The Book of John

The first time I fell in love I was fourteen. I found a love note

Stuck between the pages of my bible at church camp; a goofy

Stick figure with glasses waving at me from the book of Galatians,

An almost a realistic portrait of your sharp, crooked smile. I inserted

Your name into the sermon like blasphemous Mad Libs and church

Acquired a feeling of Spring.

The second time I fell in love I thought I was experiencing

A miracle. You returned like as a prodigal lover. I was 16 so

I swallowed every word of apology like it was the last thing I’d

Ever hear you say. I found love notes in my mailbox; I

Found you calling some other girl by the same nickname

That you used for me. I stayed in bed for four Sundays in a row,

Hoping you’d lose your happiness in a field like Judas.

I let myself fall in love again, truly but cynically. We left

Campus so we could pretend we weren’t Christian for a minute.

I dug so deep trying to find the truth; I didn’t climb out in time.

The day you died you took a piece of my faith with you, like a pound

Of flesh, payment for the belief I had in you. In death you were

More honest than ever before.  Now, I only fall in love with facts. 

Babel

I love learning to communicate in

A language other than my native English.

I gladly memorize nouns and tirelessly

Absorb new conjugations because

Te lo digo de corazón, honestly,

I am learning more than a new language.

I am learning fresh ways of thinking

About what’s in my heart.  Esperado,

Hoping and waiting are sometimes the same thing.

Dejar, to quit is to leave something behind.

En espanol, a storm is nature’s way of tormenting

The earth; I own my hunger; wives are handcuffs,

I have found a language that understands the way I feel.

I wish I had the capacity to learn every language.

Imagine the thoughts I could have, the poetry I could

Write, the ideas I could share, if I could delve into the

Speech patterns of all of my earthly neighbors. We wouldn’t

Build a tower tall enough to anger God;  we would just

Make a blueprint of our similarities, full of doors

Flinging open with every entiendo.

Dog Bite

I paid off my hospital bills from the overdose

And then I got myself bit by a dog.

I tell this story among friends with a punchline:

I thought it would be fun to play naked fetch

In the fenced-in backyard on a sunny spring morning

And when the paramedics arrived I was still naked

And of course they were good looking, rim-shot, laughter.

Funny, yes, but I still hear the screeching of

The jealous fight, two beloved dogs

Rolling toward me almost cartoonishly

Gnashing at one anothers’ jugulars, pulling me

Into the swell of fur and saliva when I tried to wrench them apart.

I still see the crazed eyes and heavy teeth that missed

My jugular but left a crack in my wrist and craters

On my arms before I managed to close them

In separate rooms. I still see the paramedics follow

The trail of blood and fur to find me and the truth is

That this tale has a moral, not a punchline:

Anything can be used as a weapon

When I am angry enough with myself. 

Light

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.-George Eastman 

#27

George Eastman picked a strange place to embrace light.

Covered in clouds two thirds of the year, Rochester

Provides very little sun. I sought desperately for light.

I worshiped it for every second of those scattered 165 days

That it chose to emerge over the city. I tried to know the light.

I brought it flowers, paid for its dinner, begged it

To answer my questions. I wilted for lack of light.

George Eastman would have been more successful in the desert,

Where it’s sunny for most of the year. I followed the light.

I learned about its ancestors and met its mother.

We shared meals with the whole community. I swallowed the light.

I grew into a panoramic photograph, worthy of being framed.

My hometown is jealous. I know the light.

CPR/First Aid

I realized what it is about emergencies

That produces such panic in me:

When I give you breaths, I become your lungs.

When I push your chest so hard your ribs break,

I become your heart beat.

When I stop your blood flow, I am

Keeping your very life inside of you.

No amount of training or exposure

Can prepare me for moments of such intimacy.

An experiment

The many poems of day #25 are based on this prompt from Hillary Kobernick:

Writing Prompt #19: Backwards and ForwardsThe goal of this writing prompt is to think about how to stay focused on the story you’re trying to communicate. When I was in a writing workshop in high school, a poet told me: “editing is mostly about removing words.” This prompt challenges you to do just that.Start with a draft a poem you already have. It should be long-ish. Say, 25 lines minimum. (If you want an extra challenge, start with a paper or chapter—it doesn’t necessarily have to be your own work.) Now, take the main theme/image/idea of that poem and reduce it to a kwansaba: a 7 line poem with 7 words in each line, each word no more than 7 letters. 7 X 7 X 7. Now, reduce it to a haiku: 3 lines, 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line, and 5 in the third line. (This is tricky because now there’s no more limits on how long the word is—you can use a 5 syllable word in the first line, if you want.) You may need to narrow your theme to one image or idea. Now, reduce it to a six word story, a la Ernest Hemingway. This is a one-line poem with just six words in it. It doesn’t have to be a story, but stay focused on the same theme.Take a breath. You can stop here if you want. But, just for fun, you can also go the other direction: take your six word poem and expand it to a haiku, then a kwansaba, then a longer poem. Add details you didn’t have in the poem you started with. Focus on a different part of the theme. Let the longer versions take you a different direction. You may end up with a new draft of the first poem, or eight new poems.

Here are the poems I wrote going from large to small:

1.“Write drunk; edit sober”.

Thanks for the advice, Mr. Hemingway.

It’s good to know there’s someone else

Who understands the

The barriers of sobriety and how they stop me

From exploring those parts of my mind

That most need to be exposed.

I don’t always want to face

what’s underneath this skull of mine;

I can’t always push past this without something

To blur the edges between my feelings and my filter.

This intimate recording on paper

Is sometimes like removing my clothes and

Then unzipping my chest

So that I’m naked and my heart is falling out.

And who does that sober?          

But when I'm able to express something

I couldn't previously figure out how to say

or when someone understands something

I couldn't previously make them understand:

the cold and the angst are entirely worth it.

2.At the advice of a certain writer

I now “write drunk and edit sober”.

Tipsy, I unzip my leather bound chest

And expose my hear t to the masses.

When one of them follows my ideas

The cold and shock are worth it.

3.I remove my skin

To expose the gory truth.

The cold is worth it.

4. Drink to keep warm while writing.

The Baby Lottery

#24

When it comes to passing out babies,

God has a strange way of picking

winning lottery numbers. It would appear that

The chances of a woman getting pregnant are

Calculated not by how many tickets she plays

But, rather, in direct proportion to how badly

She wants a baby: If she wants a child so much

That she’s already picked out a name and staged

The nursery for its arrival a woman is fifty percent

Less likely to produce that baby. If she is a teenager

Living in foster care and headed toward a life of

Poverty it is two hundred percent more likely that

Biology will work as it should and she will

Have twins. If she is a single, career-driven woman,

She is at high risk for being left with a convoy of

3 children after her sister dies and leaves them to her

In her will. God does not listen to pleas.

If God controls this lottery he does not seem to care

Who wins the prize. He does not seem to be bothered

By single mothers, gay mothers, or no mothers;

So why should we? If there is an open womb available;

A sheltered and provisional place to stay; if there is a home offered

A safe and nourishing place to live; let us employ them.

A fetus can grow in a womb that wasn’t ready for it;

A child can flourish in a non-traditional family.

Flood

#23

Pain drips from generation to generation

Like water in a leaky roof that no one

Can afford to fix in a house that no one

Is brave enough to leave. It might be damp

And moldy but it’s safer than the street; safer

Than the vulnerability of asking for help. It’s

Cold, but it’s familiar.

I want to remove every roof. I want to let the sun in

And dry up the puddles until there’s nothing left

But bright flowers peeking up between floor tiles

That were once drowning in perpetual grief.

Socially Anxious Poetry

#22/30

I started by cowering in the back of the room

Mouth open in awe of the woman before me:

She spoke my mind without ever meeting me,

She spoke her experiences to life,

She spoke.

I started by crying in the back of the room:

I could have written that myself

But I didn’t.

I walk through every day afraid of

The next moment someone will speak to me.

Kind words or not, human interaction is terrifying.

Drugged up or not, I have no idea what to say

When you smile and greet me.

I may have strong opinions and the words to share them

I may be talented at all the things I try

But the only thing that matters in the moment is that

I can’t catch my breath.

Yet, here I am! Alone, onstage, barely breathing,

Because I found power in poetry and I propelled myself forward;

I found healing in yelling my thoughts before an engrossed

Audience; FINALLY someone is listening, finally, someone is

Hearing me and cheering me on, finally, I don’t need a surrogate,

Finally, I AM MY OWN VOICE.

I walk through each day with my eyes lowered

Afraid of the vulnerability of eye contact. I flinch when

Someone tries to hold my hand, I don’t know
How to deal with a compliment. But,

I have meaningful ideas and I have found the words to share them.

I stepped in front of a crowd without a bullet proof vest and I

Emerged with lungs of steel and a voice like a siren and I

Will continue to shout from the stage

For myself

And for the person cowering in the back of the room, waiting

For their chance to come to life.

The last straw

Discouraged minds want to know: after all these years, what made you leave?

As if there were one moment that changed my opinion, one thing that

Might bring me back. But I have a list that is years long and it goes like this:

It’s the existence of other cultures outside of white picket fence suburbia

That aren’t suffering for lack of steeples and Sunday school,

The recognition of beauty and goodness in the differences I used to fear.

The survival of other religions who preach the same love and peace

Without the violence, guilt and shame.

It’s the appreciation of joy in non-believers’ eyes,

The families in South Africa who shut their doors before we reached them.

The children who continued to starve after hearing the word of God.

The fifth rape of the same loyal follower and the blame

Of the victim and the sins we all commit without even knowing.

It’s the boiling down of my faith into bullet points and digestible phrases;

The incongruity of the classroom and the material world at Christian college;

The sensation of weightlessness when I unlocked the fence holding back my intellect.

It’s rebirth and finally finding joy that used to be slightly out of reach

Outside of the church, on a self-sufficient, sacred journey in the desert;

The discovery of life before death, in everyday existence,

The freedom and healing in acknowledging my struggle with abject depression

And decisively proclaiming the things it makes me feel.

It’s the joy of sex outside of marriage, with both genders, without shame,

The patterns that have repeated all my life that demonstrate I was born this way;

The unadulterated joy of accepting myself without need for outside approval.

It’s acknowledgment of my own weaknesses and the way they prevent me

From being able to speak intelligently on behalf of the supernatural,

Empathy for alternate circumstances; sympathy for the routine mistakes of humanity;

Rejection of judgment and recognition of the common ways in which we all struggle.

It’s intolerance, fear of the unknown, clouded explanations and contradictions ignored:

All of these things were the last straw.

Fun with word banks

#20 is five different, little poems.

Silent ivory
Ghosts float among heavy rain.
Move beyond the wounds.

We run from salt ghosts
Elusive floating lanterns
Ivory sea coasts.

I want to move beyond the
Half blooded ghosts
That have absconded with the present.

Move beyond the rotten ghosts
That float in the rain like lanterns.
Do not squander your youth
Fishing through the elusive silence
That plays like driftwood on an ivory radio. 

     
          Rotten
          Ghosts drift like wood

          Amid salty rain on

          Ivory coasts. Hold your lanterns high.

          Abscond.

Personal Ads

1. Complex and empathetic social worker
    Seeks quirky, chemically imbalanced mate
    For a loving do-it-myself project.

    Must have problems- I won't know
    What to do with you, otherwise. What do people
    Talk about when they're not crazy?


2. Lonely, shy, somewhat single female
    Seeks quiet roommate who adores me unconditionally
    And always pays rent on time.

    In other words, a dog with a job.

Spiral

#18/30

I am connected to you by six degrees-

Or maybe less. I live in the bedroom where

You lost your virginity to the girl who lived

Next door for decades before she moved east

To go to the college where my cousin was

Accused of sexual harassment by the foreign

Exchange student who moved on to engineer

The parts of the plane that flew a genius to NASA

To create the shuttle that flew among the stars

That we are all made of.  Star dust takes decades to

Return to the earth above the airport where my

Cousin returned with his adopted child who grew up

In the south and broke the mold by becoming

An activist and introducing me to you when you

Needed a place to recover and now you live in this

Bedroom with me.  We are naïve to our roles in creating-

These connections are who I am.

Ghazal

I have fallen in love with ghazals!

#17/30

I was reborn in a hospital bed, studying the poems of Rumi.

There is so much left to be read; welcome, new life.

To the desert I was led, following luminous intuitions.

Among the cactus I began to mend; welcome, new light.

I’ve got memories scarred into my head, suspended in unstable shapes.

They mark places from where reality fled; welcome, new story.

This is where I find my daily bread, living not on this alone.

It doesn’t taste like what you said; welcome, new knowledge.

Among the mountains I have bled, looking for an answer.

Meet me there and we’ll forge ahead; welcome, new love.

Look at all the mouths you’ve fed, Emily, on your journey forward.

Without you there’d be one more dead; welcome, new poet.

Poetic Gymnastics

#16/30

I am doing poetic gymnastics tonight:

Inverting, reverting, imitating

Writing backwards, writing across, using

Fake translations, getting drunk: nothing

Is coming out. I am poetically constipated.

Somewhere in me there has to be some poem.

I am made of poems. I have, however,

Extracted every flowery synonym that was close

Enough to the surface to be easy and now,

I suppose, I’ll have to do some real work

To find the next layer of authentic expression.

I think I’ve always known this: that one cannot

Dredge poems from one’s fingers with a little

Bit of exercise. A poem requires a lifestyle

Of heart opening observation and wrenching

Self-reflection, bleeding onto paper.

Tonight, I am too depleted to write a poem.

27th Movement

#15/30

I stand before you today as the 27^th movement in a symphony of providence;

An exquisite opus played to sold out crowds, evoking awe and bringing forth tears

Stirring idle artists to new endeavors, transforming lives. I am the climax in a romantic movie.

I am stage presence; I am the only thing in the room when the lights go down.

I am not merely a result of my own virtue; I did not

Get here on my own.

I exist because of measure after measure of the right notes at the right time.

I am the result of decades of cracked instruments, bleeding fingers and imperfections reworked

I was born when a geniuses’ sweaty midnight inspiration

Exploded following weeks of ashen stagnation

I rose from hard work and fate mixed with mere chance;

Here in equal parts because of hours of finger bleeding practice

And because of notation written well and skillfully taught.

I emerged  from musicians with the right style of talent

Brought together on delicate instruments and led

By a conductor who was born with a tempo where blood should have been.

I am an audience willing to listen, a critic with a kind ear and supportive words.

I am a work of art that can only be played under the right circumstances; I am a tune

That’s forgotten when favor declines.

I am a masterpiece that concludes when fortune expires.  

Bomb

#14/30

Woke up this morning with

A bomb in my belly and my skin

Was a quivering wick. I almost

Wrote you all letters: exactly what

I’ve always wanted to say to you,

In succinct honesty.  It’s probably better that

I slept in instead; went for a jog;

Took some medicine, let the rabbit  

Bite me when I tried to pet her. It’s

Probably better, for once, that I stopped

Unlocking the cage around my voice and

Let the anger simmer down into something

My audience can swallow. Where would we be,

Then, if I had struck pen to paper? In pieces,

Spread over 3,000 miles, mouths agape.

Tucson Spring

#13/30

Spring brings flowers blooming in unexpected places,

Most surprisingly among the sharp needles of cacti.

In showy routine they change to fruit;

Folding closed and maturing into nourishment.

I never planned to put down roots among these blossoms

But I died here and spilled seeds into soaking monsoon soil.

Now I grow and bloom again and again like the cactus flowers;

In an enduring Spring I fold, mature, and transform into fruit.

Broken Poem

#12/30

I’m trying to tell you something important

But this poem is broken.

I took it apart and spread the pieces

On my kitchen table: the synonyms, the rhythm,

A clear message and some well-meaning passion.

All fragments accounted for, all in working condition

But they won’t move together, won’t connect like

Cogs in a clock, won’t sound the alarm I so urgently need.

I’m straining to share a heavy, untold story

But my sentences are no longer logical.

I’ve used dictionaries and thesauruses, peer review

And scribbled revisions but I still can’t form

Something that makes sense.

So I’m offering these pieces, carefully preserved,

In hopes that some poetic mechanic

Will hear the clanking of my efforts to put

Them back together and provide the right device

Or a detailed instruction manual, something

That will empower me to get these oppressive

Tales off of my chest and out to the audience

Where they belong.

Nesting Poem

#11/30

I opened Sinner and saw a circle:

God made man perfectly and wonderfully;

Man sins immediately upon being made;

God made a need for himself.

I opened the image of your lip curled in disgust

And saw a man in need of Sinners,

A priest without Sinners lacks purpose

So you built them with weekly rebukes.

I opened my chest and found the creativity of man

The way we carve puzzle pieces to fit empty spaces.

The way we shape God to cover our anxieties

And people to fit under the minute umbrella of this God.

I opened my core and found the clear contour of birth;

The shape of Me before I was filled with Ss and Is and Ns.

I found genuine rebirth and there was no blood involved

Just a gentle belief in my own innate virtue.

Popcorn, Little Dove

#10/30

Popcorn
Palomita.
Corn kernels, little doves
Two languages, two ideas
Both fly.

Cat Noir

#9/30

The domestic cat is a natural born killer

Displaced to an unnatural environment.

She pays homage to her treacherous instincts

By chasing sinister shadows all day, like a

Hapless detective in a film noir. She doesn’t

Know what really lurks in the shadows;

Is it a vindictive mouse, returning from the

Dark underbelly of the backyard to exact revenge?

Or a bird, heart as dark as its feathers, emerging

From the foggy gray sky to pluck the cat’s last

Shred of dignity from her languid paws?

The cat’s pursuit is a hopeless one; she will

Never find the answers she desires. Darting

From one dark corner to the next she will search

For answers in the shadows until she lists into madness.

I find her one morning splayed on the cold tile

Of the bedroom floor, depleted from a night of stalking

The elusive mysteries of her domain. I reach to comfort her

But she slaps my hand away, squinting at me with weary

Yellow eyes. I know what she is thinking:

We are not so different. She runs from room to room

Chasing what might be in the shadows. I do the same,

Only silently, and in my restless mind.

Four Corners

Poetry Month Poem #8/30

The Four Corners is the only location where four states touch.

A visitor can cross all of the boundaries at once

By stretching their arms and legs in different directions.

As a young adult running to the southwest 

To start over, I passed by this monument, 

Thinking it was a hoax. I have four parents;

It was impossible to be with all four at one time.

Either they were not close enough to touch

Or I could not stretch far enough in every direction. 

"Sevenling"

An ad comparing contraceptives to life jackets

Says that both encourage risky behavior

And the only way to avoid drowning is to stay on land.

It’s true that it’s nearly impossible to sink in dry earth.

But our bodies get parched in the desert

And our souls have an almost unbearable lust for life.

Safety equipment is crucial for quenching your curiosity unharmed.

(Sevenling)

Elegy for the Handwritten Letter

So many of my romances have been measured in paper love letters:

Those tangible testimonies to intense enthusiasm for another.

I let their piles grow on my bedside table as passion progressed;

Then, when the ink and desire stopped flowing,

I buried them in a sacred casket in the closet,

A cardboard box carrying the epitaph: “Proof That I Was Loved”.

Contemporary communication means

I’m losing these palpable paper trails.

I’m losing the ability to hold history in my hands as it happens.  

How will I know who loves me without their

Freshly drying signature at the end of their testimony? 

Cinquain

Poem:

Telling people

What they already know

But making them hear it for the

First time.

Trigger

Sometimes we don’t choose to hold on to something.

Sometimes an event sticks to us like a Cholla burr

So that we live it again and again and again:

When a pop star makes a song about being hit;

When a friend tells you how little she’s had to eat today;

When a client traces the story behind the scars on her wrists;

When a stranger brushes against you in just the wrong way.

At these times we wish we could let go.

We wish our skin would stop holding these moments

And we wonder:

How are they still attached when we’re shaking so hard?

This is why we ask for warning:

Tell us when we’re about to walk through a minefield of cacti.

Tell us when we need an extra layer of clothing.

Or, better yet, let us just stay home

With a journal and a pen or a friend or

A pillow that understands:

We’re trying to let go and pull away

But these moments have such strong hands.

A Tentative Sea Shanty

I read two prompts this morning: one told me to write a tentative poem and one told me to write a sea shanty. I married the two ideas and this is what emerged. I found it really awkward to write a sea shanty while living in the desert in 2013 but I ended up kind of liking the result!

I might want to match my movements to yours

Swimming together to distant shores.

I might be ready to allow this anchor to lower

To the ocean floor and let it flower.

At least for now I think I’ll stay

Until loose grips let you float away.

Is it time to adjust our sails?

Are we willing to work 'til we fail?

I can’t see the horizon yet.

We should maybe stop and just forget-

The times before when we said we’d stay

Only to move when we looked away.

Do not fear the storm that blows

It only helps us follow the flows

That take us to our destination-

Old solid ground or new creation.

In the midst of the storm we’ll stay

We’ll either die or float away.

One day we’ll reach some promised land

And if on it’s ground we choose to stand

The journey will be worth the fight

Or we’ll see ourselves in wizened light.

We may both decide to stay

But likely I will run away.

Bright and Dark

National Poetry Month Poem #2:

I am a 1960s pop art illustration

Emerging optimistically after a long, bloody war.

My soul rebels in vivid color

From within a thick black outline of a body.

This crying woman knows it’s time for change;

Time for me to take well-known images of pill bottles

And beer cans and cover them with brightly colored ticket stubs,

Love letters, and published poems, time to re-work

Abstract dreams of a successful life into steel

Sculptures of attainment. It was nice to try different shapes for a while

But now I know what I want: I want to live as a subversive work of art

Forever an oft repeated emblem with a familiar meaning;

An icon known and loved for being true in every color permutation.

Thank you, Lichtenstein!

Arrival

Ît's National Poetry Month! This year I'm going to try to write a poem a day and share them with The Internet. Here is my Day 1 poem, based on a prompt from Writer's Digest:

Progress plods sluggishly, using heavy hands to pull

Stone legs up one tall stair after another. I balance at the top of the stairs

Always hopeful for the arrival of success though it looks so small from

This far away. Reoccurring sounds keep me kneeling there

With arms outstretched: One foot landing roughly, one long inhale of

Gasping breath, one groaning creak of bones; so I respond with a shout:

It’s possible. Someone came before me to build the stairs, someone

Taught me how to open my arms, someone will come after me to push

Progress through its last aching movements and into my limbs. All we need is

Just to keep moving: I will keep making slight adjustments in my muscles

To sustain equilibrium and progress will continue to lumber forth

Until we meet on the top stair in unadulterated triumph.