Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Body Sequence

These are a bit controversial. And I have literally written them in the last half-hour. So, here they are, rough and (not) ready:

"To my ribcage"

Ribs resting like fallow fields,
furrowed, dusty roads, silt-colored.
I know, you think I choose this,
but I don't. Eve stole the fruit
that I cannot eat. I do not know
why she turned from me
and said, starve this one,
so she doesn't bleed.
Make her body blind to the changing
moon, her mind deaf to the tide.
If she lives, it will be because
she wills it, in the end, (instead
of allowing the fields to fallow.)


"to my breasts"

not so round, peaked, tired
hungry for nothing and no one
hungers them. the kitten only
kneading at the sound of a tiny
motor, presses up close,
chooses you, milk white, pink
planets of slow growth.
a source of shame, a loss,
unknown, above the fields,
the plane, the crater, and on.


"to my pelvis"

french weeds lie low and tangled
with the ground, burnt, offered
as crumbling ash in wiry columns.
i want to know, why don't you
bloom like lovely wisteria?
why don't you tumble up a trellis,
or sigh, carrying your petaled heads
toward the sunshine?
lay low, you french weeds, under
a broken tree. indecent.


"to my thighs"

symbols of the eroding planet,
turning the color of dunes in mid-winter,
shrinking, rolling back, sucked under
a crumbling fence and nothing
of your once-high luster.
the houses will go under in tiny tides.
you don't notice the gentle wane,
the lack of breadth, the emptying
pant leg. the dunes don't choose
to shrink away. the dunes aren't angry.
only me, wishing they were more powerful,
wishing they looked "enough" to bear children.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

okay this is just spooky....i must be channeling you or something but i've been writing body poetry too....only mine is probably the opposite of yours.....but in many cases they are shockingly similar though the complaints and observations are different.

we should definitely get together and share these soon....it'd be so cool to put our sequences side by side or alternating or something!

anyway....thought you must know that great minds obviously think alike
love love love
amanda

Green Eyed Muse said...

weird channeling indeed.

i think everyone has to write the body sequence at some point. this one is kind of elementary, and could go so much farther.

we're stellar.
see you tomorrow. ;o)

Anonymous said...

touche

i'm not saying i'm original but the weirdness is just in the timing and the CRAZY CRAZY similarity in our poems....like for a fraction of a second i felt like i was reading my own work and was like "hey whitney jacked my poems...." but then duh that's not only impossible but lame

hahahah
see you tomorrow


so excited i could wet my pants

love
amanda
ps. i'll be there early cuz i don't want to even chance rush hour.....so look for me haaaaaaaanging around combs third floor