My own, I am I know my hardest
and my most exacting prisoner,
most watchful sentinel braced
against the threshold— And so
in wakefulness sometimes I much prefer
the randomness of sound unpinned
from any explanation— the beeper
of a quarry truck trilling distant
like a digital alarm, the vowels
spelled by dueling chickadees
in the air. Even the ragged fringe
along a line of trees reverses
the abrupt shear where ridge
meets rain-filled sky into
a kind of noise.
—Luisa A. Igloria
01.26.2011
In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Stay
- “Findings”: the missing Morning Porch poems
- Two more Morning Porch poems from Luisa Igloria and a comment on free culture
- What Leaf
- With winter’s gift of unimpeded sight,
- Aubade, with Feathers
- Scherenschnitte
- Solstice
- Heart and Shadow
- “The sudden spasm of wings”
- “Before sight, sound—“
- Four Morning Porch poems
- “Up and down the street, the neighbors…”
- Memento Mori
- “The streets are lined with garbage bins…”
- “Soon the old year must join…”
- Speaking of __
- Postcard
- Wake
- Despedida de Soltera
- Filament
- “Paired or unpaired, all in the world…”
- Vertices
- Graupel
- Auguries
- Closer
- Menage
- Instructions
- Consonance
- Rosary
- Forager
- Photogram
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Landscape, With Darkness and Hare
- Ghazal of the Dark Water
- Landscape, with Cardinal and Earring
- Intention
- Sentence
- One Day, That Room
- Landscape, with Small Flakes and Far-off Bandoneón
- Spun
- Intercession
- Recurrence
- Landscape, with an End and a Beginning
- Waking
- Thaw
- Spell
- Dim Sun, Dim Sum
- Vanishing Point
- Monday Landscape, with Clocks Borrowed from Dali
- “Last night’s wet snow…”
- Ephemera
- Landscape, with Water Fountain, Small Clouds and Endless Lyric
- What She Wants
- Landscape, with Mockingbird and Ripe Figs
- Letter to Arrythmia
- Love Poem with Skull and Candy Valentines
- Letter to Affliction
- Letter to Levity
- Thaw
- Letter to Rubbermaid and Tupperware
- Letter to Spam
- Ellipsis
- Nave
- Little Waking Song
- Imminence
- Letter to Water
- Letter to Green
- Meditation on a Seam
- No Two
- Ghazal of Burgeoning Things
- Deseo
- Petition for Something Other than White
- Letter to the Hungry Ghosts
- Impression, with Rain and Buds
Whoa, whoa, whoa, this poem is just too good! Thank you, Luisa. That reversal of the shear is going to be turning my head inside out all day.
Spectacular.
And what’s astonishing is that Luisa wrote this poem in just 30 minutes! (Though she did email me with one small edit an hour or two later.)
She describes her habit of responding to your posts as an exercise. She’s obviously in shape!
Peter, Dave, Dale – thank you all. As I have said this past month and more – I am as much a beneficiary of these collaborations. And I didn’t mean to sound cavalier when I used the word “exercise” in some previous post a while back — the challenges that meet me here (though mostly self-defined or self-imposed) are tough- and if I can come away with lines that might have even the smidgen of potential grace, I’m crazy happy…
I have another smallish tweak for the poem, Dave.
Here’s the revision. Thanks, Luisa
* * *
Sentence
My own, I am I know my hardest
and my most exacting prisoner,
most watchful sentinel braced
against the threshold— And so
in wakefulness sometimes I much prefer
the randomness of sound unpinned
from any explanation— the beeper
of a quarry truck trilling distant
like a digital alarm, the vowels
spelled by dueling chickadees
in the air. Even the ragged fringe
along a line of trees reverses
the abrupt shear where ridge
meets rain-filled sky into
a kind of noise.
(revised 01 27 2011)
Luisa A. Igloria
Got it.