Poems and Links

from Ploughshares

Surfacing

 

Two women are walking

on the ocean floor  I’m the one

 

in front, holding an oxygen mask

then passing it back to my mother

 

We take turns   She breathes

I breathe  She breathes   I breathe

 

We can’t talk we just keep walking

and breathing and sometime towards

 

morning I notice she’s gone   A bit

of seaweed stirs in the shadows

 

I keep walking   For the first time

in my life I have all the oxygen

 

to myself   I can feel the color

coming back to my cheeks

 

A note in my baby book says

I was slow to take my first breath

 

until the doctor gave me a whiff

of oxygen   Maybe the air was never

 

my element, maybe I’d gotten used to

the slosh and muffled sounds

 

in my mother’s body and wanted

to stay right where I was   safe

 

little fish   Now I’m beginning

to imagine I could surface and live

 

up there before it’s too late   Let

the world have its way with me

 
from Sharp Stars

Big Band Theory

 

It all began with music,

with that much desire to be

 

in motion, waves of longing

with Nothing to pass through,

 

the pulsing you feel before

you hear it. The darkness couldn’t

 

keep still, it began to sway,

then there were little flashes

 

of light, glints of brass

over the rumbling percussion,

 

the reeds began to weep and sing,

and suddenly the horns

 

tore bigger holes in the darkness—

we could finally see

 

where the music was coming from:

ordinary men in bowties and black

 

jackets. But by then we had already

danced most of the night away.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Why We Die

Someone spilled salt

or stepped on a crack,

someone left a window open

 

or looked back, a mistake

that small was all it took

to let death into the world—

 

which means we never had

a chance at immortality

like the one Calypso offered

 

Odysseus and he turned down

for no good reasons–I want

a good reason life is dangled

 

in front of us for only

so many years and then

snuffed out, I know I could

 

appreciate beauty even if

it went on forever—lovely

word, the way it lingers

 

on the tongue—I might even

give up sex and go back

to being a single cell, to

 

multiplying by dividing,

if I could still feel the touch

of sun or wind or water against

 

a membrane, if I could sense

the difference between night

and day, if the little Mars

 

rover I lived in picked up

any signs of life, I don’t even

believe in getting out of the way

 

of others clamoring in line

to try this ride, I just want

to stay right here watching

 

cows drink from a pond

on a moonlit night.

Because.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Glen Gould Humming

 

If you don’t want the sound

that could be coming

 

from any kid in headphones

accompanying your precious

 

Bach, call me and I’ll come

to your house and collect

 

every record you own

that reminds you this divine

 

music was written and played

by mere mortals with sweaty

 

palms and opposable thumbs—

and you can forget about the man

 

you believe intrudes

on otherwise perfect preludes

 

and fugues.

 

♦ ♦ ♦

 

Welling

 

Sorrow rises as if you

were the well, filling,

 

chills the stones, seeps

into the cracks between

 

them: how many people

would have to drink

 

from the little silver dipper

to carry your sorrow away?

 

 

Links

from The Writer’s Almanac:

Foreseeing

Sweater Weather:  A Love Song to Language

The Underworld

Erasures

from The Poetry Foundation:

Body and Soul

Saying Things

from The Academy of American Poets

Sawdust

from the web

Beyond Recall

 

Interviews

with J. Robert Lennon at Cornell University

with Jeremy Reed at Valparaiso University

with Sheila Bender on KPTZ radio

with the MFA program at Fresno State

with Kathleen Flenniken at Seattle’s Town Hall

 

Poetics

John Berryman: “Hearing Voices: John Berryman’s Translation of Private Vision into Public Songs” from Recovering Berryman: Essays on a Poet (selected conference papers), U. of Michigan Press, 1994

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl” from American Writers Classics, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003

 

Eureka:  A Movie by Annie Kocherhans with words by Sharon Bryan

Share the word