The Ultraviolet Catastrophe -- Summer Poetry 2010

After watching Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in concert --

how does your garden grow

strange brass flower garden –
these hammered valved blooms,
in this hothouse of booze and stubbed joints, drooping
from the mouths of the jazzmen as if sucked
on for nectar – the stuff the bees couldn't quite rub

horns bright and spreading
like equatorial flora and
so much smoke in the air
that folks' faces are bright and peering
like streetlamps in san fran fog
the unshorn yellow rams and ewes of fog. the double time,
dancefloor cut, wild looped dropped swing
blasted horn and sax notes – singer's
voice is a struck match

and the trombone is an adze her
notes peeled shaved. the trombonist having
memorized each slide lock by muscle composition
like the familiar grooves, hollers,
depths of a woman's body
when you can see nothing of her in the dark
but her elbows
and shins. the upright-bass man twirls
his sober-bodied instrument in dim-lit
tarentella, stepping skinnily and
ragtime pounds in their ears
like bees stressed digging for good
uncut hits of pollen

unctuous pianist working the 88
vertebrae of the corner piano, banging –
woman in a lonely dress at the end of the bar
and the night folding around her
is a paper changing screen, leaving just her shadow,
and a suggestion – someone to be sung
about, mourned about,
but left untouched

caryatid

young girls who danced with baskets
on their heads.
ripple of their sheer fabric
caught perfectly in stone, like snakes held still by the base
of the skull. these stone women are slow moving, precise
facing westward in acropolis, their features carved
out of light like candleflames and
(i think you are one of them).

of course, i love you for who you once were –
for when you could slouch,
when you had soft skin, and he felt you
like a market peach. when you had eyes
that were not always looking in the same direction:
away. when you carried nothing.
not even a child.

but you stand with the greatest poise.
in you, i see that village mother with the morning's
unboiled water in a five-gallon bucket on her head, smell
the night-scent of her skin, saronged
in dawn and dusk, she is you, you are her
it does not matter if you weren't born
on a savannah, or under the dry, granny-knotted
olive trees of greece,

because your skin gleams like marble,
when you draw the sheets up to my neck
in the moonlight, and I wonder at the roofs
that you uphold
at the flesh that you upbraid.

Spoiler

Dude, one word! CAPITALIZATION! You truly have some great stuff in there, but the punctuation errors in there are getting in the way! Keep on writing, you have a talent!

~Lindsay
"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." ~Oscar Wilde

daddy

under the porchsteps
mushrooms clotting
like small, daily fears –
fear for the safety of one's child,
fear of household chemicals
fear of dying of old age –
white, roulette of breathless gills.
I wait with my elbows in
the soft black dirt soft and
folding black around me, smelling
of stray cats who have
been here pissed here, and
laid eggs. here, there is the
entropy of spiders,
segmented toggle of centipedes,
a network of ants, wood
creaking like human voices, but
here, I am also safe,
untouchable, and the insects
and I move in the same paces,
beats. I fall asleep here and wake up
in the neck-breath of the afternoon
sprouting, digging, full
of thin white roots, that pull
me into the earth like the memory of fire.

Hey Ky -

So, a shorter poem - or at least one with shorter lines. This is certainly intriguing. An experiment, I presume? (You know how much I love experiments.)

I thought of three things while reading this. First, that there was little overall coherency, no extended metaphor, nothing even vaguely intellectual but just a string of pretty images, tied together linearly, chronologically. Lovely, yes, but not insightful as such. Second, it's funny I should read this just after rereading Delights and Shadows today. Since in many ways, it's very Ted Kooserish in its delicate simplicity - actually, so much like Kooser that I'd be hard pressed to distinguish this from any of his other poems. And something else I noticed about his poems - while they are short, accessible and meaningful in some way (any kind of little way, really), they're also not terribly focussed on a single overarching idea, on a single metaphor, a central axis. In that case, they're really sweet reads first time, but don't add anything particularly meaningful and longer lasting to one's perception of, well, life, really. Other than the usual nature-and-society-are-wondrous-and-magical sort of feelings, that is. My third thought was that it's so bizarre you should post this just as I went on a purity-dirtiness-cleanliness theme train (with gardening and bush-walking specifically in mind) after that talk of cleaning airplanes with wax. I sometimes think I think too much.

under the porchsteps
mushrooms clotting
like small, daily fears –
fear for the safety of one's child,
fear of household chemicals
fear of dying of old age –
white, roulette of breathless gills.

Just when the first three lines suggest the style is economical in its use of language, the next three throw that out of balance. Is this a poem too small to allow for such repetition? I think so, yes. Seems more like a list than anything, and despite you mentioning the word 'fear' three times, I don't feel it until the 'roulette of breathless gills' which is where it really becomes apparent.

I wait with my elbows in
the soft black dirt soft and
folding black around me, smelling
of stray cats who have
been here pissed here, and
laid eggs. (1)here, there is the
entropy of spiders,
segmented toggle of centipedes,
a network of ants, wood
creaking like human voices(2), but
here, I am also safe,

1. Up to this point, there is a very earthly connection here, almost spiritual (despite the pissing cats, which sort of strengthens the reality anyway, so it's alright). And I somehow think the 'soft black dirt soft / and folding black around me' repetition was intended. Here it works because it's not so intrusive on the formatting of the poem, the flow. I'd change 'laid eggs' to 'eggs laid' since the former suggests that either the narrator has laid eggs (haha) or that the cats have, neither of which is remotely possible. Since the ambiguity is probably unintended and useless in serving to enhance any kind of vague theme you've got here, it should be swapped.

Okay, yes. I can see a subtheme. A theme that obviously ties in with the emotions - fear and security. Do I like the fact that the theme does not intrude on the moment? I'm not sure. On the one hand, the poem still seems disjointed - intellect-wise - in that there's nothing that strings it up together. On the other, I'm not even sure that matters. Even so, I don't think this'd be a poem to reread and find escalatingly deeper and deeper layers in.

2. It loses its earthliness between (1) and (2). Something about the entropy of spiders, toggle of centipedes and network of ants give it a very distant, modern feel - the words, I think, are too advanced, too much a product of the technology-based civilisation for this physical, ground-digging, primal type of poem. You're wandering around the realm of chemistry, cyberspace and engineering (networks) here. Might pay to keep in mind the connotations of your words.

untouchable, and the insects
and I move in the same paces,
beats. I fall asleep here and wake up
in the neck-breath of the afternoon
sprouting, digging, full
of thin white roots, that pull
me into the earth like the memory of fire.

Here is where the Kooseriness really strikes me, what with the ending that hits dead on and the smooth pacing, aided in part by the enjambment. That last line has something so poignant to it that it's ridiculously hard for me to articulate it in words - something akin to the ending of 'Selecting a Reader' (''For that kind of money, I could buy a raincoat." / And she will.') or the one that ends '...and the wind turns the pages of the rain.' Kind of like we get flung into the earth while a fire simultaneously erupts around us. And I think the underuse of figurative language is what makes this ending simile so striking; it actually stands out a lot more than it would were there similes all the way.

And here I will pause on a matter we have often considered in poetry. The extended metaphor. The concept of completeness of thought, of idea. The symmetry. Perfection, in a sense, while still being open to interpretation. All of which this particular poem most certainly lacks - but that begs the question: how incomplete can a poem afford to be (in its fitting portrayal of an incomplete world) and still be strong? Almost all of Kooser's poetry has what Gal would describe as 'machine gun imagery,' which, while being lovely on first-read, doesn't seem much more than a list of details later. I mean, sure, I enjoy it - but it is, admittedly, a very instantaneous kind of enjoyment, then. And I think you know it's more than instantaneous gratification that I am after when it comes to literature; I like to think. Perhaps that is a personal preference that dictates a kind of architecture in poetry that few have the energy to write, to craft. Even so, I think one can manage to capture the incompleteness of life even with some degree of completeness in the art. Parallel brushstrokes on a canvas look interesting, enchanting sometimes, but mean very little.

Anyway. Good to see you experimenting, regardless.


Navita

Kylan -

Yes, I noticed it was called 'daddy'. And I am familiar with using titles as an extension of ideas in poetry. But once again, your themes - subthemes, in this case - are crystal clear: just the storyline, the facts, the action is muddled. And that is because you have not dropped enough clues, I think. So, let me tell you why I mistook the 'I' in the poem for the voice of the 'daddy' himself, and not the child as you'd intended (and that is probably why I did not hit on the details correctly):

under the porchsteps
mushrooms clotting
like small, daily fears –
fear for the safety of one's child,
fear of household chemicals
fear of dying of old age –
white, roulette of breathless gills.

Here are the fears: for one's child, of household chemicals, of dying of old age. These are the fears of an adult, a parent. Would a child fear for the 'safety of one's child'? No. Would they fear household chemicals? Probably not - they wouldn't know their harmful effects in the first place (not to mention what the word 'chemical' really denotes). Would they fear dying of old age? I hardly think so - perhaps of growing old, yes, but not of death as such. Children, on the whole, are quite carefree. Even if the father was abusive or alcoholic, I don't see how these fears tie in with the thoughts of the child. Which is why I assumed it is about the father (and not the child - nothing further suggests anything remotely childlike, either, actually).

I wait with my elbows in
the soft black dirt soft and
folding black around me, smelling
of stray cats who have
been here pissed here, and
laid eggs. here, there is the
entropy of spiders,
segmented toggle of centipedes,
a network of ants, wood
creaking like human voices

These are actions and descriptions that could easily be correlated with either of the two - father or child. Considering how the former part suggests fears etc that are clearly mature, of an adult, it follows - by logic - that this narrator is the father themself. A father who is perfectly fine and likes to garden. A father who feels a kind of safety in gardening that daily living does not provide.

here, I am also safe,
untouchable, and the insects
and I move in the same paces,
beats. I fall asleep here and wake up
in the neck-breath of the afternoon
sprouting, digging, full
of thin white roots, that pull
me into the earth like the memory of fire.

Does a child garden, dig for sprouts of their own accord? Would an abused child do this? Why? It seems much more likely the father, even here.

One can be too obvious and then again, not obvious enough. It's quite common, this - for the author to know exactly what they were talking about and for it to appear in a totally different manner to the reader. So, how do we prevent this? Well, I'm not sure one can, since things in one's own mind are always much clearer than when presented out to the world. It might help to attempt to rework this so that your intention is carried through all the way, to master the art of telling the story like it is and leaving the meaning up to interpretation (rather than the other way round).

Anyway, just thought I'd say, that's all. See what you come up with.



Navita

pottery

larynx of clay,
proto-minoan, shaped
under hands and lengthening
in the sun like a growing thirst.
somehow it is still pertinent
to ask how to hold water,
even as the blossom trees lose
their spools of petals through the
cracks in the moon's hands, as
cities burn and waver
like fiddle notes.

just pottery
left behind, painted urns
speaking solidly, the only
cracked ossic shells on the human
beach of abandoned society.

last bodies – slippery
voice of clay, like feet
on river stones. she tells me
how much she loves pottery
and what it says about a world.
geometry of mycenaean jugs,
painted bulls, the living necks – this
poetry breathed up from the dust
of the earth,

godless, from man's own
breath.

danse des mères

her dance
is a ribbon tugged
from undone hair.

she is merely practicing
on an empty stage. it is how
she laces up her flats, the tight
salt rhythms of tied knots, solar
flare of her hands – she knows
these knots by heart so she
doesn’t think about them,
as people don't think
about pillars, caryatids.

the music – the slow uncurling seashell
of the first violin note,
and then the piccolo notes that she will tuck
behind her ear, the cello voice
like wordlessness between settled people.

with every movement
she is casting something off –
this great molting, unpeeling her skin
as if it were a sunset, bones worn
down like hot months. until you can see
each the tidal pull of every muscle. how is it that
she can unravel herself so,
and bind me up – this danced tourniquet
until I can barely breathe

these small practice dances,
where
she ties the world down, quiet knots
against the expanding universe
with her
own spun yarn.

dialysis

river easing into the hills
like a sunday drive
and we stood thigh deep in the water
with fishing lines, flies tied like
blood truces and the water heavy
with marsupial ripples. the steelhead
tripping upstream were voices in a storm and
it was spring

we watched the water, thin
scooping wrist bones, silent bangles, as it caught
rims of light and slipped them against the shore,
mutely kneaded for warmth and color
as a hand held in hospital. you told me
that we could never visit the same
river twice.

emptying
through the meadow
that we would camp in, with its
poppies like nextdoor gunshots.
and at dawn, the long-term
memory of mist through roots.
as we gutted bright fish – slow coughed fumble
of viscera – you sweated
like a summer night with the windows open.

snug currents
wrung through stones – i remember
that a river is not repeated
like blood is,
or apologies.

this makes these afternoons
less difficult.