Deadline achieved!

Well, I handed over my poetry manuscript last night, in as good shape as I could get it. I'm so curious to hear what my friend's feedback is. Now, I feel like I need another big writing project... just as soon as I go on vacation, which is in three days. I could always try and work on the Peggy-O story, so swiftly abandoned, or god forbid, even finish the freelance articles I could actually get paid for writing.

Sigh. I'm tired. It's been a pretty hectic few weeks. Miles to go before I sleep.

I'm just going to close my eyes and select a random poem for today's poetry. This is from the 'Autumn' section of my manuscript, 'The First Year'.

wardreams

she wakes again with sweat
under the fine hairs
on the back of her neck
afraid somewhere no one can see

she rises and tucks her hair behind her ears
looks out the window
into the grey, yet-to-rain morning
hands clasped to her chest
folded
as if in prayer

Oh, the holidays.

Okay, okay. OKAY.

I admit it. I have not worked on my writing every single day lately.

In fairness, I've had a shitload of other things to do for the holidays, and am insanely busy both at work and trying to get ready for family to come visit. I managed to put in a little time during a couple days, but not even according to my regular routine, so everything feels off.

However, I am still deadline-sensitive, and I think I'm pretty close to having the order of the manuscript done. I'm also printing about a dozen of what I hope are the final versions of these poems.

So, for today's poem, I'm putting up one that's just gotten what may be its final revision.

eating my words

sometimes it is not the words spoken at all
ears deaf as a pond prick unbidden
sensing quiet orchards of meaning,
stretchings of silence thick as tangerines,
sweet as clementines, bitter as oranges.

our lips stretch over our teeth as we eat
our emotions raw, choking, slurping the juices
from grimy palms. cracked nails hunt down
escaping pulp, trapped between our teeth,
to be rolled by tongue-tip and swallowed
unconsciously, as one savors recent joy.

letting the loose ends go, calming the spaces
in between, framing with hardly trembling
fingers that which leaps: boxing the silence;
its soft corners rounding my gut, fleshing
the bones of my mind peach-soft, blooming.
the words hang as branches, shaking the air,
as what you mean
drops from what you say, silence ripe and red : : :

ugh...

So, all that blase talk below about round 2 being easier than round 1 was clearly delusional. Since each round has a couple phases - putting the poems in an order, letting it sit for 12-24 hours, going back and reading through and identifying what transitions don't work - I really spoke too soon. Or maybe I just shouldn't have read through them last night, when I was exhausted and trying to de-stress from a long day. For whatever reason, it was rather painful. I nearly gave up, found myself wondering why I even bothered to write. You have to learn to ignore those kinds of thoughts if you want to be a writer, I think.

But it reminded me of when I was in college studying with Suzanne Gardinier, who is an amazing teacher, and showed me how to really take a poem apart & put it back together. There's always a 'dark night of the soul' period in that process, too, right before it comes together beautifully & so satisfyingly. So I'm going to trust to that experience and hope this sonuvabitch comes together in the very near future. (It better, since I've only got about five days to my deadline.)

Update: I just went into round 3, and it is totally coming together! Very exciting.

For today's poem, I just flipped through the pages blindly and chose one. It ended up being rather fitting, since it's supposed to snow later.

winter poem

snow falls.
the clouds hide the stars.

but in the streetlight
a thousand stars
fly towards earth.

the wind's icy teeth
rakes through my bones.

i am alone
but comforted
by the world's desolate cries.

Round 2

Well, I survived the first round of trying to order the poems in my manuscript, and have moved on to round 2, accompanied by a ton of editing and attention to titchy little details. (Dictionary.com is trying to tell me titchy is not a word. That's ridiculous.) Round 2, I'm glad to report, was significantly less painful than round 1.

Here's the poem for today; I wrote this while studying archaeology in Ireland, about 10 years ago.

Tongue of Stone

yes and even bones decay in this earth,
dissolve in patient soil, below immense
megaliths, unyielding: portals, the key lost,
tongue held. we dig under stone bellies,
two clay beads, a gold torc, a cup, a pot. we smell
soft fragments of bone, unearthed. but our tongues
seek songs, and we beg the stones for sheet music.
six thousand years ago we wrote it ourselves
with ripped and callused hands, hands weary of silence.
we faced our tombs west, to daily drink the sunset. northeast
for the sunrise. we covered the threshold in white quartz
and it blazed a holy fire in the sun. then one by one
we sealed them off, walked away with a lullaby.
place your hand on the stone. feel it breathe.
learn to listen like stone. step lightly as you circle;
try to remember, seeing from all sides but one.

the stone laughs. poor humans – do you not
cry yourselves to sleep, eradicable as you are?
walk on , two-legger. someday you too shall curl
beneath me, cradled in my womb, waiting
as I wait. time will find you searching darkly
for the passage, the slow birth of death. learn
to wait. one day I shall light the torches for you,
mark the path leading deep to our mother’s womb.
there lie the questions you’ve forgotten how to ask.
and when eons from now your children beg me for answers
I shall sing to them
how you thought; what you loved; your forgotten name;
yes and even as your bones decay below me.

Phoenix

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. It's not for a lack of work; actually, it's rather due to too much work, of the real world variety, unfortunately. But I've still been working on the manuscript, so that's good.

We're at the part that basically constitutes the 'dark night of the soul' bit - that is, putting the poems in some sort of order. It's just utter hell. Glad the rest of the project's gone so smoothly, because this is a big fat road bump and will likely keep me occupied right up until the 18th or 19th, when I give it to my friend to critique.

Anyway, before I toddle off to immerse myself in utter hell for a little longer this morning, wanted to share one of my favorite poems. I wrote this when I was living in the Mojave Desert in Arizona.

phoenix

I-10 towards Phoenix unwinds like a movie reel
bowled across the desert, steep mountainsides
saguaro-carpeted, ocotillos, mesquite trees waving in the wind

far off, three, four dust devils weave across vast
flats of dirt, rocks, among windtorn cacti:

and marvel: to see so far, see the cactus skeletons fleshed
how life thrived in this barren valley. how life crept
into every crack in the desert, how it clings to rock

like a spring is about to burst forth
if a strong enough will bends to it.

I rise, hoping these wings will hold,
reborn: a new determination

my lips crack in the dry desert air
but a fount swells certain in my heart
threatening to burst, savoring
the suspense before, the air about to crack
like a rifleshot among the canyons
spooking the coyotes, frozen in the rising full moon
breathing manifest destiny in gulps of hot air.

progress

It is happening, slowly but surely... at this point, I've cut some of the weaker poems that were in the manuscript, and done some major edits on the ones I want to keep. I've figured out which newer pieces I want to include and a general idea of where I want them - in which section, at least, though not all in a specific order. In fact, it's all progressing a lot faster than I expected, really.

One difficult decision was to leave the poetry dealing with our daughter's death out of this manuscript. The manuscript as it originally stands is more about one's relationship to the world & others & oneself, and I think including the poems about Abigail would distract from that focus. Plus, a lot of the poetry deals with romantic relationships, and if this is the First Year, then jumping ahead to a child's death isn't all that thematically appropriate. I figure I have enough poems to create a book just about Abi, though, so it's not like I won't be putting them out there in the world. Tough decision, though.

Over the weekend - which is shaping up to be a busy weekend, since I have to work tomorrow for my regular job, and also have some freelance articles coming due soon - I'm going to create a PDF of the work as it is now so I can start messing around with the order of the poems. I remember during my senior year at Sarah Lawrence, determining the order of the poems was really challenging. So this could be the part where the process slows down a bit...

For today's poem, I just closed my eyes and picked one. It ended up being one I wrote this past February.

if the night be wild or calm

for death
comes to us all

and how feeble the hand
that once strong, unshaking
held back the unwanted news
warded the glancing blow
now lets the walls of time
batter past it, through it,
collapsing even the fiercest heart

and what leave you behind
or do the sands of time
draw thick to swirl and obscure
the pictures of your life
how look you to the future
through blind eyes, the eyes of art
and legend, silvered eyes to reflect
the soul of the looker?

do you sing with a voiceless mouth now,
beat your fingers muffled on the door
so that only the dogs may hear, and leap
and bark while their owners sigh?
or do those who would hear
bend their heads to a sighing wind
and hark the ancestral song
with a beating heart and glad, glad eyes?

for you too, and no less I
shall lie in the cold calm ground
or sigh as ashes in the wild wind
and shall we be sung
and shall we sing for ourselves?

poetry blitz!

I'm blitzing through my poetry, an odd sensation if there ever was one. I've been having fun working on the manuscript, though I'll feel better about my time constraints once I get a little more progress under my belt. I'm nearly done going through for the first time, making tiny revisions to most of the poems, marking some for replacement & so on.

Kind of exciting that most of the poems only need tiny revisions, actually. It's felt great to read some of these and not want to change a thing, too.

Anyway, once I'm done going through this first time, I need to look at my other poems and see which ones I want to include. I have no idea how difficult that will be. It sounds a little daunting, but what the hell. (Update: it was actually quite easy & didn't take long. Now I have to figure out where to integrate which poems; now that's difficult.)

Eventually, yes, I'll get back to Peggy-O, but deadlines approacheth. In the meantime, I wanted to share this poem from The First Year. I've always liked it. I wrote it about - oh, hell, do I even want to count? - probably 11 or 12 years ago, about a guy I was dating. (And broke up with a few months later.)

Our Hands

A sinner heaves a stone and shatters
my ribcage of glass; you gather me together
hand me a bouquet of my intestines,
crowned by my shaking heart. It is
summer, and hot. My hands languid like
dying flies, brushing the air off my skin.

You kiss my fingertips one by one.
When my fingers fall off you stoop.
You gather and arrange them in a vase.
They are like dried flowers, useless, lovely.
When my fingers fall off you hold my hand.
You talk of days to come as embers fade,
twist, curl in the grate. I shift, settle.
Days are getting cold, quick; nights colder still.

Silence; the memory of goldenrods
fills the room to the ceiling. Winter.
Here ghosts of roses absorb the space
behind my eyes, stinking up the house,
crowding out the Queen Anne’s Lace
I wear for a crown. Flower guides list me
as a common weed. Outside, forsythia and
wisteria bar the door, our watchdogs laid bare.
I pause at the window, sneak a glance out.
God help us both if you hire a gardener.
Been shaking your head for weeks now.

Come spring, you teach me to braid dandelions.
I forgot the long-lost art; you coax it
back to my grasp, silent, jealous.
What I give I give. What you give, I steal.
Cut off my hands if you can catch me at it.
When the snow thaws the dams tense, waiting:
for the point at which they take no more.

You come to me in my mind, empty-handed,
eyes burst open. I clutch at flower stalks,
at my hair; heap my arms full of iris and
orchids, one callalily for memory’s sake.
Then hold my hand as I tell you what my
lonely fingers seek; why I love wisteria;
why I love.

The First Year

And now, we interrupt this ballad-fairy tale-whatever it is already in progress to bring you something completely different....

I'm working on poetry this morning, trying to whip this manuscript of mine into something resembling shape. I created it during my senior year in college, while I was doing an independent study in poetry with Joan Larkin and Kate Johnson. Then I refined it a few years later, when I submitted it to the Yale Younger Poets contest. Now it's been nearly eight years since I first put it together, and I have a ton more poems worth integrating into it, which is great because there were some weaker poems in there originally that I needed to fill space.

Still, at times it's sort of like going back through your middle school yearbook. I cringe at the occasional turn of phrase or maudlin sentiment. But, it's much, much better than the middle school nostalgia trip because I can actually fix the lame crap in my writing.

I can tell it's been a while since I really concentrated on poetry, because when I first started looking at the poems in The First Year, I almost felt afraid to change them, like the roof would cave in or something equally dramatic. I was sitting there trying to decide if I should change a word or tab some lines over or whatever, and I would find myself speculating about it for five minutes instead of actually trying it. As long as you're smart about saving your versions, you can always get the original way back, and the only way to really improve and edit poetry (at least for me) is to really tear it apart and start messing around with it, trying different line breaks or punctuation or whatever the case may be. Actually, the editing process has always been one of the things I love most about writing poetry, which I guess is why it felt so funny to be momentarily paralyzed.

Anyway. Back to it. Cheers. Here, have a poem - this is the first one in The First Year.

she prays

let the birds shit on my head and bring me good fortune.
let the heron fly low over pine trees, o gods
let me round the curve just before it disappears.
let me be kind to the flowers & shameless as leaf-pummeling rains.
let me dance in the rain as if I am already dead.
let the music lead the way into the night’s mazes;
let me come out the other side.
let the sun rise for the first time tomorrow, and turn the sky to ashes.
let us collect the ashes and return them to the water where our loved ones rest.
o gods, let me live amazed; pores gasping, eyes wide.

Hmmm.

So maybe I've just gotten used to publishing live every day; it feels different when I'm just writing on my laptop, on boring old Word, no live audience to produce for.

I had a new story idea; like many of my stories, it's based on a song, one I've tried to write a story about before. I realized today that I could possibly have a much easier time with it if I wrote it as a legend instead of an actual, historical novel, which requires an unfortunate amount of research. Much as I enjoy researching my stories, it's time I don't really have.

So, back again to the concept of 'Peggy-O', one of my favorite Grateful Dead ballads. It's originally a folk song, I think from the war of 1812 during the Siege of New Orleans, but I'm sort of conceptually setting most of the story's action in Charleston.

In brief, a captain in an army stops on his way to a major battle. He falls in love with a local high-ranking girl - pretty Peggy-O. He asks her to marry him, promising to free her people. She refuses, saying he's not rich enough & her mother would be angry. He responds that if he ever returns, he'll burn her city down. Later, word comes back that he's died for love of her - or perhaps for lack of a hospitable station - depending on whether you hear the line as 'he died for a maid' or 'he died for a bed'. Personally I, and I think all good romantics, would vote that he died for a maid.

So, what the hell, I'll post it on here as I write day by day. I also need to work on that poetry manuscript; I suspect this could be my way of procrastinating on that...

Curses! Okay, I'm reminded of the other really good reason for writing on Blogger - it has a better autosave than my word processor, and my laptop's power supply absolutely sucks ass, if you'll forgive the poetic phrase.

It's over! Or maybe it just started.

Well, I'm relieved it's December 1st, especially since I wasn't sure I would actually finish my story in the month of November. Glad I pushed on through. The last few chapters were the toughest, without question, probably because I wasn't sure how it was going to end until shortly before it ended.

It's remarkable how much my concept of the story changed over the course of writing it. If I want to address the original premise, I'm going to have to write a sequel, because this turned into a completely different story. Not that that's a bad thing. I think the only way I was able to write this story at all is by flowing with it rather than trying to control it.

Now I'm going to work on other stuff for a month or so, and come back and edit the story in January when I've had a little distance from it. Among other projects, a friend is willing to read my poetry manuscript, but I've got to have it done by the time she goes on vacation around Dec. 19th. So I may post some poems as I go through and work on it. It's been a few years since I looked at it - should be an interesting (and possibly ego-shredding) experience.