the well swells with smiles,
tells us to toss in our demises,
rinse sins.
this seems clear water.
we know we want in.
but when my lips separate to kiss you
water cannot contain the gap.
though a powerful force,
it is made to break at the surface
between every molecule.
so bugs carefully crossing fall through.
and because we can no longer float
so
do
you and i.
falling through love,
eyes wide open,
the surface closes in over us.
my mouth like a fish
and yours too:
lips now
grasping
nothing.
wow, wow, wow. from my humble and admittedly non-pro-writer point of view, another FANTASTIC piece. wow.
ReplyDeletelove the last five lines, love the wishing well imagery, love the sideways-tilting of the middle to end sections.... wow. I love it.
Do you think your writing has gotten, uh, more awesomer (if I can ask that without seeming to imply that it used to suck, which of course, I don't mean at all)? If so would you attribute this to the workshop you attended over the summer, or to your specific inspiration? Or do you think you're writing about as awesomely as ever and I just happen to like these specific poems especially well for some reason that's more about me than you?
Just wond'rin'. :-) Thanks for sharing these!!
"more awesomer". love it.
ReplyDelete; )
thank you. i don't take any of those comments to mean anything negative about any of my work.
these poems are more abstract. in general i would say that it is a personal preference thing - that my work is still coming from the same place, but these two have a different feel to them than my earlier work. usually i would laden my other work with many layers of images and they would be rich but heavy. there's a lightness to these which i really like, and they also are more abstract...and real. in the now. these are also unedited, raw, straight up.
in general, my writing improved (and i do mean that as a blanket improvement, not just as a change in style, which is more what i see this to be, "just" a change in style with a touch of improvement) about 500% as soon as i started studying with paula five years ago. then, this year, over the summer i began a novel, and that, too, feels clear and light in comparison to my earlier writing. i think the summer had a big effect on it, for sure (how could natalie and the dathun not!) BUT it's getting harder to tell what matters/affects me more: teaching, meditating, practicing writing, practicing miksang, being more present in my life. it is a glorious "conflict" not to know what to attribute any changes to in my life.
: )
thanks for asking!
and...on further thought, they are more explicitly "buddhist". meaning, when i wrote these, both, i was fully immersed in reading a book called "open to desire" by mark epstein, and instead of thinking love poems focused on another person or even on myself, my "object" was desire itself, much more open object, and much more curious. does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteagain thanks for askin'!
that totally makes sense. it was interesting to read your responses think about the different parts of them carefully. i think actually the Buddhist aspect is why i responded to these... there is a groundlessness to them, and acceptance of groundlessness and discomfort and comfort and pleasure and vulnerability... it's the whole "neither indulge nor repress," but kinda go along for the ride (curiosity) that i totally related to in these poems.
ReplyDeletethanks again for sharing them.