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Write Us Out Of The Poem
Apr. 16th, 2009 10:20 pmEven though I slept about twelve hours last night, I was still dead tired today. Luckily Thursday I only have Japanese, and that went alright - I don't think I embarrassed myself any more than usual at least. And once I got home and had lunch I had a nice long afternoon break to lie in bed in do nothing but mess about on the computer. I tried to have a conversation with about this quote she heard about loneliness making a writer, but I was far too braindead and couldn't get my thoughts (or my understanding of her thoughts) well enough together to get anywhere with that.
Unluckily, I had to work tonight, never my favorite thing to do. Especially since the first half of my shift was awful, lots of hang-ups and jerks and non-answering and no pledges at all. And then I finally talked to this very sweet, very interesting woman that I was absolutely positive was going to give money...and halfway through the call, her phone dropped the call. I was just about to throw up my hands and give up, since the universe obviously did not want me to succeed at anything tonight. But my supervisor convinced me to call her back - and she ended up making a pledge. And so did the next two people I talked to. So that was cool!
In all the sleep deprivation, I totally forgot to post a poem yesterday, so today I'm posting a bonus poem to make up for it. They have nothing to do with each other - one is a poem I really like by my lit prof, and the other one is a poem I read in high school that I just remembered today. I'm really glad I was able to find it again, because it's interesting.
What Language Did by Eavan Boland
The evening was the same as any other.
I came out and stood on the step.
The suburb was closed in the weather
of an early spring and the shallow tips
of washed-out yellows of narcissi
resisted dusk. And crocuses and snowdrops.
I stood there and felt the melancholy
of growing older in such a season,
when all I could be certain of was simply
in this time of fragrance and refrain,
whatever else might flower before the fruit,
and be renewed, I would not. Not again.
A car splashed by in the twilight.
Peat smoke stayed in the windless
air overhead and I might have missed:
a presence. Suddenly. In the very place
where I would stand in other dusks, and look
to pick out my child from the distance,
was a shepherdess, her smile cracked,
her arm injured from the mantelpieces
and pastorals where she posed with her crook.
Then I turned and saw in the spaces
of the night sky constellations appear,
one by one, over roof-tops and houses,
and Cassiopeia trapped: stabbed where
her thigh met her groin and her hand
her glittering wrist, with the pin-point of a star.
And by the road where rain made standing
pools of water underneath cherry trees,
and blossoms swam on their images,
was a mermaid with invented tresses,
her breasts printed with the salt of it and all
the desolation of the North Sea in her face.
I went nearer. They were disappearing.
Dusk had turned to night but in the air -
did I imagine it? - a voice was saying:
This is what language did to us. Here
is the wound, the silence, the wretchedness
of tides and hillsides and stars where
we languish in a grammar of sighs,
in the high-minded search for euphony,
in the midnight rhetoric of poesie.
We cannot sweat here. Our skin is icy.
We cannot breed here. Our wombs are empty.
Help us to escape youth and beauty.
Write us out of the poem. Make us human
in cadences of change and mortal pain
and words we can grow old and die in.\
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Unluckily, I had to work tonight, never my favorite thing to do. Especially since the first half of my shift was awful, lots of hang-ups and jerks and non-answering and no pledges at all. And then I finally talked to this very sweet, very interesting woman that I was absolutely positive was going to give money...and halfway through the call, her phone dropped the call. I was just about to throw up my hands and give up, since the universe obviously did not want me to succeed at anything tonight. But my supervisor convinced me to call her back - and she ended up making a pledge. And so did the next two people I talked to. So that was cool!
In all the sleep deprivation, I totally forgot to post a poem yesterday, so today I'm posting a bonus poem to make up for it. They have nothing to do with each other - one is a poem I really like by my lit prof, and the other one is a poem I read in high school that I just remembered today. I'm really glad I was able to find it again, because it's interesting.
What Language Did by Eavan Boland
The evening was the same as any other.
I came out and stood on the step.
The suburb was closed in the weather
of an early spring and the shallow tips
of washed-out yellows of narcissi
resisted dusk. And crocuses and snowdrops.
I stood there and felt the melancholy
of growing older in such a season,
when all I could be certain of was simply
in this time of fragrance and refrain,
whatever else might flower before the fruit,
and be renewed, I would not. Not again.
A car splashed by in the twilight.
Peat smoke stayed in the windless
air overhead and I might have missed:
a presence. Suddenly. In the very place
where I would stand in other dusks, and look
to pick out my child from the distance,
was a shepherdess, her smile cracked,
her arm injured from the mantelpieces
and pastorals where she posed with her crook.
Then I turned and saw in the spaces
of the night sky constellations appear,
one by one, over roof-tops and houses,
and Cassiopeia trapped: stabbed where
her thigh met her groin and her hand
her glittering wrist, with the pin-point of a star.
And by the road where rain made standing
pools of water underneath cherry trees,
and blossoms swam on their images,
was a mermaid with invented tresses,
her breasts printed with the salt of it and all
the desolation of the North Sea in her face.
I went nearer. They were disappearing.
Dusk had turned to night but in the air -
did I imagine it? - a voice was saying:
This is what language did to us. Here
is the wound, the silence, the wretchedness
of tides and hillsides and stars where
we languish in a grammar of sighs,
in the high-minded search for euphony,
in the midnight rhetoric of poesie.
We cannot sweat here. Our skin is icy.
We cannot breed here. Our wombs are empty.
Help us to escape youth and beauty.
Write us out of the poem. Make us human
in cadences of change and mortal pain
and words we can grow old and die in.\
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.