Poem 4: January 4th

The black lamp,
It seems stronger
Than I. It seems
More controlled,
With its on
And off, with its
Light and Dark.

The black lamp,
It seems happier
Than I. It seems
To float with joy
Through the night,
Bulb burning,
Impressing itself.

The black lamp,
It sits, it sits,
The black lamp,
Clean and content
Alone. In its
Stillness it is
Far better than I.


(Time to compose: 16 minutes)

Poem 3: January 3 (Tomorrow, Again)

Tomorrow, again,
I will awake,
Not with the sun,
But the tiny shrieks
Of a child, screams
Wild and windy enough
To move the clouds,
To roll them over us,
Until shadows, long and tall,
Blow over, darkening
The only thing around:
Her and I, and I
and I. She, one child
With one simple cry
And I, a woman with
Three or four,
Beast with as many shadows
As there are hours
Until I will be
Required to rise again,
To stand again
For the cracking wheat
And the corn crop,
For the mother and father
Of her and of myself.
To be the bread of life
To her thirsty mouth
And clutching hands.
Tomorrow, it will be
All shadows again
All clouds and storms,
All me and me
While I hold her
And cannot hold myself,
Cannot fence myself.
I hold a crayon, one
Single crumbling coloring
Piece, and so I draw
One line. A line around
The only world I have;
Hers. All the while
Painting a place for
Her to live, a place
Where the clouds push
Up against the very
Buttons on God's waistcoat.
Sky, sky - that place
Of ultimate openness,
That Ball and Chain
Of every possibility.

(Time for composition: 19 minutes)

Poem 2: January 2

There never really was a me,
The kind I like to tell myself
Was as good-looking as sunshine,
As motivated as a miner whose
Gotten a tiny taste of gold
Flitting through the stone.
There was never the me before
The fall, but always the me
Waiting for the fall, waiting
To be on the floor, hands against
The cracked linoleum, feeling.
The me that was built, the me
I perfected and honed, like an
Automobile, metal upon metal,
Cinched and cut piece by piece
To move over the ground, faster
And faster until the day you
Find yourself on the road side,
Slower and slower as the smoke
Billows out behind and you think,
I should have built my legs,
My tired legs which now must
Lug me onward, which now must
Finish what metal could not,
What the me before the fall
Could not imagine would come,
What the me I've always been
Will always be, just legs
And legs and legs.

(Time to compose: 8 minutes)

Poem 1: January 1 (She is...)

She is...

Like a charmed necklace,
A weight around my neck.
Curling my shoulders
Squarely downward.
Rolling them, rolling, like
Waves of the ocean, like
an anchor, I wear her here,
Hanging down just below
My breasts, (now) hers,
She, pulling me toward
some center of gravity,
Which, unfortunately,
appears to be the general
direction of my belly.

My support, the fleshy
bridge between her and I
Where I pile on the pounds
To keep her upheld,
To keep me upheld,
To keep the world as I
Know it spinning, slowly
Spinning, toward some end
I hardly see but somehow
Live for while I wait
To grow strong
To become me
To start carrying myself.

(Time to compose: 17 minutes)