P.S. I like to play with "voice" and "style," and at this particular time, for some reason, I did everything with lowercase letters. Sometimes I still do. That said, I'm going to leave this entry lowercase. These pieces spoke to me for some reason or another and typing them in no-caps was my way of making them my own. Or maybe I'm full of crap and I'm just too lazy to sort through this and add capitals where they need to be. Your call. :)
mmm..mmm..feel the vibration?!
June 19, 2008
Current Mood: Blank
Category: Writing and Poetry
basically, this is my procrastination kicking in. i should be writing my final paper but..i've got writer's block i guess. these are a few poems from my english 2305 class that i reeeeally liked. ha.
"rubber" by erika meitner. (this is the one i'm supposed to be writing my paper over..)
the day after i had a one night stand
and the condom broke, my car tire went flat
on west main. all these men offered a hand,
but none of them could loosen the lug nuts -
a middle-aged one with a cowboy hat,
jeans too tight; a young truck driver on his knees,
browned biceps bulging, cranking the jack.
someone done screwed these on too tight,
he cursed, handing me back to the wrench.
i thanked him, waited for the tow truck's
hulking girth. damn, it was hot -
over ninety, and that street was shadeless;
not even the bus shelter held shadow
from the white, merciless yolk of sun.
i was sweating, nauseous from the pill
the doctor gave me that morning. was it
consensual? he asked. yes, i breathed,
willing myself to answer - my feet spread
in stirrups sheathed with paper booties,
like small shower caps, his two fingers
in me, my face turned towards the wall.
it was an accident. he nods,
one hand pressing my uterus,
asks, are you in a relationship?
no. he nods again, writes a prescription
for plan b - birth control with irony, a name
with a sense of humor. not diaphragm, sponge, iud
or worse, the wall-chart of birth control pills
pinned above the medical waste bin
in their pastel hubcap disks - pink, yellow, white
like dandelion clocks: orthocept, lo-ovril, alesse.
this plan was meant for unplanned disasters:
"the morning after" - like the wreckage
of an overnight bombing.
it was an accident, i repeat.
i want him to know i'm responsible,
not like that sing in the registrar's office
back in college: poor planning on your part
does not constitute an emergency on ours.
he nods, as the tow truck driver would
later that afternoon, as the cashier
at the service station would too -
walking under my car jacked high in the air
while the mechanic in blue coveralls
pointed to a tear on the tire's side, then the rip
in the boot cover, the axle problem.
clueless about the inner mechanics
of cars, all i knew was to ask how much?
"i stop writing the poem" by tess gallagher.
to fold the clothes. no matter who lives
or who dies, i'm still a woman.
i'll always have plenty to do.
i bring the arms of his shirt
together. nothing can stop
our tenderness. i'll get back
to the poem. i'll get back to being
a woman. but for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.
"the road not taken" by robert frost.
two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry i could not travel both
and be one traveler, long i stood
and looked down one as far as i could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;
then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim,
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,
and both that morning equally lay
in leaves no step had trodden black.
oh, i kept the first for another day!
yet knowing how way leads on to way,
i doubted if i should ever come back.
i shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and i -
i took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
"one art" by elizabeth bishop.
the art of losing thigs isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
lose something every day. accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
the art of losing isn't hard to master.
then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. none of these will bring disaster.
i lost my mother's watch. and look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
the art of losing isn't hard master.
i lost two cities, lovely ones. and, vaster,
some realms i owend, two rivers, a continent.
i miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
-even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
i love) i shan't have lied. it's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (write it!) like disaster.
Next Wednesday: Happy Thoughts?
Last Wednesday: Trash!
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