ekaterinn

So, between setting up my classroom and freaking out at my roster, I got off-track with Week of Poetry. I'm going to try to do the last couple of poems this week. Meanwhile, have a belated Day 5 (though I'm not entirely happy with it):

when he asks you to stay

when he asks you to stay,
you say ATTTCGCGCGA,
& count how DNA turns into RNA turns into proteins,
turns into your reasons for leaving;
you say that this continent makes you strange,
& familiarity is an addiction
you were never good at -

(you sleep on floors with satin sheets while your calluses grow soft,
& you lie & you lie & you lie)

there's lines on his face
like cracks in the ocean floor,
when he asks you to stay.

Lost Tongues

we are pixels,
you and I,
though sometimes I fear we are ghosts,
speaking in lost tongues,
through these modern plantation walls.

I sleep with books and blankets,
and your bracelet, and when I dream,
I dream of everything but you.

where is the love?
fingers tracing
the hollow of your neck -
I cannot say if they are
mine or yours
or someone liminally
luminous,
a third woman
who walks between
us,
trading our touches
for bytes on the hour.

will we go down to the sea together?
or will we stay on dry land,
and drown?

posthuman doom
this future, full of sexiest cookies
and library waffle shops
and no public wi-fi
in this future there is no unethical treatment of elephants
(there are no elephants)
in this future
you are growing up global
you are already dead
you are making starstuff
you are a new wave movement
in this future the secret is in our genes
in the systemic power structures
that replicate like tumor cells
in which the better angels of our nature
are twisted upside down
in this future where your rooms are full of
empty stuff and light
where kindness is common
and love the only mechanism of survival
in this future.

***
I blame kat_lair entirely. Also, sexy cookies to anyone who spots all the song references.

One more poem for April, a poem that I wrote during the year I spent in Dublin:

Midnight on a Bridge Over the Liffey

Heartsick and half-afraid, I stumble over difficult cobblestone
and unto more solid concrete.
The river is calling me.
The Liffey is calling me,
under the lights of Dublin.
I reach its precipice and
find myself on the edge of falling -
its turmoil has caught me up,
and I’m churning and churning -
I wrench myself away, force opposing force,
until I am breathing on the bridge.
But the voice of the river -
it still whispers seductively along my skin,
it still thuds drumlike in my ears.
River water runs in my veins,
mixing with warm blood;
I hear my ancestor’s voices join with the river’s,
and they are singing.

Half a city away, buildings are quiet.
Half a city away, people are in bed.

But I - maybe numb from the cold -
I am illuminated.



Thanks to everyone who commented on mine or other people's poetry! I've enjoyed this month tremendously.

Tonight's poem is by me:

a kindness of bakers

the cinnamon rolls come out fluffy,
almost too big,
Marie hustles in the kitchen,
sweat-drenched, cake-topped,
heaving trays for the bread;
Zylasya is a pixie at 4 AM,
singing “oh oh oh”, sleep
falling from her eyes;
George draws intricate
designs on petit-fours,
his stubby fingers holding
the tube delicately.

at 9 AM, we open,
places everyone,
snickerdoodles
calling the day in.

if not by faith,
then by flour;
if not for hope,
then for yeast;
if not with love,
then with sugar.

Just a quick post to say I'm still alive and to tell bejiin Happy Birthday again! I'll look forward to seeing you in May, love.

Thanks again to everybody you offered me congratulations on the teaching cert program - I still owe some of you drabbles, I know! Things have gotten really crazy here and I'm counting down to the final hurdle - the PRAXIS. Scary!

But the weather's really nice here and I'm getting some reading done too, so hopefully all be well. (And I finished my remix, before the deadline, ha.) And since it's poetry month, have a favourite poem of mine:


The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog

I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.

It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.

~ Robert Bly ~