Promise by Joe Wenderoth - NPM 19

Promise

I will turn on nothing.
I will take my walk in the fire.
I will sing the song I hear
coming from the fire where I walk.
I will not look into the fire.
I will stay in my room,
singing a song I can barely remember.
I will turn into the fire.
I will sing a song I can barely remember.
I will bury my room in my bed
and carry my bed into the fire.
I will not hear the song at all.
There will be my voice,
just my voice,
and words that could never have been in the song.

Wenderoth, Joe. "Promise". The Body Electric: America's Best Poetry from The American Poetry Review. Berg, Stephen, David Bonanno and Arthur Vogelsang, Eds. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. 731.

NaPoWriMo - day eighteen

diagnosis

all of me loves all of you

most of me loves most of you

some of me loves some of you

perhaps we might invent a new way

of measuring love. what scale

would we devise? we could

weigh all the words: forever,

undying, fealty, mine, yours.

we could test their health,

poke and prod them until they cry out,

until they carry their bruises with pride,

until their repetition tattoos your skin

with promises. we could document

the process – the causes and symptoms –

and track your progress

one word at a time. perhaps

we might find a cure

for all that ails us, for all that

makes us heartsick

and lovelorn. no more

wandering the empty halls

afraid of infection,

letting the words insert themselves,

measuring the distance

between embraces.

A Parable by Gregory Orr - NPM18

The stone strikes the body, because

that is what stones will do.

The wound opens after the stone's kiss,

too late to swallow the stone.

The wound and the stone become lovers.

The wound owes its life to the stone

and sings the stone's praises.

The stone is moved. At the stone's center,

a red hollow aches to touch the wound.

The gray walls of its body tear open

and the wound enters to dwell there.

A strangers picks up the stone

with the wound inside and carries it

with him until he dies.

Orr, Gregory "A Parable" Burning the Empty Nests. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997. 70.

NaPoWriMo - day seventeen

in honour of [national] haiku day, i wrote some haiku:

on the drive to work

sky aglow with wash of sun

the road a river

*

so many worries

things we hope to destroy

silence the quickly

*

your wounds are trophies

you carry in your pockets

stop polishing them

*

fear sneaks through back doors

and with a zealot’s purpose

you make it your home

*

feet are lead laden

reawaken the dance

prisoner of hope

Late at Night by Gregory Orr - NPM17

As the stone wrote, ants swarmed over its feet.

It was trying to write a story that began:

"The wound is the only cup

from which to drink clear water."

It heard a far-off singing. Turning, it saw the woman

dancing barefoot on a circle of ground glass.

It wanted its hands and its feet to drop off.

It wanted to curl up in a ball.

But then it heard her voice and she was saying:

"The wound is not a cradle to lie down in."

 

Orr, Gregory "Late at Night" Burning the Empty Nests. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1997. 66.