A Backbone by Night

I've recently been working on a cycle of poems, entitled Of the Women. The following is the first piece,A backbone by night:

I sit idly on the grass
And watch the night sky reflecting on your back
Your blue back under the moon
I watch the exploding universe upon your narrow frame
As you exhale, nebulas collapse in on one another
Take in breath and restore the shape of things
As long as your spine is blue
I know the safety of all life
And can stare at the terrific expanse of your ribcage
For as long as the Night lasts

Complementarity Pt. 1

Okay so the following is the opening of a longish poem I wrote a while back. I will post the rest in pieces every so often.

We are differing, you and I
I sing our sameness out of the swirling sky
Here is the river! Here is the discovering of life
I, the child of this song of songs,
In my 24th year, with fiery muse begin

Is it me you love?
Then you love nothing
Less than the whole cosmos
Is it my heart you have striven to reach?
Then you have reached across yourself
And within yourself
To escape yourself

Follow me a little way
And I will peel the veil
Like a ripe orange on the universe
I will show you whose heart and how
The where and when will wear out at this
The nature of things

You will not need to know when we will lose the moon
Only that it is dancing away
Until it is free in the void

glory

Curious at the stinging majesty of life,
I begin to sleep less and less
until I am consumed
by the rain
in a fluid torrent.
As though it filled me
until I overflow
into the street
and wash down the road endlessly…
until
under the universal genius of the starscape
I am hailed
by conquest
by fire
by a minor miracle.
There on that quiet
beach or bed
or midnight road,
words fail
dreams fail
my own wearied hands fail
and the beauty of this ashen night
sings a hallelu upon my eyes.
How peaceful then is the night.

Of myself

I am given to long poems

Which ramble on about loneliness

Because in the end I have considered all

And I am alone

If you find me talking at length about

This glory or that wonder

Do not stop me

For I have lost myself at the end of it

And cannot cease until I find myself by wandering

About the magical paths that my fancies take

I do not love the odd marvel

Of a perfect silence

Or the slowly expanding flame

Of a woman’s spine

Because it is primally enthralling

But because it is a strangely symmetric thing

Like the sea anemone, or the divided cell

Providing sustenance for my hungered soul

In the end I complain too much

I wander along fascinated with the joy of life

I focus too much inwardly

To the point of being stymied when others ask me things

As though it is impossible that they should not know me as well

As I do

I am fathomable, and often measured,

Mystic, and too rarely clear

Perhaps tomorrow I will have changed entirely

Perhaps I can shed this skin as easily as if it were a coat or shoes

Perhaps I will not be a poetic, perhaps not so much enraptured

Perhaps free, perhaps you

Perhaps

Nothing new, but...

I've been sort of taking a typical-for-me, post-semester break from everything, which involves a lot of tv and video games, and way more sugar than a human being should ever consume. In the process I haven't been writing as much as I should, or for that matter, at all, but I have recently been reading more for pleasure than I normally get to (being an unorganized English major usually means that most of my reading is assigned, no matter how brilliant I find it). Instead of posting my creative work, I figure that I'll give a rundown of what I'm reading right now:

A friend introduced me to this book called The Physics of Superheroes, by James Kakalios, as the consummate nerd with an interest in both physics and superheroism (the regular kind does nothing for me), I am finding this to be an awesome read. So far the author has rhapsodized about kinematics by talking about the force needed for Golden-Age Superman to leap tall buildings in a single bound, as well as posited that Krypton must have been partially composed of neutron star matter, which of course explains why it exploded, sending young Kal-El to Earth. I am not doing it justice of course, as I seem to have lost my knack for wit in the course of the day, but rest assured it is a brilliant read, which explains physics concepts in a way that is both intriguing and effective for a layperson.
Speaking of intriguing and effective...



I don't think I have to say it any more but I suppose it's possible that there may be someone I don't know reading this blog(yeah right), so I'll admit that Pablo Neruda is probably my favorite poet, period. His Odes to Common Things is a huge reason why. For the past year, I've told people who asked about Neruda, my interest in Neruda, the nation of Chile, slightly unusual poetry, or the weather about this collection of poems. Basically, it's like a brilliant poet sat in his house and said "I'm going to write about every thing I see today". The result is a profound look at things from a bowl of soup("Ode to Conger Chowder") to a suit ("Ode to My Suit") that gives them context which is much broader than "this chowder is tasty" or "this suit is nice". There is no real point in advertising this book since the author is long dead, but if nothing else I just think everyone should know that a perspective like this existed in the world.

I am also reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. At the moment I don't have much to say about it other than it won a Pulitzer and that it has good tone. Also, I find myself endorsing it to other people without having finished it, or even really having gotten deep enough into it to have a strong opinion...hmmm...must be a good book. I intended to be much further along than I am but it was misplaced for a bit, so I got thrown off.





I am actually reading, like three or four other books right now, but these are the ones I'm really focused on, so they will be the ones with the largest immediate effect on my own writing. Anyway, gotta get back to my sugar and videogames