"I Sing The Body For Breakfast" by Stripey Rufftongue

8 nodda villaga...
leff sum bonez.
leff sum hair.

villaga nebba no where i wait...
may b here.
may b there.

nom nom me haff sum fun.
nom nom da villaga gone.

8 nodda villaga...
if u pass thru,
i eat u 2.
______

Lit On Fire...My Favorite Poet, Emily

Ella, at Real Toads, has asked us to write or tell about that poet and poem which first sparked a love of poetry in us. For me, that would be "I Cannot Live With You", by Emily Dickinson. I have it featured on a stand-alone page here at Word Garden.

It was in high school English that we studied this poem, and it took my breath away then and still does today. At the time that I first read it, there were things that I wanted really badly in my life, and I saw others having those things without even trying. I wondered, "Why is the deck stacked? Why am I denied what I want so much?" It came as a revelation to teenage me, that someone else had felt the same way, and written it down so passionately. It was one of those moments when a life turns, and I have loved poetry ever since.

As for Emily, she remains my favorite poet. No pale fraidycat, she. First, she was a redhead. 

redhead!






She had the guts to say, at college, in a time and place where belief was a given, that she was not sure she believed in God, though her subsequent poetry is full of spiritual questioning. She wrote in a style that defied poetic conventions of the time, in both form and content. And she loved another woman...her brother's wife, Susan Huntington Dickinson, who lived next door at The Evergreens. What exquisite torment that must have been! Her heart's desire so close, and yet as removed as the moon. That pain is all through "I Cannot Live With You." (To read Emily's letters to Susan--often passed by hand or through servants--read the excellent book "Open Me Carefully".)

I had the good fortune to visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, in August of 2007. I stood in the very room she composed in, and saw where she kept all her poems. I felt her there, in a personal way that floored me. I sat outside in the garden for a long time after. I felt that she knew I was there, and welcomed me. I felt her encouragement of my work. It was no subtle thing...she was there and she spoke to me. I'll never forget it.

I wrote a poem about it, a little while after returning home. Here it is:

"August"

Emily,
Were you waiting for me?
Did you find me in your garden,
And speak my secret name?
We are wicks
Twinly lit;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you press an oak leaf to your lips?
Wishing for her lips
That never softly came?
We are women
Who burn for women;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you see me?
Another bound in books
That fair divinity contain?
We ache for night
And fever bright;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

________
 

Progressive Symptomology / La Guerre

Kerry, at Real Toads, has issued me a personal challenge to write to the art of Eugenio Recuenco. I have accepted her challenge. Twice.

PROGRESSIVE SYMPTOMOLOGY

The disease began in the heart,
As all diseases do.
There were no doctors, then; no medicine,
But the nurses could smell it.
The nurses knew.

A normal heart fills
Like a drunkard's wine cup, again and again.
It floats, a hovering, invisible host,
Passing it around;
Spreading it thin.

The disease began in his heart,
Which, up until then,
Had been as anonymous within as a
Quiet neighbor, unseen and unknown,
A diamond in a fen.

A normal nurse waits
All in white like a bride, knowing her place,
Waiting at the station, or in the wings,
Like a sluggish pulse
Burning to race.

His disease began in the heart,
Then spread apace,
Involving his eyes as he declared his feckless love
Laid out in labored sighs, all over a nurse,
All over his face.
_______

LA GUERRE

I kissed a German woman,
And it brought the bombers,
That night
And every night since.
Heads have rolled,
And in my bones, I can feel
Little black eagles making their nests.

You'll say, the pilots are dead.
But, no.
They may be dust, dry as stones,
But they bomb the streets
In little neat rows
All because I kissed a woman;
All because I couldn't say no.

She warned me.
She told me, you are poor little Belgium,
Trotting out your schoolgirl French,
Fragile as a croissant in the cross hairs;
But I kissed her anyway
Like a camp-following fifteen minute wench,
And now, every night,
My little black eagles fly up through the bombs,
As quaint and fine as Kaisers;
My one-winged strutting prayers.
_______

art by Eugenio Recuenco, poetry by Shay Caroline 

Yo, Adrian

This is an example of the "cameo" form for Real Toads Sunday mini-challenge. I have based mine on a very sweet scene from Rocky II, which youtube won't let me embed, so here is the link, which will open in another window.)

Shy girl
in a bright red coat
might not mind too much, she might like
marrying you,
but you'll have to lift her ear muff.
Don't forget to invite the
tiger.
_____ 

Fly Girl

Fly Girl say,
Whoa yeah--
If you lyin
If you lyin
She know it.
Fly Girl see
Twenty-four of everything,
And if you hustlin that hard
You sure enough sellin bullshit.
Don't think
Don't even think
Fly Girl don't know it.


Fly Girl look
Right into your eyes,
And anything you are
Shine back multiplied.
She hip
She fly
She see twenty-four of everything
Two dozen times in each big eye.
Stop lyin
Stop lyin
You might fool your mama, or fuck with the man,
But Fly Girl don't play that.
Fly Girl understand.
_______


for dverse poetics "superheroes" HERE

 

For My Love, At Sea

in the breeze, the beach grass waves--
but can only stay;
in the breeze, the lake waves move--
but can only leave;
and always,
the light.

my dearest heart, i can only love you--
by snow, by summer,
by day, by night;
my devotion and this poem, yours alone--
whether it is wise,
whether it is right;
and always,
the light.

_______

for Real Toads' Friday prompt

Bo Peep

Bo Peep gets tired of living in Romania--
Drinking mail-order brick wine,
And being knocked down in the narrow streets
By little fuckheads riding Vespas.

She emigrates, with her dog, to Canada, eh?
On the trains and buses,
Everything is displayed in both French and English--
Bienvenu! Welcome!
And so she finds that she always has two ways
To get anyplace in that
Big dopey land.

Immediately, her dog (whose name is Tuxedo)
Begins herding things.
Sheep, children, goalkeepers, Eskimos, cabinet ministers--
He doesn't care.
Herd!
One day, he even herds a moose out of the forest and back again,
Then just runs in circles
To burn off extra energy.

"Tuxedo," announces Bo Peep brightly one day
As they share a box of Timbits,
"I am going to write a novel!"
By noon the next day, she has.
Wow!
It concerns a Romanian girl who is sick of
Brick wine and Vespa scooters,
And so she emigrates to Quebec.
She entitles it "Fuck This Shit!"
It sells five million copies, and Bo Peep appears on "Oprah."

One day on book tour, 
She and Tuxedo take a Bienvenu! bus
To the prairies of Manitoba.
While Tuxedo ecstatically herds cows,
Bo Peep uses her crook to practice her wicked slap shot--
"She shoots, she scores!"
The red light goes on.
(Sunset.)
Girl and dog do a victory dance in the slanting light.

"Tuxedo, what do you want to do next?"
He runs circles around her, barking like a lunatic.
Maybe he means,
"Let's move to Greenwich Village, and I will herd beatniks."
Maybe he means,
"Pet me, Mama!"
It doesn't matter.
As long as there are no Vespa scooters,
Happiness could last indefinitely.
Alors!
C'est bien!

_________ 

linked to Gay Cannon's very informative post about Poetic Devices.