All this cold weather is a constant reminder

. . .of how much I miss cuddling.  All I want to do is breathe and feel.

I've decided that I'd try basing my blog posts of tweets that I made.  Some of my tweets don't quite make sense in this context but I'll do my best.  This one is brought to you from earlier in the week.

I was feeling quite despondent and took some time on Monday, Columbus Day, to clean my room.  Not clean as in dusting and vaccuuming--I wish I had done that, actually.  But clean as in removing all of the things that remind me of my previous relationship.  I've been single for weeks but there was just so much around my room that I couldn't bring myself to move anything.  Things changed Monday--I got the drive to get nearly everything together in one spot and out of sight.  I'm sure almost all of us can relate to how much it sucks to have constant reminders around your room of something good.  And it was really, really good.  I vowed not to throw anything away and I didn't. Except for a really old, used Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate cup that had a wonderful message written on it.  Since I'm a sucker for memories, I took a picture of it so I can at least have the message and the idea in picture form forever.
This is where things start to suck.  Two days later, Apple comes out with the iOS5 update for the iPhone.  Of course, I'm excited to upgrade my equipment--especially after reading what would change.  Technology, ever being the fickle bitch, decided to make my life a bit more difficult.  None of my information, pictures, contacts, or apps were backed up in iTunes.  Therefore, when the update was finished and my phone restored to factory settings I had nothing.  All pictures gone. All apps gone. Contacts gone. It was devastating!  Thankfully, I was able to put my contacts back in the phone and found most of the apps I lost.  However, it's those pictures I'll miss the most.  500 pictures of sunsets, laughter and pure wonderfulness.  And that cup that's already in the trash.  Never got a chance to upload it to my computer.
And this happening while I was bemoaning my single-ness.  Two ways to look at it: nothing is on the phone to remind of what was.  I can focus on what is.  Another is that there are memories that i'll never retrieve because technology is fickle.

All I can do now is what I've been doing for the past month--accepting and moving on.

A New Poem and a New Post

"September and October Light"

The sun beats Halloween orange--
sliding behind the clouds
down the sky.
The city is black and unlit
untouched by pulsing sky.
It darkens and is ocean-empty.

Wet, sickly leaves stain the porch--
nauseous brown shadows.
Just gray, damp, slick and brown.
It never blends--just becomes.

There is infinite September light
between us.  Warm and listless
it hovers.
We can feel its heat stagnate the air.
That's September.  That's the sun growing tired--
bursting into orange--igniting
space between the clouds, the city, you and I.

Brown-specked yellow leaves
appear in the morning.  Never orange.
They become the pavement.
There is a little light
glinting in the beads on the gray porch.
September waves from
the leaf stains.
Too bright.  Infinitely between us.


October light glides in the
fog.  In the veins of leaves.
It bursts into orange.
Illuminating the gray
filling the space between
the leaves, the clouds, the sky,
you and I.
~~~

This poem was inspired by the poet Richard Siken's collection Crush.  The book was given to me by a friend for my birthday which was this past Saturday.  I devoured every poem.  His images are so powerful and poignant.  Exactly the kind of poetry I love--the kind that frustrates, teases, and awes.  Siken manages to string together images so well that you have no choice but to follow their siren call.  I love the fact that he keeps returning to certain images in his poem, changing it slightly and therefore there's meaning in the change.  With this poem I wanted to emulate his style.  It also gave me an opportunity to use a line I had dreamed a few weeks ago: "There is infinite September light between us."  I woke up and there it was and at first I had no idea how I could use it.  Then, after reading Siken, who uses light a few times, and after seeing a gorgeous sunset from my class at SSU I knew I could use it.


In other news: it seems like my near-incoherent rant last time bore no fruit.  I have not maintained this blog as I had meant.  Which is unfortunate.  Though I think I have become more inwardly reflective.  When I had Livejournal it was a space for me to get my thoughts out.  Through that vomit I gleaned meaning.  Now, I've noticed that talking is what does it for me--the actual verbal communication with people is what helps me process the day.  Or I sit and reflect inwardly--not on paper or keyboard.  Thoughts for me to chew on until next time!

Better late than never?

I guess it's about time I get started blogging.  Not just for Rhetoric, but for myself.  I used to maintain a livejournal many many years ago and it was the best thing next to sliced bread.  However, that soon simmered and sputtered it's way down the trash-filled lines of the interwebs. 
Blogging has a special place in my heart.  I like reading some blogs and I like maintaining one--somewhat.  I think what has always put me off from blogging is the fact that for some reason I feel like I have to be making a point.  What ever happened to blogging my day's activities down?  Reflecting on what happened during my day? Writing them down so I'll never forget.  I stopped keeping a handwritten journal the summer after high school ended.  My livejournal died two semesters after that.  What went wrong?  Where did that need for blogging go? 
I feel, like email and AIM, that my need for blogging just found another outlet.  For instance, twitter and Facebook  Status updates were the next best thing to blogging!  I could quickly update what I was doing maybe even throw in a little caveat of silly "wisdom" while I was at it.  Same goes for twitter--microblogging I hear it being called.  I must agree.  Being confined to 140 characters is tough for someone as verbose as me. 
The biggest question I have for myself now is if I'll ever be able to get back to that root of blogging/journaling that I so strongly had in high school.  Or if that is completely dead.  No. Not dead--crawling, moaning like a zombie 140 characters at a time.

A new poem?! WHAT?!

“Should Not Have Slept All Day"

This lingering air tells me

I missed a good day.

It is sweet like rain-

spattered sidewalks—metallic.

The street lamps

lend amber light to the night

bringing my eyes down from

the hiding stars.

I’ve missed a good day.

This autumn wind makes my skin

crawl with anxiousness.

Dead leaves in the middle of the night

sound just like their happy

former selves in the middle of summer.

Still, this lingering air taunts and teases me.

I will stay and enjoy this

faint light, goose-bumped skin

and waves of dead leaves rustling

in this lingering air.

Writer's Series

These two poets invigorated my love for spoken word.  Both were starkly different in their style, both reading and writing.  It was refreshing, to say the least.
Dillard's attention to sound and image struck a chord with me.  When she said that she hears a voice I thought she was talking about a character, and she was in a way.  But then she said that it repeats and reverberates and this is how I feel about my process with poetry.  Sometimes I hear a few words or a line that's great and it will just reverberate, or to use her phrase she said after when I got my book signed: "Like a bell ringing."  These voices could definitely be heard through her work.  However, since the poems from The Lost Alphabet had an extended voice that she worked with for so long they felt stronger when she read them aloud.  Like she was again putting on the mask of the lepidopterist.  Very comforting, too, her voice--it did not grate with her poems.
Daniel's energy with his works was something I need to steal.  My poetry does not move very fast (but it does so in a nice, turtle-esque manner).  His work was fast-paced and charged with terrific imagery and sounds like "You dig and you wait in the dark heart of the Earth."  He wove hugely different experiences into one delicious ball of verse.  The braid of literature and musical culture was done splendidly and while I feel that I weave experience into my poems, Daniel's level is one to strive for--one of complete mixture.
I can steal a lot from these poets and will definitely be looking back at the lines and snippets I jotted down for future poems.

Haiku

Here are the haiku I wrote in class from last night's found poetry exercise.

A stone falls--A heart
Alone with two children close
incessant water beats

Ancient kisses and
the same road will sustain me
Sincerely, the earth

And there is a series of haiku that I wrote about waiting--mostly about waiting for the T (buses or trains)

Absentmindedly,
Minutes are lost to waiting.
Wonder where it all goes.

People on the T
are bronze-armored barbarians
Vying for a seat.

I play Tetris with
Thoughtless thumbs--filling in gaps
with L-shaped pieces.

I often forget
that the world whispers to me--
Earphones block it all.

Words burn into my eyes--
my hand stiffens with cold.
Never felt so good.




would love to hear what you all think!

Bird

I was quite a fan of Zhang Er.  However, I think she and I suffer from the same vagueness.  Her verse is gorgeous and the images she sets are pleasing to the mind's eye.  However, I felt like I could not connect to her poetry as well as I could connect with others because of the vagueness.  Also her lines seemed to be clunky and not so smooth.  There were times when this clunkiness made the line stand out.  It mostly served to distract me, though.  I can't say there is much I would steal from Er after perusing her poetry.

Darwishian Assumption

Could not help myself with that Darwishian.  Sounds squishy.

Here is my assumptions/thoughts on poetry

The tingle on the back of my neck--
needles down my back.

Never the word. Always the
image as first seen by the eye

What's lost from brain to wrist.  Jolts at the
scarred bone in my wrist

An inexplicable need to write--energized
from that first tingle.

Images.  Images.  Images.  Flashes.
Never one color.

Infinite? Infiinty.

~~
Keep in mind this is an sandy-rough draft.

Stricken

With awe.  Drawish's collection forcibly grabs me and takes me for quite the spin in his prose and verse poems.  I have only ever written a few prose poems and seem to struggle with being able to walk that high-wire with skill.  Darwish skips along that line giddily! He is specific enough to have me, a Western reader totally removed from the plight of the East, be able to fit into his skin and words.  I often have the problem where my poetry is too abstract for my readers--something goes missing from my head to my wrist.  Darwish has this quality to a degree, but it's endearing and I never once felt myself wishing he were more clear.  He was perfectly abstract.  Left plenty to the reader--a skill which must be worked on in my case.  Specific language--Darwish punches you in the gut just the right ways to get his beautiful vision across.  Where I feel like I'm wonderful with words and how they sound pretty together, Darwish combines that with meaning.  In retrospect, I feel as if my techniques sacrifice meaning.  I'd like to be able to combine both with finesse. 

CNF

This is the prompt I wrote in class.  Critiques appreciated!

A kiss, hurried in the front seat.  A kiss, moist and dry--dragging with one lip, skating with the other.  A kiss with one eye open to peek and shiver.  A kiss for the other drivers anxious for green.  A kiss, colon-asterisk.  A kiss with tongue coating lips--electrifying yet wonderfully gross.  A kiss, gradually falling into breathing and smacking.  A kiss missed when saying good-bye.  A kiss forgotten because there is so much.  A kiss to forget there is so much.  A kiss that blooms from pecking seeds into moist blossoms into nibbling petals.  A kiss so hard teeth clang.  A kiss of remembrance--A kiss to never forget that this electricity, this skating and gliding, this man is peeking, too.

Shurin

I'm going to post this anyway even though it is very much affected by tonight's conversations regarding the book and Shurin's style.  I must say that, at first, I was not that into Shurin's use of language.  Scratch that.  I wasn't a huge fan of his syntax.  His language was beautiful--his syntax complicated. I think it was the complex syntax that made me scrunch my nose at him.  After talking in class, though, I realize that this is his style, just like simple sentences are mine.  Like everyone else I was shocked and awed by his brutal honesty and succinct language/descriptions.  One that comes to mind is the hilarious comparison of the football player's face to a penis.  Daring!  It's a subtle hilarity that he weaves into his sentences.  I think what I would want most to take away from Shurin is his ability to remove himself from the situations he is writing and his way of weaving such elegant descriptions.

The Writing Life

I found Annie Dillard's book to be very enlightening and charming.  I found myself often chuckling at her wit.  At first, I was confounded by her mixing of metaphors in the first few chapters, but she made it coalesce extremely well.  That is something I'd like to steal from her--her unabashed use of a multitude of metaphors and seem to work so well together in context. 
Her honesty about her work environment, about the painful process of writing was humbling.  She made a grueling process of hard work, blood, sweat and tears become beautiful.  The scene of her working on the Fourth of July and heeding the June bug's thumping was remarkably striking.  Also, her description of said workspace and the need to not look outside was intriguing.  I have found that more and more I need almost sensory deprivation to get work done and find it admirable that willingly did that.  I find that the hardest part of writing--the will to actually sit down and focus on what you're working on.  Very tough to do.Thus, I found The Writing Life encouraging.  It tied in spectacularly with the Writer's Series event.

Reflection

It was very inspiring to hear these writers read from their works. What stuck out the most to me was what someone in the audience asked about at the end of the session: their rhythm.  When they were reading it’s all I could pick up on.  With Robert Kloss, the repetition of “remember” was done fantastically.  It did not mar the work as repetition tends to do.  It was crafted so well that it encouraged me to try repetition more in my own work.  I am usually a huge fan of it in my poetry but I know that he used it a lot—almost every sentence.  I wish I could have seen how it was formed—if it was in prose form or verse.  My gut tells me it was a mix, but who knows.

I noticed that they all had very intense, meaningful, colorful images.  With Himmer’s office scene, the image that is so very clear and well-constructed in my head at the moment, four days after, is the image of the desk fountain and the forlorn man that owned it.  Kloss’s mourning Lincoln is still haunting. And Bell’s cartographer was fabulous on all levels.  With Bell’s, though, I wish I had it in front of me to get the full effect of the symbols. 

I, like some others, enjoyed the Q&A at the end of the reading.  Now more than ever I enjoy hearing about people’s writing process.  It was extremely encouraging to hear that these three ordinary men can devote their time to their writing.  It seemed so easy—write when you can and be devoted.  Very encouraging.

Short Story Draft

Cream of wheat snow. Cinnamon sand.  The wind is blustery—trying to make me fall on my knees.  I am defiant.  Already the ocean water is a dark gray.  The sky and the water melt into each other.  Snowflakes melt in my eye lashes and skate down my face, collect and lingering a little.

            Behind me is the house Roy and I bought for our retirement.  Its brown siding is a a piece of drift wood among the sand and grass.  He’s still sleeping, warm.  Didn’t even feel me get up and shiver.  Didn’t hear me sigh and slink toward the backdoor which I slid closed, not wanting any snow or cold to seep into the house. 

            The walk from the house to the edge of the beach was treacherous.  The snow melted right through my robe.  Then it just started to settle like a shawl across my shoulders, weighing me down.  Clutching the robe at my chest, I navigate the slick wooden walk in my slippers.  There is no thought to my walk.  Just pure survival.

            The walk ends in sand, a tiny cliff to jump off into hardened sand.  Instead I stand and watch the water, melting all over.  I remember when the sky was this gray in Nevada before a thunderstorm.  When Roy and I would move the couch to the sliding doors and watch the rain splat, spatter and run like my makeup.  Thankfully, now my eyes won’t sting. Roy hasn’t bothered to move the couch to the sliding doors since we moved to New England. 

            “It’s too cold over there.  We’ll get a cold,” his excuse.  Then we’d sit on the couch.  I’d be wrapped in a blanket we both could have shared.

            Roy missed the heat of Nevada.  You could tell by the way he always had the fire lit and the heat on as if the cold were seeping to his bones freezing his marrow. 

            “Come under the blanket,” I would say, “We can make each other warm.”

            Then he’d put the corner over his lap and continue watching TV.  As sweltering as the house got we never shared a blanket unless it was in bed.  Thirty years in the desert.  And now, confronted with cold and water, he is the perpetual iceberg.

            I close my eyes against the wind.  The snow dries as soon as it melts on my cheeks.  I am frigid.  The ocean holds no more interest for me—it is just frothy clay at this point in the storm.  It would be exhilarating to get lost in that deep gray, I think.  Roy must still be asleep.  He always was on one to sleep in on his days off and now, in retirement, it is everyday where he greets the sun hours after I already had breakfast and tea with the sun, enjoying the ocean breeze, discussing the shape of clouds.  He’s lost in his own gray of the morning—this half-light is only more of an excuse to waste in sleep.

            I kick off my slipper into the sand before me and set my barefoot on the wooden walk.  It’s refreshingly cold.  Tightening my grip on the robe, I step off the cliff of the walk and dip my toes into the snowy sand.  Beach sand was never like desert sand.  Here it’s coarse with shell remains and smooth rocks.  Roy would complain and never walk the beach with me.

            “I’ll set my chair up here,” he’d say unfolding his chair at the edge of the walk, “Perfect view of the water and it’s still warm!”  I would look up to him with a slanted head from the sand, toes wiggling, tickled by the sand between them.  With an ever-so-slight shake of the head I’d turn and walk straight to the edge of the water.

            Now I am chattering like Roy on a cold morning before the Sun is out.  I would be up, robe on, sitting at the kitchen counter sipping tea staring at the water and listening.  I always wanted to spend retirement by the sea.  Years in the desert surrounded by sand and no water was depressing.  I longed for the salt and for the razor-sand of my preteen summers.  Before Roy.

            Since May we have been here in the timber-wood-brown house at the top of the shore.  Looking back at it from the water, it is tiny, insignificant.  We haven’t had friends over yet because I’m ashamed of it’s time-share cleanliness.  There is no mess of a home.  It’s like a tidy, sterile death bed.  Lonely.

            Cream of wheat snow.  Cinnamon sand. Like a nice cup of hot chocolate with a lump of whipped cream and some sprinkled cinnamon.  Fancy, but warm.  Roy would like waking up to that.  Then I would stay in the kitchen, looking out the door and enjoying the fact I was inside and warm and loved.  He would be on the couch, watching the news he missed. Doesn’t deserve it.

            I inch into the icy water, wobbling because my chatter has spread from my teeth to my legs and arms as the snow seeps into every thread of my robe.  I stand and wait.

Just some tidbits

I thought I'd share my favorite definition from last night and perhaps a few other things.

Shadow--Absence of: consciousness; conscience.  Shell. Wraith of a man smoking a cigarette, walking. Absorbing Sun. Diverting looks.  Forget he's there. Smoke.

Cerulean--Her hair. Misty blue as the sky in Kanto.  Her hair we with sea, glinting the sun as people turn to stare because her eyes are not cerulean and neither are her eyebrows.  But, it's okay--it's as natural as the iridescent sheen of a perfect shell you almost destroyed.


And here are a few beginnings and endings.  Couldn't really decide where to go with them.  Maybe one of you can become inspired!
She capped her ginger ale and walked.
He always had the nicest ass.
Our kiss wasn't the greatest. 
Slipped and fell hard on my ass.  He chuckled and gasped--hand out to help.


have fun!

Ana Castillo and Epistolaries

I found Castillo's Letters to be amusing and powerful. Just like we noted last week in the class, her use of diction and concise words is what really brought it home for me.  It is her succinct diction that made these two women come to life.  They are humorous, clever, sweet and poetic.  In fact, it is their poetic prose that I most connected with—they speak with such eloquence that it made their stories more than just images in my head.  It was a full on movie.  Castillo’s descriptions were unique and thoughtful and that is something that needs practice in my own writing.  To be able to describe something with such unique clarity it leaves the reader saying “Huh, that’s such a great image.  Looks like a painting.”

            I simultaneously admire and was not a fan of the epistolary format of the novel.  I think it’s a great, unique, fantastic way to share and tell a story.  However, I felt confused on more than one occasion.  Although these two women were completely different, their diction sometimes would not allow me to tell them apart.  However, I enjoyed Teresa’s poignant poetry over Alicia’s rambling letters.  I have often toyed with the thought of writing a novel through poems because I have seen it done well so many times.  I have never once thought of combining an epistolary with poetry.  I think that’s what makes Castillo’s Letters so wonderful.  In having her characters write poetry in their letters and write earnestly and honestly, she has created them wholly for the reader.  That creation is sometimes lost even in the best novels that use poetry as their format.  It is also difficult for me to establish a voice for my characters, a tone.  I would love to be able to flesh out such wonderful characters as Alicia and Teresa.

            If anything The Mixiquahuala Letters inspired me to break the bonds of normal story telling and prose and to combine, morph and create new ways to share a story.  Can’t wait!

flash fiction?!

Sleeping in my shoddy sleeping bag, eyes sore from the dusty ground around me, I bent my arm at an uncomfortable angle to make it reach my neck.  Fingers crawling over my chest to feel the cold chain that led to a slightly heavy silver locket. Following the smooth chain between my first two fingers, I follow the weight ‘til I reach the locket.  I sigh as its cold is enveloped by my fist.

                With my eyes closed and my heavy hair held up in one hand, Isaac moves to sit behind me on the bed.  Legs crossed, he brings the dangling necklace down to my chest.  It thuds and is cold against my bare skin, nestling messily at the top of my cleavage.  I shiver.  He gets closer as he brings the ends together around my neck.  All I can do is feel him—his weight shifting as he leans toward my neck, his breath tickling the few hairs not held up by my hand.  I can almost picture his fumbling thumbs trying to secure the tiny catch.  Finally, his thumbs secure the necklace and he lets it fall against my neck.  Putting my arm down, he swings both arms around me and buries his face in my hair.  He breathes and whispers that this is from the bottom of his heart so it can rest against the bottom of mine.  My eyes are still closed as he fixes his legs and wraps them around me and he brings me back with him down on the bed.  He sighs.

                The locket is warm now as I let it fall against my arm.  Eyes closed, I can feel myself slipping into dream memory.  Tonight will be bearable; my pulse beats to the locket.  Yes.