Posts

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Ad infinitum

This entry is part 8 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

 

Proverb: “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”

What if a covey of quail skitters into the marsh grass?

What if the spider weaves a ladder that spans the distance plus half?

What if the egg yolk rises and does not settle in the bowl of water?

What if the tree lowers its one fruit but I don’t want to eat it?

What if we made a crepe paper limousine and burned it down to ash,
but father insisted on walking all seven hills to the other side?

And what if the messenger was mistaken, and delivered
the letter to the wrong house? What then?

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Hone

In those days we left doors open
with no thought to danger. Anyone
could wander in— the neighbors,

their children, chickens in the yard,
the woman who came by once a month
to ask if we had old newspapers

to sell. The boy who walked past
with tin pails of duck eggs or bean curd;
the man who repaired umbrellas and offered

to sharpen garden shears and kitchen knives.
When did we learn to let them in, answer
the door, but keep an eye open? I have

a drawer full of blades, gleaming,
not yet dulled from daily use— I cleave
the onion from its stalk, fillet gristle

from bone, gut gills from limp fish bodies.
Here are points that could whistle past your ear,
thread a swift line thin as a hair to the opposite wall.

 

In response to small stone (232).

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Spring Evening

This entry is part 7 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

 

It’s raining again, and cold.
The herons we saw return to their nest
want their tree back, dry and green.
The neighbors cleaning ivy overgrowth
from their fence have long gone in.
But the hired girl stands in the yard
tying up leaf bags; she does not mind
the rain— Every so often she tips
her chin up, drinks from a can of soda.
.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Rest Pause

Forget your anger, rustled the leaves
as rain washed over them.

Forget the hurt that has lain
long in the hollow of your bones.

Easy enough for you to say I railed, fist
raised, tender all over as a bruise.

Once I believed that things could be amulets:
suds that prismed as bubbles, floating away

from laundry I beat on a stone. Feathers
that birds dropped in flight,

sliver of moon worn as a silver
fetish around my neck, the crackled

wrecks of turquoise taken up from the soil.
And if I gave back my anger, what then?

O life, o body, I want to sleep as I
haven’t done in years— but not so deeply.

 

In response to Morning Porch and small stone (233).

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Heart Attack

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

A great knocking in me
and I am down, I am wood.
Hopes have to be settled on shore,
but the water being almost
at low water, fear is sure.
I urge the surgeon on,
my heart heavy for not hearing my heart.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 April 1660.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

12 Simple Songs: the videopoem

What a wonderful surprise from Nic S. and Marc Neys (who periodically ducks into a phone booth and emerges as artist and filmmaker Swoon). I am gobsmacked. And I’m very glad I placed a Creative Commons license on the collection that explicitly permits derivative works. (Not that Nic and Swoon couldn’t have just contacted me for permission — but that would’ve spoiled the surprise!) I love the fact that listeners to the poems now have the option of hearing them in a voice other than the poet’s, and — especially interesting for love poems — in a female voice. I tried to include enough particulars to make the people in the poems (Rachel and I) seem real, but not too many to prevent identification from readers who don’t know us. This video hugely advances that. And by deploying images that complement the images in the texts without attempting to merely illustrate them, the film preserves and extends the poem’s allusiveness and essential freedom rather than leaving it tightly bound to the writer’s original vision and voice.

Marc posted some process notes to his blog. Here’s a snippet:

Nic send me the audiofiles of her readings. Very good readings.
I wanted a track with a simple melody that pops up a few times against the backdrop of atmospheric disturbance. I went for this one;

and added a stream of atmospheric noises, clicks and crackles.

For images I went for a combination of simple images of nature, birds, the ocean, movement and structures. Most of it I filmed myself and I added a few pieces of footage by Matthew August, H.Hattori, Swee Sin Eng.
In the editing proces I chose to let slowed down footage of in and out of focus images (with a small touch of ‘zen’) go into battle with a sometimes frantic and nervous way of editing against the reading and the background noises.

And back on March 23, Nic was kind enough to blog about Twelve Simple Songs as an example of multi-format poetry publishing, something she’s been championing for several years. Nic also happens to be one of my favorite poets, so I’m pleased and humbled that she thought enough of my work to record it in her own voice and talk Marc into making a video. Now I just need to finish tweaking the PDF for the printer and order a second proof. If all goes well, a dead-tree version of the collection should be available to purchase at cost by the middle of the month.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

What Use

This entry is part 6 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

 

Rice grains in the pot,
emerald skins of peas; fine
mesh of steam under the lid—

In the hollow around
the light socket, cobwebs
thin as sewing thread—

Assortment of buttons I saved
in a box; cracker crumbs
to thicken the soup—

Beads I looped
on my daughter’s broken
violin string: bracelet

of new-found things.

 

In response to thus: For all that is lost.