re-writing old texts

Since I'm pretty much never happy with what I write after it sits around for a while, I have been re-writing (read: creating whole new poems using only bits of the old) a series of old works. Though they began as a serial poem, the new incarnations are probably more likely to be stand-alone pieces with loose relationships. Here is a sample:

1.

Your weather,
the small allowances--

in the slip between
borders, your "boy" and "girl" lines--

there are hesitant secrets

revealed with silence--

no matter how hard--

Your flexibility,
your careful speech,

kept boundaries, faced
differences

invention and fiction--

your life in ruffles
and denim

You tell the truth,
comparing

our bodies
willing to give

your father's hand,

your chocolate cakes

You peel back layers
You shave the fear
You sort through piles

There, stand questioning
in front of the make up
in front of the feather boas

I invent you as a character,
I take your place, wrap my
fear in feathers, remain curious

about the revelation
of necessity--

on spring

lines cut against sparkling sky

dark breaks blue

light breaks through shadow

some new snippets of poems (lines don't really break like this)

This line exists

                       between handshakes

                           and infinity

a circle drawn
twelve degrees

walking,          or a horse, backwards

create a boundary between

is and            

will be

*************

we begin with contention

this picking apart the edges

if this point were movement

this motion, a subtle shift

if the line between drifts
away

you walk backward

into a time when

On Bali, climate catastrophe

standing at the precipice
looking over, we sigh,

(these words spoken so many times before)

disappearance: ice
bears
birds
dolphins
diversity
fish
frogs
food
clean air
water
peace

We are not doing enough. We stand at the edge of ice, the edge of prairie, the edge of forest.
We are watching as the storm comes to overwhelm us. We are not prepared.
***********************************************************************************

I love this earth, the beauty and wildness of it. I don't want to tame it. I want to grow things and watch them flourish. I want to marvel at the simplicity of a sparrow's movements. I want to challenge myself to do better by this place that holds me and allows me to grow. I want us all to do better by this world. It is so beautiful and nourishing and we are ruining it. I don't always know how to make things better, but I care deeply about the state of the world. I only wish our government's representatives cared. I wish they could see beyond their own self interest. We need to shake them out of their stupors. And while we're at it, we should shake ourselves out of complacency.

more "Loose the Stays"

Since there was some interest in these poems, I figured I'd post a few more. I do not have images of all of the poems, which is something I need to work on.

Anyway, enjoy. And thanks for reading.

an old project, revisited

This is one of about twenty poems I did using Susan Brownmiller's book Femininity as the ground for a new narrative. They are tenatively titled "Loose the Stays", but since the format is odd, I haven't really published them. I have been trying to figure out how to make them work in print. Currently, I have been scanning them and storing them as pdf files. This is a project I am still very proud of, and want to see produced as a group.

new suitcase poems

11.

Keys lost [----] ago--
edges fray, you mend

summer of building---

how it all comes
a --- part
that parting finality

it echoed silent
cold-------

Nothing in the right place
walls patterned wildly
she----once blonde

It---all---lost---here

we pack essence,
this entering


12.

I will draw the case around
take you to meet mother---
father nodding approval

Your name resonnates blankness
a blank look forward
hand cups neck
the fragile bones

blink----stutter----sigh
ssssssssoooooo heerre weee aarre

stain of pine
foot print pressed

no songs tonight---
nothing to take along---