Russian Don't Get You Anywhere Faster

At the end of February, I took stock of my poetry manuscript and realized I may need another month. I was still unhappy with about 15 poems. Five were scrappable if they didn't shape up and become something soon and 10 more were sent to the Orphanage of Unrealized Thought. It's a sad place. Full of little bastards (literal) that talk in stuttering phrases about their parents Muse and Time and wonder who neglected them more.

So I've given myself another month. It means I missed a few poetry manuscript contests I wanted to send out for but as these things go, I may have another chance next year when this doesn't get picked up. So I keep slugging away at my naughty children, dressing them up in newer clothes (line breaks), comb their hair (smooth out the rhythmic snags), and try to cram them full of good manners (new phrases, words, lines, fancy stuff!) before shipping them off to their mean aunts and uncles (the wonderful judges of first book contests).

Here's something with lines reappropriated from another poem. The feeling is still the same. The ending and especially the beginning are different.

The Secrets That We Keep

Last night there was a dream in our bed,
either yours or mine, where the avenues
filled with water, all of New York suddenly
Venetian, and the cabs went gondola,
trolling the river roads with the posts of old signs.
And you and I were at the window, wondering
at our new world, if the city would validate us
our defunct subway passes, and I asked,
“Do we love each other better now?”
To which you oracled back: The moon is
only the sun’s, the waves the moon’s,
the sky the waves’. For all, to all, jealousy
is king. Be jealous for me and I’ll never
let the earth claim you, from bones to words.
And then you resheathed yourself in sheets
and I climbed in next to you, bought a ticket
for the same destination, a place we are
whole and parts. Singing back towards real
morning. Where one of us will share this
dream and both will believe it.

Day 4 - Miles to Go

Sure, it's another sleep poem. Sometimes I get stuck on thoughts. It's a phase. Until I get some rest. Ok, to bed. This is something. Or other.

Some Dreams May Come

If I was lacking a bed
I would learn to sleep standing,
to sleep sitting, to eat with sleep,
to shower and snore, to move
my world into the unconscious.
How much time saved
to steer my dreams into the mundane.
A slept life would shield me
from seeing judgment, seeing inequality.
All passers could be wearing heads of friends,
all traffic could be ocean static.
My days would stay an easy manner,
my clothes would settle into simpleness,
pullovers, Velcro and slippers, jumpsuits.
I could sleep past all unpleasant.
Know no war.
No age to feel in my structure.
And one day the dream would shake
would blur, the sky would gong
with a loud heart, and I would know.
As loved ones appeared and echoes left,
I would turn to say goodbye and trip
into nothing, into forever, into a bright oblivion,
into the dream I waited for all my waking life.

Day 3 - Sleepy Time Tea

This project always drives me crazy. And if Valerie's too close to me while it's going on it's liable to drive her crazy. I have such limited hours in the day. I try to write something everyday but many times it turns into a race against sleep.

I find that many of these become sleep poems. I can't help it. So I'm reading Tony Hoaglund's Donkey Gospel, Theodore Roethke's On Poetry and Craft, and John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs. All of these are definitely influencing this.

Also, Galway Kinnell. He's in here. There's something Sharon Olds said about him not being afraid to show us all the rawness of the body. The disgustingness, the fluids we don't speak of. I can't go that far. Or maybe I can and I can't post it here.

Here's this. Also, I've been reading and pondering the Many Worlds theory. Quantum Suicide. Things like that. So that's in there, too.


Before I Wake

When I feel asleep at the wheel,
as you know there are theoried many worlds,
and between mile 94 and 93 two came to exist.
See when I sleep I drop left
onto my arm, into a dead man’s position.
This is a baby learned thing maybe
probably to guard a long gone pacifier.
It’s creased in my bones,
I fall into it like a tent collapsed.
How different would I be as a back sleeper?
I’d be readier,
I could sit up in the night,
not untangle like a spider.
My arms could spring from rest
free, prepped for any bedding woman.
I would study political science.
I would eat balanced meals.
Instead of all blood pooling
in my stomach and penis
causing all dreams to be of hungry sex
or at least interpretable of that,
blood would distribute through my back
giving me daytime posture and purpose
steered by my sleep strong neck.

But I don’t spend nights that way,
I sleep selfish, arms for me,
a pillow too thin to be shareable
nightly and this night especially
I am smashed into darkness.
In one world at least
I never wake up from my baby sleep.

In my world, somewhere between
Coldwater and Hell, Michigan
I sleep a whole mile.
Waking curled into the window,
I see the steering wheel,
steady, making corrections
for me, for some reason
I can’t even guess at now.

Day 17 - Missed a Day

I'm falling asleep into my notebook. Things to say tomorrow. Something small for now.

Aurora

I told you of
the Northern Lights

How the sky bent
to catch all
the stars' splash.

Day 16 - Monday is Fun Day

Soooo, I had a great night's rest (this is a picture of our bedroom) and I had about half an hour to sit and write some poems today. The first is inspired by Valerie telling me to write a poem about going to sleep last night. And these are both close studies of Denise Levertov poems. In fact, the structure is the same and they have similar themes. I don't know how anyone gets better at any art without imitation. I feel that I grow leaps in imitation. Here's the first.

The Secrets That We Keep

Long after you slip to sleep
going on before
I speak my thoughts to you

and you, prone and drifting,
give answer
from the auguries of dream.

I ask tonight, If we love better,
and you oracle back:
The moon is only the sun’s,

the waves the moon’s, the sky
the waves’.
For all, to all, jealousy is king.

Be jealous for me and I’ll never
let the earth
claim you, from bones to words.

And then you roll, tuck the pillow
into your arms
and sink too deep for speak.

Now I will scratch a little more,
climb next to you,
buy the same long ticket.

Day 7 - I Write Love Poems at 10 Minutes to Midnight

I got out of work at 2am. I crashed on our couch at home because our AC is in the front room. I got up at 830 to drive everyone to the beach. We had the most amazing day. The storm brought in the waves and they were satisfyingly tall. Then we went to a spaghetti dinner fundraiser to raise money for the Boy Scouts. I played auctioneer for the desserts. Also fun. Then we went to Trader Joe's and then we got home and I fell asleep trying to write a poem. I was down to the wire. This is what came of it. I hope everyone had as great a day as I did.

This Day

dusk may be a heavy meal
leaning on the sun
but I like this day still
want to keep it wallet sized
for days I’m forgetting as they happen
give me a new kiss
and let’s drive as east as fast
as we can go
I’m amazed all the time