during war

i am eating a strawberry

it may well be
the best strawberry
i have ever had

the juice is sweet
and full of flavor

the flesh is ripe
the whole way through

i kneel
before the open fridge
eating a strawberry

and crying
because somewhere
a man of my own country

my friend      my friend

has killed another man.

Victory!

One small step for Annekind. I finally submitted some poems to a mainstream magazine. We'll see how this goes. I don't have any illusions about being published on the first go-round. But it is *such* a victory for me just to have ventured to put myself out there. I'm really disproportionately proud of myself for taking this step.

Go, little poems! Fly free!

Etruscan Chimera In Bronze

Like the experimental cloning mouse,
a human ear astride her fragile back,
your second, gentler head arises,
hanging in defeat (which goats are used to);
long, limp neck centered on the spear-toothed spine.

Your tail: third head, a whiplash in mid-strike,
clamps serpent fangs around one sweeping horn,
the other prong compelled to pierce the flesh –
your skin like darkened pearl or bleeding stone,
like light on water, quivering at rest.

The lion’s jaw is made to hold your roar,
its shape a low-keeled boat, a peeling rind.
Who fashioned how your foremost face would look,
your mane of pointed fish scales, layered leaves,
the spreading petals centered at your throat?

Who pieced you into being, patchwork beast?
Who wove thin shadows through your starving sides,
decided that the world could not provide
a monster of sufficient savagery
to pit against the heroes of the day?

Dark portent pulsates in the wild, wide sockets;
the sad chasm of your silent mouth
knows all too well the fate for which you breathe.
The Pegasus treads ovals in the grass,
Bellerophon is sharpening his spear.

New/Old Poem Forthcoming

The next poem was written in my sophomore year of college. And then forgotten about entirely. And then uncovered by accident. And then given an overhaul.

It's an ekphrastic poem, meaning it was a work of art made in response to another work of art; in this case, an ancient Etruscan statue of the Chimera. Here's an image link, for the curious:

Chimera!

And, of course, you can find it in a basic image search and see it from several different angles. I think it's incredibly striking -- simultaneously weird and beautiful, sad yet almost comical, ominous and doomed.

Tattoo

This is how I know you:
five minutes on a public bus.
You gripped the rail beside me;
just a hand beside my hand.


Across the swollen foothills
of your arthritic knuckles,
thin, white, weaving riverbeds
traced the dry terrain.


In faded ink, an anchor
lay within the hammock
slung from thumb to fingers,
its blurry, blue-black outline
softened to a fog.


I would not know your face again,
but I would know your hand –
that worn and weak insignia
so crisply drawn upon my mind.

Compensation

Still editing the old poem. Started a new one yesterday, though, so for now it'll have to do. I'm posting it, but it's still very recent. Feedback appreciated!

Poetic Frustration

I am going nuts trying to edit a poem that I started writing... oh, 5 1/2 years ago, maybe? I think I've finally finished 4 of 5 parts, and I've finally cracked the mystery of what was wrong with the middle section before. So now it's in surgery. And I am annoyed that I can't ever seem to be done with this thing. I love it. It's a good poem and I know it. But it has to be finished before it can go out and find its way in the world.


ArrrRRRRrrrgh.

Stone From Lake Biwa

Tapered, smooth, and grey:
gift of water and sand.
Here, where bamboo ripples
like new fur drying
on inkpaper slopes,
the mountains embrace the water;
my fingers embrace the mountains.

Echo

The first time I set eyes upon the ocean,
a shudder rang my bones with phantom notes
like well-tuned horns in harmony. The boats,
white-winged and slender, kept their sleepwalk motion
across the ever-wrinkling silk and glass.
My throat closed like a shell as something locked
in place, some key connected. Seagulls flocked
above; I soared with each one I saw pass.


In infancy, I dreamt these things, it seems;
saw length of shore and breadth of sea. My dreams
were mingled memory and premonition
of things too old, too vast to understand.
For that first jolt I felt upon the sand
was not surprise or fear -- but recognition.

First Post

I'm going to start out with one of my more structured poems, a sonnet. I like this one because it's about the ocean, which I love, and because the situation described in it is true; autobiographical, I guess I should say. And I *think* I managed to use a rhyme scheme without it dominating the whole tone of the poem. It doesn't feel overly sing-song to me.

I also think that I'll try to make a habit of giving poems their own posts, and putting any commentary like this in the entry preceding a poetry post.