescue         I am not saved 
No one comes and my fears are confirmed
I am confined to silence  the enemy’s hand
on my throat  fingers hooked
wrist turning nimbly  casually 
gleefully          My heart already out  underfoot

East of Eden  I lie in hopeless wait
                                 in the den of the beast
                                

Did I not willingly enter
                                  this hell?

Moonlit gloom  blue burning
sky glim             burdened chant
                           under breath so unheard as if underwater
undone so unwon
weakened
                                             disgraced  unmourned

This sworn edict  heaven’s temporal oath
and the porcelain taste of tart 
tainted
fruit still tingling on my tongue 
it’s promising burnished glow still in mind’s eye

I did not willingly enter                I fell  Unknowing 
                                                       Knowing 

I was shut out
                                                       and now        alone 
                                                       apart 
                                                                   worth vanished 
The vault breaks
The ferns I wear scratch at my skin                                                      
barely cover                                 I cannot sleep
for I am on watch
                                                                   checking corners
My bed is a tangle of twisted weeds twining
like strangling arms           East of Eden
 I have encased myself with shell 

A paper nautilus             I create a poison 
 I am a colorist                                   shifting
                        shades
to self-protect
and you fear me
though you knew me when I held a different form

You fear castration              I fear you 
                          I retreat within 
Withdraw
                          to depths
you cannot fathom 
Paralyze with escape

                            My shell is leaf-like fragile  Peel it back
to find me

                            East of Eden  you hear my call
as song of siren 
                                  tempting  You fear
                                  my golden hair  You fear
strangulation                 You fear my voice  You are cursed  

                It is written on the walls  and the dragon roams
with goal to kill 
               destroy                                                glassy eyes 
piercing  spears 
                                                                              accusing      
rearing head  seeking to devour

He has found me out                                                                                                     
taken me in
and left me
here to die

We are in limbo in a brief-eternity vapor
We are flaming wood          this orb an urn
We are in danger
We are tumbling down and fast
We are ashes

I am beauty  Changed  Life  Dust  Flesh  Rising
                                                                            Healing 
Calling forth and out 
Come and find me

The Sunday Whirl

The Blue

The night sky is different tonight- the blue more royal,
so the clouds more white,
so low and so full
that only space
of blue is showing
and looking up,
               it’s like looking down,
like the swollen clouds
are land
and the sapphire sky is sea
and the sea is breaking- the space widens
and I, grounded, am privileged
with an upside down somehow,
birdlike view of the show.
My face is lifted. 
I can’t help but watch, to try
and memorize
the heavens. 
It is on these rare nights
that I can most envision
The Second Coming.
The moon is full and brilliant,
but the clouds
tonight are uninhibited
and operating under
full spectrum command,
stealing glory.
The moon’s role, it seems, to showcase
the slow-fast movement
of those low snow-light clouds.
The sky is layered. 
Beyond
and more and more
beyond. 
Clouds at base,
moon and heat
of stars at height
of vault above.
The moon at first, imbound ,
glows brightly even through
and the clouds pass over, cover, pass
over, cover, hiding,
whispering, washing, shining
until at last the moon
released, seems to fall down the sky
      as the clouds rise,
stretch out wispy,
wistful fingers as if still trying
       to grasp the beauty
of the orb.
I marvel at the feat
and later try
to name that blue: Azure,
Indigo.  More specifically: 
Berlin, Midnight, Navy, Prussian
or Parisian.
Some poet could, I think,
should name that blue
and write
a poem about the blue, its shade,
                      the clouds, the moon,
and how it fell.