Friday, December 14, 2007

I was supposed to write a "calming" poem -- it was supposed to "calm" the reader. Well, I can't do that. I can disturb, horrify, disgust, but "calm"? Nyahh. So here's a poem about "being calmed."

(Mr. Xanax, Mr. Ativan, Mr. Valium)


hold
shaking, spit trailing, white
she cups a hand
whispers
she curls up, still

it is a good, it is an excellent

he curls up
next to her on the rug
twines her fingers, she lies shaking,
spit trailing, white
face in a blue bowl,
he cups a hand around her ear,
whispers, Mister, Mister

it is a good drug, an excellent trailing
dream, a fluffy white rug, it glows
cupped in his Wednesday,

his floating hand, his blue subtle ears
of white soap and curled terrier,
it is a cupped slug who hums
softly, a steady, slow fingering vibration

you can feel it if you just, whispering,
spit cupped in hands,
if you just hold still
---------


Leave me more lines! More lines, I beg of you!

3 comments:

Russell Ragsdale said...

the shadowboxer and his opponent dance

Jim Murdoch said...

I think that is a perfect response. Like me you are a poet and we poets have the habit of never being able to look at a word without seeing below the surface. It's the English language's fault. If 'calm' only meant or could mean one thing then there would be no problem but every word comes with associations, other meanings.

I was once asked to write a short story in one sentence, a bit of flash fiction, something I'd never done before. Most people submitted sentences of a couple of hundred words. I took a leaf out of Beckett's notebook – and Joyce's – and submitted a sentence 1125 words long; called 'The Sentence' it is about a man serving a prison sentence. I never even had to think about it, it just sat down and immediately began writing.

Christine E. Hamm, Poet Professor Painter said...

Russell -- thanks for the excellent line!

JIm -- interesting one sentence. Anyplace I can read that?