New Thoughts, Old Poems

Earlier today I had an absolutely wonderful and insightful conversation with friend and fellow staff member Stephanie about the work I do in weaving and the work we both do in poetry. The first thing that really struck me on her end of the conversation that I wanted to share was the idea that cloth today is not as precious as in the past because of mass production. Case in point: most people never think about how the cloth they buy in the fabric store is made (it doesn’t just grow on trees!). It’s something I’ve never really thought of before, and we talked extensively about the art of living a “slow” life, the idea that taking the time to do tasks that are otherwise provided for us in a mass produced society does not equate to laziness, but instead reflects an ability to focus and share an appreciation of hard, processed work. Re-reading that, it makes little sense, but maybe it’ll make you think of something similar. I guess what we were saying is that removing yourself from the modern pace of society, to some extent, to revisit crafts and skills that have been forgotten or discarded in favor of an easier production can be an honorable thing. Trust me, our conversation was much more eloquent than my fatigued thoughts. (I’m going on my last day of TARC training for the MICA pre-college program and it’s been intense).

The other thing we talked about was writing (because I mentioned the connection I draw between weaving and writing) and something we talked about was being proud of what you write, and taking ownership of it. And blurring the lines between private and public work. Out of that conversation came some inspiration for me to share some more of my own work on this blog, especially since I’m always talking about how important interdisciplinary work is, and emphasizing both my writing and my weaving at the same time.

The following works come from my book from my second semester poetry class entitled You & Me. The rest of the poems after the jump.

1.
We make ourselves known
through richly paneled walls, chocolate drawn drapes
and the pronounced silence of hiding from essence
foot-forwardness

twice
Lady Victorian Dreamer and Level Headed Modernist have met
and she’s not supposed to be here, aware-
how the long, bone cigarette holder dangling from her careless lips
reminds him of her legs, reminds him of progress

she coughs, a mouse in hiding and he notices
and the thing is, some how-do-you dos simply get lost in
the theories of lipstick and gin

2.
Lady Victorian Dreamer and Level Headed Modernist find themselves sitting on a park bench in multiples of corsets and three piece suits

underneath, either is
wearing nothing
and the bench feels scandalized to feel them
exhaling

3.
Now there is time for polite discussion-

of airplanes, opera, and Level Headed Modernist
instructs, constructs, we
erupt these lace woven spitting smoke stacks over velvet waists and cat tongues
we
pronounce, and enunciate the fashion
we
become, the pomegranate stain on my shoulders
with
opera glasses to the sky

4.
Lady Victorian Dreamer is made of porcelain with
interchangeable glass eyes and pearl painted fingernails

she finds a square of honey light
steps out of several petticoats
and goes swimming in the passive air
moving air with quiet breasts she
moves her breathing limbs, wire ribbons refilling empty ivory spools

we find attic space sighing towering above the button factories
we move like newness
like you, the Level Headed Modernist explaining the hows to my whys
to the frivolous things we determine to worry
how the glass eyes close when head tips back
and i close

5.
While on a train, the tracks move under our feet and we stay still
and the train stays still and we wind up in the city
where we began

6.
Level Headed Modernist and Lady Victorian Dreamer neatly fold their clothes without creases or wrinkles and lay them side by side on the bench in front of the windows in front of the world

this is where they remove their skin!

you start with the head and I start with my toes
as my toes are connected to my optic nerve
and when they wiggle i see as you blink with your eyes
so we meet in the middle and become opposite
exposures, photographed to stillness

i stiffen you
stiffen
and collapsible, foldable, side by side
the linens and the lace

7.
While on the train we are served proper flat crackers made from rice paper upon which we wrote and interlaced our breath and became bound in Washington and emerged in a land where promises are made through machines
and Lady Victorian Dreamer preaches to the moving picture exterior, the Modernist’s face reflected in the window and through layers of belief and unbelief something happens:
wherefore the trees do wilt as we walk by for want of giving the two of us a gift from when the gods were young
we breathe their souls and breathe
through the glass

8.
After the epiphany Lady Victorian Dreamer and Level Headed Modernist go to get ice cream
they walk barefoot through the confectionery and get sticky heels and stickier looks

9.
In the spring two lovers will travel
north past aristocracy and billowing, breathing
towns turned through metal teeth
to the now-future

in their journals they carry pressed petals
resembling eyelids
the wings of stained glass butterflies
and frayed shoelaces

and in their mouths they carry secrets
like stowaways
tickling to emerge

10.
Lady Victorian Dreamer and Level Headed Modernist
are nowhere to be found
they have tied up provisions into their hair
and hung collectibles from their elbows and kneecaps

they alternate who carries the canary, balanced on a head
and who carries the sign that reads
welcome to everything
on one side in English and gibberish the other
to relate to the flies and the beggars

they suck on buttons
and disappear into nimbus