NaPoWriMo - day twenty and one

unicorn

she sits there quietly,

your head nestled in her lap –

restful. at the confluence

of myth and religion,

an image of purity wrested

from its roots and watered

with grace. how we find

the meaning of things:

this animal represents that,

that colour betokens this,

this gesture bespeaks thusly –

how do we refine these stories?

what fires will be required

to purify the past

and make it fit for us

to drink in

in this century, this time

of wrestling. so many

secret potions

portioned to heal

so many poisons.

come here, now, and see.

draw close and enter through the gate.

let the wounded heart

stab through the cloud,

that light encompass us;

a comfort to lift our head

before you bring us home.

Instructions for Telling the Truth by Chard deNiord - NPM21

Begin by removing one article of clothing at a time, slowly,

until nothing's left to take off and no one's watching.

Patience, patience, as your words replace your garments

and suddenly you're standing alone in the square

like a flower that speaks in silence with so many tongues.

deNiord, Chard "Instructions for Telling the Truth" The Double Truth. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. 15.

NaPoWriMo - day twenty

peacock

some say the body will last forever.

the skin sensitive to every state,

the eyes always open

scanning the horizon,

piercing the sky,

glimpses of heaven -

that glorious shivering fan

full of sun, moon, stars.

the eyes of the universe

on us, your eyes

searching for my eyes,

blinded by glory -

our own meager glory.

here is the vault of heaven

arranged in a vase,

quivering as you walk past -

the hem of your garment,

soft like a feather.

Writer by Joe Wenderoth - NPM20

Writer

A person, for you, is a book.
Impossible to categorize,
it veers from non-sense verse
to the most tedious of novels
and back
in just a breath.
And the book ends, the book ends.
And what makes the person more real,
then,
than a book,
is just that you cannot re-read
one chapter, one sentence, one word.
You must re-write him,
her,
and you cannot.
This inability is the source
of everything you have to say.

Wenderoth, Joe. "Writer". 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. 734.

NaPoWriMo - day nineteen

golden beaches

i still remember those Saturdays

you and i heading downtown

to the library. i remember

spending hours reading,

just sitting and reading.

i always thought you were there

with me, your presence like a weight

on my shoulders.

i realize now that you weren’t there

all those mornings. just the idea of you,

the hope of you. as i was absorbed in my books

learning about lions and tigers and bears,

looking at paintings by Rembrandt and Warhol,

discovering Triceratops and ichthyosaurs,

exploring the worlds of Piper and Asimov and Tolkien,
you were elsewhere.

were you looking at architecture,

Frank Lloyd Wright and his modernist boxes,

or perhaps Shaker furniture

and its minimalist elegance?

were you dreaming of foreign lands –

Indonesia, or the Philippines –

and their golden beaches, their

golden beauties, their golden temples?

if i had gone looking for you,

calling your name in the stacks,

would i have found you?

would I have found you alone?

were you even in the library?

did you leave me in its care

as if it were my second home,

a papered sanctuary where i found

the seeds of my own stories,

where the lie that tells the truth was birthed?

were you outside, sitting in the sun,

dreaming for a moment you were unburdened,

without the responsibility of sons and wife and house?

were you imagining yourself

younger, more tanned, drinking

your espresso while watching young beauties

on some golden beach?

did you go for a walk and explore the courtyard

while drinking your coffee?

did you attempt to strike up conversations

with young women, with your broken English

and your thick, sturdy accent?

did you rely on awkward, boyish charm

and your Netherlandish bluster?

or were you further away?

did you meet up with a lover,

carving away time at the hotel next door

knowing i’d be lost for hours;

did you hold the memory of me in your mind

as you lost yourself in her embrace?

did you tell a librarian to watch over me

(you’d be right back)

as you ran to get something you forgot

knowing I would wait,

would step out of time

while buried in books?

it is a mystery to me,

or a secret, that there should be

this ghost here in my recollection,

a great puzzle i cannot solve.

i wish i had an answer.

i try not to read the story of my life backwards,

to let this memory accrue too much weight.

i don’t want to invent

all the reasons i can’t remember.

all i know now is that

i would still wish for your presence next to me.

i would like to sit in a library with you

and read some books,

to share my thoughts.

to discover yours.

but you are far from me,

you don’t even read my emails.

i have lost track of your story.

i don’t know how it ends,

other than you sitting out in the sun,

tanning on a golden beach.