André Naffis in Bonfire

I recently received the latest issue of Bonfire in the mail. This poem on page 97 appeals to me for its description of the statue and the contrast between ancient and modern culture.

Tokyo Rain

A laughing Buddha sits
wrapped in soaked orange robes,
shouldering a bag, slit eyes,
jade smile, head lowered, hands fastened in
prayer,
        a comical, rounded dough,
a plaque reads:
'I have a big
belly so that I can
accomodate  things in our world
which are difficult to accomodate.'

A bat-wing-like umbrella darkens
sidewalks, as rain season
winds rip Omikuji fortune
paper slips
        hung from treetops, performing
a mid-air ballet as traffic rolls
swiftly by.

André Naffis

The laughing, rounded Buddha is Hotei, the Buddha of health, happiness, and well-being. He is the reminder that spiritual peace does not require sacrificing laughter and pleasure. People often rub Hotei's belly for good luck.

Omikuji are slips of white paper upon which are written fortunes. Tying an omikuji onto a tree near a shrine will allow a good fortune to come true, or help an unlucky fortune to stay away.

The speaker witnesses in one space--and in one moment--the contrast between a deity who promises to "accomodate" all earthly difficulties and the reality of the modern world, illustrated by the passing traffic. The futures of those who visited the shrine are literally blown around in the wind, signifying an unknown future. The motorists, meanwhile, travel so quickly that they do not even notice Hotei and his offer to help.


Photo found at this netsuke site

Jeremy Glazier in The Antioch Review

This poem by Jeremy Glazier is on page 740 of the current issue of The Antioch Review.

Directions for a Duel

Fill the chamber of your pistol
with pinecones, rose petals,

small coins you've already shot holes in.
When you enter the saloon,

the player piano will stop
and for a split second you will know

the hand each player holds.
Keep your eye on the one you came for,

and kill him
                           when the redhead
winks at you from behind the still.

This will be your sign
that everything is possible.
                       Sling the body over your shoulder
and bury it in the stomach

of the sandstorm that waits for you
                    outside the city limits.

Jeremy Glazier

This beautiful poem encapsulates a metaphor for the discipline and art of writing poetry. If I were to translate it (non-poetically), I would write something like this:

Fill your mind with texture, fragrance, and ideas you've been bandying about. When you write, time will seem to halt; and for a split second you will see every angle of your subject. Stay focused; when the muse strikes, get the words down on paper. Then you will know you are a poet. Carry your poem to the outside world and add it to the storm of submissions flying around in the mail.

That's the Amy take on it. What's your take? Why do you think Glazier changes the form of the poem after the words "and kill him?"

Timothy O'Keefe in 32 Poems

Thank you to everyone for wishing me a speedy recovery. I am still in bed with a sinus infection. Fortunately, I feel well enough to blog today; and fortunately, I received the new issues of 32 Poems and The Antioch Review last week. This poem by Timothy O'Keefe is on page 12 of 32 Poems:


Love

A clear-gold cicada shell
hooked hard to wet bark.
Center-split: antennal
to lower thorax. Molt-clean.

Remember
its clutch in the dark.
Remember

a body-peek green.
a droning wind-hinge.
A fingerful of sudden wings.

Timothy O'Keefe


This poem appeals to me both for its literal description of a cicada shell and for the figural depiction of the sensation of love. I used to find these shells all the time when I was a kid; when I found one, it scared me, until I got up close and saw it wasn't a live bug.

Imagine that instant when the cicada emerges--green, raw, unfolding, then suddenly flapping with new life. Now read the poem again, as if it were not about a cicada shell at all, but simply a description of love: clutching, split, clean. Green, fresh, and new. A droning just below your surface. A sudden flutter of wings just barely in your grasp.

Objectivity, Shmobjectivity.

I'm sick. I have a nasty sore throat, runny nose, and I injured my back a few days ago, so I can't really turn my head right or left. The end table is decorated with used tissues, a half-empty cup of tea, water, meds, and a couple of books. Every so often, I lie down to relieve the nausea. I am the definition of pathetic in pajamas.

So I spent some time reading the poetry in the new issue of The Antioch Review. I was thinking things like, "Nice word choice." "Hmm, interesting rhyme scheme." "Another sestina. Are sestinas in now, or something?" and, "I guess all the poems have to fit on one page or you're not allowed in." (Although exactly one uses up two pages.)

And then, BAM, a massive, literary anvil fell on my head in the form of the last poem, "Mother at the Piano," by Fredrick Zydek. I am not even going to pretend to be objective about this poem. Maybe in a week I could do a nice, neat analysis, but right now I'm still reeling. Let's take a look at it, then I'll tell you why.


Mother at the Piano

She didn't play often
and she didn't play well.
Her right hand could read
everything in treble clef

except chords, rest signs,
quarter notes, and tempo.
Her left hand was used
like a drum beating out

a waltz where a rumba
or fox-trot should be.
But she could pound out
a tune or two. If no one

was looking, melody
would flood the house
like relatives on a Sunday
afternoon. I would hide

in my room and listen.
She always sang off-key.
It didn't matter. When
Mother made music we

knew two things. She
was glad about something,
and for a little while
nothing needed dusting.

Fredrick Zydek


Holy crap. Okay. My mother was an obsessive cleaner, and when we heard that vacuum start, we (my sister, brother and I) would run to our rooms. When cleaning started, yelling started. She was a very unhappy person anyway, but the miserable factor increased exponentially during cleaning. Things would get slammed, knocked around, bumped by the vacuum, and glared at. Each kid would get called down for some cleaning infraction. My brother would get a cloth shoved in his hand and yelled at for not "seeing that dust" on the coffee table. My sister would be down on her hands and knees searching through shag for little fragments of anything, because my mother blamed her for the hairpin that had caught in the vacuum. And me. Best not to talk about me.

And, my mother played a bit of piano. I started playing when I was eight, and picked it up so quickly that she stopped playing altogether. Only--on rare ocassions--some urge would take her and she would play a little tune, perhaps even singing along, weakly, and off-key. You bet we hid. But we listened, glad to have her attention on something not us, waiting for the last note, knowing that the brief silence that followed was only a prelude to the cleaning and yelling.

Holy crap. I guess that's why we read poetry, though, isn't it. I guess. Don't ask me now. Maybe later when I'm less sick and less freaked out.

Dee Cohen in pith

One reason I write this blog is to encourage poetry lovers to read poetry. Sounds redundant, but the truth is that a lot of aspiring poets don't read much poetry at all. Thanks to the internet, it is incredibly easy to find remarkable poetry without spending a dime. There are many good online poetry journals; pith is one of them.

I love this poem by Dee Cohen in pith in the Spring 2001 issue--the imagery is stark and threatening despite its commonplace setting.


LAST NIGHT

Last night waits in the kitchen.
Skillet still on the stove
and pan tipped into the sink,
blood drained to the bottom.
A drawer pulled open,
forks, spoons and knives
pitched forward.
Plates on the table,
unscraped, unstacked.
Chairs shoved back,
garbage can toppled,
grounds and rinds and bones
spill from its mouth.
The back door stands open,
the driveway is empty.

The morning sun bangs
on the windows,
the floor tiles buckle
and tilt
and you grab for the counter
like someone on a small ship
in a big ocean.

Dee Cohen


Sounds like someone has a hangover. There is a sinister mood to this poem--"blood drained" into the sink, a cutlery drawer left open, "grounds and rinds and bones" spilling from the "mouth" of the trash can, the deserted driveway. It sounds as if a monster has smashed through the kitchen, devouring people along the way.

I would guess this is the after-effects of a party seen through the eyes of a very hung-over host. "Last night waits" to be dealt with; no matter how much fun they had at the feast, someone has to clean up the mess. What was delectable only a few hours ago now seems nauseating and threatening. The host has been abandoned by the guests, and no matter how sick, s/he must face the damage alone.

From Joshua Weiner's The World's Room

I have been re-reading the poems from Joshua Weiner's beautiful book The World's Room, and this one on page 23 reminds me a lot of Danny's sensibility. I just had to post it. Plus, it's just a gorgeous, poignant poem.


Lines to Stitch Inside a Child's Pocket

Boy now, man later; and all the story in between:
Yes breaking down to No, joy to pain.

Milk now, meat later; separation, fuse.
Swim the river rising and with patience take your aim.

Miss once, miss again; and your whole life seems a waste.
The target is yourself becoming brave.

Who soon, who later?--whatever happens next--
Someday you'll lose us in the in-between.

Joshua Weiner


"The target is yourself becoming brave." What do you think of this line? I think it is the heart of the poem. Without it, the poem becomes too sad, too depleting. In the midst of the pain and loss, the speaker identifies a purpose to keep living and struggling.

Pattian Rogers in Poetry

This poem by Pattiann Rogers is in the September issue of Poetry on pages 420-21. What a way to start the week, and on Halloween, no less--pondering the very quality of life and the boundaries of death, and questioning how human recognition of something affects or does not affect its significance. Here we go:



Address: the Archaens, One Cell Creatures

Although most are totally naked
and too scant for even the slightest
color and although they have no voice
that I've ever heard for cry or song, they are,
nevertheless, more than mirage, more
than hallucination, more than falsehood.

They have confronted sulfuric
boiling black sea bottoms and stayed,
held on under ten tons of polar ice,
established themselves in dense salts
and acids, survived eating metal ions.
They are more committed than oblivion,
more prolific than stars.

Far too ancient for scripture, each
one bears in its one cell one text--
the first whit of alpha, the first
jot of bearing, beneath the riling
sun the first nourishing of self.

Too lavish for saints, too trifling
for baptism, they have existed
throughout never gaining girth enough
to hold a firm hope of salvation.
Too meager in heart for compassion,
too lean for tears, less in substance
than sacrifice, not one has ever
carried a cross anywhere.

And not one of their trillions
has ever been given a tombstone.
I've never noticed a lessening
of light in the ceasing of any one
of them. They are more mutable
than mere breathing and vanishing,
more mysterious than resurrection,
too minimal for death.

Pattiann Rogers


Cool picture found here.

Tom Sleigh's "The Door"

Back in July I posted a beautiful poem called "The Hammock" by Tom Sleigh. Here is another one from the same book--The Dreamhouse--on pp 69-70. Garnet posted a photograph and a short poem which questions the function of perception, and I think this poem speaks to that idea.


The Door

Fifteen years in each other's heat
And you still picture me the single man
Living hand-to-mouth on my own heart...

And you, how do I see you? The question
Stinging, my eyes slide off yours.
Your poker-faced stare become another barrier--

It's as if who we thought we'd be to one another
Waits outside knocking on the door,
At first composed, then pounding so hard

The door no longer is an entrance in
But the one thing we must always keep closed.
And so we wonder what the face

Beyond the door looks like until it rears
Like mist in the steaming sun, that stranger's
Always shifting, spotlit glance egging us onward

To the verge of space where we sense love
As we've never known unstoppably expanding,
Billowing and towering through the clear deep noon...

--And yet those features burn off
In the heat and leave us still facing
The warped-shut door and what we know is true:

The sun shining impartially back in our eyes
With a light that we both love and half-despise;
Your face as it appears to me; mine as it seems to you.

Tom Sleigh

This poem reminds me of the sensibility in "The Hammock" in that it alludes to a moment of clear, expanded awareness. In "The Hammock," the awareness is a more universal feeling of awe and belonging and peace; in this poem, the awareness occurs between two people who long to see the reality of the other. The "door" of perception makes this nearly impossible--much of the human exprience is about recognizing and dealing with perception--but at times the face of the other "rears / Like a mist in the steaming sun." A sun-drenched mist is, however, bound to dissipate, just as the "features" of the other will "burn off / In the heat," abandoning the speaker to stare once again at the door.

Poetry Writing Month?

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

                                          William Faulkner

This is an interesting quote, but I wonder if it is true. Writing a novel is hard. Last year I successfully completed the NaNoWriMo challenge, and now I am trying to decide if I should do it again this year. It is a serious commitment, although very rewarding. Anyone out there doing NaNo for the second time (or third, or whatever?)

I am also wondering, what about a poetry writing month? Suppose I challenge myself to write one poem a day for the month of October? By December, I would have thirty drafts of poems to revise. Even if only half of them turned into something good, that would be a lot. My own NaPoWriMo (apologies to Chris Baty.)

What do you poets think? Anyone up for some intense poetry writing? Or is it time for a month of novel writing?

Eric Beeny in 32 Poems

You would be doing yourself a favor if you get a copy of the current issue of 32 Poems. I keep going back to it and rereading. Great stuff.

This one is by Eric Beeny and is on page 14:


Graveyard Pharmaceuticals

the world is a bottle
of pills.

once night's cap is unscrewed,
the clouds must be
removed

and
headstones become chewable
tablets, like
the kind commandments
were chiseled into.

Eric Beeny


A bottle of pills as a metaphor for the world at night--funny thing is, I read it first as the world at night as a metaphor for a bottle of pills, although the first line makes it clear that "the world" is the subject. The phrase "night's cap" is wonderful--the top lifted off of night, also the allusion to a "nightcap," the ritual of a final drink before bedtime.

"[H]eadstones become chewable / tablets, like / the kind commandments / were chiseled into." "Chewable" brings to mind headstones that have been weather-beaten, and which are bound to disintegrate just like the bodies underneath them. They have words "chiseled into" them, like commandments--the birth and death dates are unchangeable, stated facts. Pills also have those little letters or numbers bevelled into them, identifying what they are.

The connection here between pills and death is striking to me. People take pharmaceuticals in an effort to live longer or in some way make their lives more manageable. But there is something about the necessity of the daily ritual of taking a pill that that reminds you of your own mortality.

Kimmy Beach at Greenboathouse Books

After the roundabout discussion Moose and I had over the complicated grammar in the previous Dickinson poem, I thought I'd post a contemporary, accessible poem. I like this for the commonality of the depicted experience (taking pictures with friends) with the creepy twist of being watched or shadowed by someone without knowing it. I found this poem in the archives of the Greeboathouse Books site. Check it out; there's some great stuff over there.

Andres
(who lurked for three days)

you appear blurred in the background
of photos taken before we knew you
your eyes on Brenda
she takes over the taverna
noisy tourists on all sides of us

I can make out your pressed white shirt
the dark moustache
Brenda's laugh holds you

here       you watch us down
another bottle of Retsina
in this picture       we pose for an American
holding my camera

over Brenda's right shoulder
just above the hand I have placed there
you lean in
watching with no expression

we don't meet you until three days later
you are in every photo
studying us from behind
and to the right

Kimmy Beach

"As from the earth the light Balloon..."

I just returned from Albuquerque, where I visited with extended family. Saturday morning, we went to the International Balloon Fiesta and watched the Mass Ascension. This occurs early in the morning, when the balloons (about 750 of them) are filled with heated air, then untethered and lifted into the sky. For a few hours, the New Mexico horizon is dotted with balloons of all colors and shapes from all around the world. It is a beautiful sight.

I found this lovely poem by Emily Dickinson, which captures a little of the mystery of the ascension. By the way, thanks for all the kind words and good wishes I have been reading in the comments, along with some insightful poetry analysis.


As from the earth the light Balloon

As from the earth the light Balloon
Asks nothing but release --
Ascension that for which it was,
Its soaring Residence.
The spirit looks upon the Dust
That fastened it so long
With indignation,
As a Bird
Defrauded of its song.

Emily Dickinson

Mark Strand's Dark Harbor

I just got a rejection in the mail for my latest batch of poems, which is a bit disappointing, but now at least they are free to be sent somewhere else.

A few days ago, I purchased a copy of Mark Strand's book Dark Harbor: A Poem, published in 1993 by Alfre A Knopf, Inc. It begins with a poem entitled "Proem," a poem that serves as a preface to the book. In it, the speaker sets off on a journey, confident of "the way" and his desire to follow it. He does not reach his destination, but that does not bother him. It is the journey itself that allows him to "breathe," to say to himself, "This is the life." Let's use this as encouragement to keep following our poetic paths, eschewing discouragement and negativity, and enjoying even the rejections that may often appear disguised as obstacles.


PROEM

"This is my Main Street," he said as he started off
That morning, leaving the town to the others,
Entering the high-woods tipped in pink

By the rising sun but still dark where he walked.
"This is the way," he continued as he watched
For the great space that he felt sure

Would open before him, a stark sea over which
The turbulent sky would drop the shadowy shapes
Of its song, and he would move his arms

And begin to mark, almost as a painter would,
The passages of greater and lesser worth, the silken
Tropes and calls to this or that, coarsely conceived,

Echoing and blasting all around. He would whip them
Into shape. Everything would have an edge. The burning
Will of weather, blowing overhead, would be his muse.

"This is the life," he said, as he reached the first
Of many outer edges to the sea he sought, and he buttoned
His coat, and turned up his collar, and began to breathe.

Mark Strand

Jenny Browne in xconnect

Here's another one for you from xconnect: writers of the information age vol. 6. Pick up a copy of this book; there is such a great variey of poetry in there.

This one is on page 17, and is written by Jenny Brown:


ON BEING TOLD TO GET MORE EXPOSURE

Why not iron your dream
on a T-Shirt
or wrap your face
round a mug that steams, be seen
and heard?

Remember the big history book
with a picture of Alexis St. Martin,
the flap of his stomach lifted
by Doc Beaumont to show
how he digested the latest news
and his wife's potatoes.

Now I have a new recipe
I want to try but I need
a spring-form pan, I need
to remove the sides
of my own life, get a little
more visibility. I am whispering

my plan to the man sitting
next to me, but his ears
are pierced.

Jenny Browne


Stanley Kunitz states that one should end a poem with an image "and not explain it." Browne does exactly this. What is the power in using this technique? What do you think is the significance of a listener with pierced ears?

Mark Halliday in xconnect

I was browsing through Barnes and Noble a couple days ago and picked up the latest copy of xconnect: writers of the information age. It's published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and features some wonderful work by both poets and short story writers. The current volume (VI) also includes poems by the late, great Robert Creeley.

This poem on page 65 by Mark Halliday stuck with me for it's strong sense of sound and rhythm and humor:


EXISTENTIALISM

It's true that I was a turkey yesterday
and a bit of an asshole the day before that
but that is all flotsam gone over the dam
thanks to our being in this
vastatious unknowable flux. Which makes for
hump upon hump of sadness except when I'm thinking
of my turkeyhood yesterday not to mention
anus behavior two days back.
Today is--
I wake
to rain whickles and the bonking
or workmen placing cobbles in the lane,
don't they care da da da da the rain?
Lane, rain--can I not release this brain
from rhyme and make this day a secret
villa in the forest of some alternative to
Spain? Nobody can say
how I might be today--oggi
oh gee--let today be "Death to all those
who ever yammered on about the Death of the Author"
day. Let me be the most amazing non-poultry!
There is no proof that I cannot.
...No positive proof. Euripides,
"Outlaw Blues," come with me now babe
we got nothingness to lose.

Mark Halliday


When I read the line "Let me be the most amazing non-poultry!" I knew I loved this poem. Its seemingly random, stream-of-consciousness style is simply the sheen on a complicated, unified, beautifully crafted poem. Sometimes the use of this kind of humor can come off as too snarky or crass, because it is used for its own sake--to shock or grab the reader. But Halliday clearly has mastered how to use it. The desire to be the best "non-poultry" he can be is a passionate declaration by the speaker--he just wants to learn how to be human! But what a lesser poem this would be if he shouted, "Let me be the most amazing human!"

What do you think?


Freaky turkey photo found here.

Check me out

The new issue of eratio is out, and three of my poems are in it. So instead of posting a poem for you today, I'm pointing you toward this highly regarded journal where you can read my work, as well as poems by amazing writers such as Jack Foley, Dan Masterson, Marcia Arrieta, and Eileen Tabios.

Thanks to editor Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino for putting it all together, and placing me in the company if these gifted poets.

Arlene Ang in Shampoo

Check out the poetry journal Shampoo for some well-crafted, compelling poetry. The current issue includes the following poem by Arlene Ang:


First Name: Laron

Coarsened by dungarees,
he whitewashes my walls.
His brush thriftily dampened
into the can is spared of drip.

Face tipped to his backside,
I am thinking he may ask me out.
The pungency of his wet paint
makes me hold my breath.

Like tossed coin, a sober globule
lands on last week’s newspaper,
obscures what the Premier quipped
regarding women on the moon.

Arlene Ang


I love the word choices in this poem: dungarees instead of jeans; a brush "thriftily" dampened; face "tipped" to check the guy out; a "sober globule" of paint. Ang is a master of creating compelling imagery and tone through judicious word choice.

The word "dungarees" is interesting; it is a word that evokes a man who is more earthy and who labors for a living that the word "jeans" would. There is something primitive in the speaker's description of him--his clothes, the "dampened" brush, the "pungency" of the paint, and her checking-out the guy's physique. It is a moment of nearly pure attraction.

A drop of paints lands on the paper, covering what I'm sure is a highly relevant quote about "women on the moon." Does anyone know to what this refers?

Langston Hughes: Rivers and New Orleans

I am leaving for vacation tomorrow, so I won't be posting for about ten days. Before I go, I'd like to suggest three places to donate for katrina disaster relief:

Red Cross
The Humane Society
Black America Web

I am going to leave you with this gorgeous poem by Langston Hughes, which I found at The Academy of American Poets. The speaker uses the depth of rivers to illustrate the depth to which his soul has grown, and the connection between himself and his ancient heritage. It seems an appropriate reflection given the tragedy on the Gulf Coast. Take care, and read some poetry.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers


I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

     flow of human blood in human veins.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.



I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 

     went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy 

     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.



I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes

Charles Bukowski Poem on New Orleans

Charles Bukowski is known as a Los Angeles beat poet, but he must have spent some time in New Orleans to come up with this poignant, unusual love poem to the city.


Young in New Orleans

starving there, sitting around the bars,
and at night walking the streets for hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, mabye it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the
world.
New Orleans was a place to
hide.
I could piss away my life,
unmolested.
except for the rats.
the rats in my small dark room
very much resented sharing it
with me.
they were large and fearless
and stared at me with eyes
that spoke
an unblinking
death.
women were beyond me.
they saw something
depraved.
there was one waitress
a little older than
I, she rather smiled,
lingered when she
brought my
coffee.
that was plenty for
me, that was
enough.
there was something about
that city, though:
it didn't let me feel guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.
it let me alone.
sitting up in my bed
the lights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
]me
as I heard the rats
moving about the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans.
being lost,
being crazy mabye
is not so bad
if you can be
that way:
undisturbed.
New Orleans gave me
that.
nobody ever called
my name.
no telephone,
no car,
no job,
no anything.
me and the
rats
and my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.

Charles Bukowski

The speaker expresses nostalgia for his time in New Orleans--a time when he was broke, could only afford a rat-infested apartment, and was doing nothing particularly productive. This time was important to him because of its simplicity--"no anything / me and the / rats / and my youth"--and because New Orleans left him "undisturbed." Despite the harsh living conditions, the speaker remembers being happy there, reveling in "something not to / do / but only / to know."

A kind of Zen point of view permeates this poem: the not-doing, the peaceful acceptance of one's place in the moment, the lack of guilt and the aquiring of an "undisturbed" life. The speaker is not, in this moment, looking for anything more; no ambition, no desire, no need to be with anyone but himself. This creates contentment, even with the rats.


Check out the previous post in Living Poetry's New Orleans series.

New Orleans poet David Brinks

David Brinks and Andre Codrescu are the founders of the New Orleans School for the Imagination in the French Quarter--"right above the Gold Mine Saloon"--a non-profit oganization for poetry, arts, yoga, and buddhist thought. They had just built brand new studio space in which they were planning to offer Saturday poetry workshops.

Codrescu is the editor of the journal Exsquisite Corpse. This poem by David Brinks is in their online issue:


the red earth

I was born from a gentle rise
in the left trouser-leg
of my father

my mother's kiss formed me into a fish

inside their volcano of approval
I discovered a legendary
moonsplit plum where I slept
an eternal history
of nine months
in the land of trembling water

the great earthquake of my mother's body
was my first poem

-Dave Brinks


I think this poem appeals to me right now partly because of the line "in the land of trembling water." I am also drawn to its depiction of beauty being created out of an arbitrary meeting and born from a violent event. The speaker is formed in a "volcano," sleeps in the seemingly eternal but ultimately temporary security of a "moonsplit plum," then is born when that security is shattered by a bodily "earthquake."

This birth is the speaker's "first poem," a statement that claims the poem as experience and a state of being rather than an artificial process. It also declares the poem as a birth, a creation; aligning the poem with birth imbues it with inherent mystery, humanity, and pain.