August, 2011 - The Present

"This is a Red Line Train to Daybreak"
Hadn't I found the beating heart?
I'd forgotten I was staring at a sunset.
Surprised,
     I found myself
     sitting without light

Wondering
     How
          the clouds lost their brilliance;
     Why
          the sky had dimmed that
               breath-snatching blue
                             captivating blue
                                                 a blue surpassing
                                                     blue I'd seen
          but never tasted before;
     Who
          whispered those empty things in the dark
               that sounded like grayness
                                   and like not being free--
                                            like mediocrity--

And the Christmas lights were muted
     and there's too much time to think
          on this train
     about things that don't matter
                   things that are safe to say
                                 that nothing can be done about them.

How many ways am I!
         pruned tree
    harvested field
    discarded apple core

          sunglasses for a seer
                                         a poet
                 (but mostly a copycat)
     but none of that matters because

I'm on a train at dusk
     that I can't make faster or slower
          watching the sun set
And Daddy is teaching me in his
     cold-hard-facts-cash-and-a-hard-place way
          that you get there
               when you get there
          and how in darkness
               I can't see a foot forward
                    (even if it's my best)
               but I can see planets and stars and galaxies
                    light-years up and away
          and how Eve felt
               because she was happy
          and how a rush of perspective
               is chemo that will hopefully
               kill the right bad parts of you
                    before you die
                    of too much living
          and how there's so so much more
               to be meant for
               than to fall apart
                    over one sunset
          that He made.

Two More

I don't know how I missed out on the beautiful world of poetry for so long. In any case, I'm discovering all kinds of wonderful poems and poets. Lately I'm obsessed with Margaret Atwood. Here's why:

You Fit Into Me

You fit into me 

like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye


Blackie in Antarctica

My sister phones long distance:
Blackie's been put down.
Incurable illness. Gauntness and suffering.
General heartbreak.
I thought you'd want to bury him,
she says, in tears.
So I wrapped him in red silk
and put him in the freezer.

Oh Blackie, named bluntly
and without artifice by small girls,
leaping from roof to roof
in doll's bonnet and pinafore,
Oh sly fur-faced idol
who endured worship and mauling,
often without scratching,
Oh yowling moon
addict, devious foundling,
neurotic astrologer
who predicted disaster
by then creating it,

Oh midnight-coloured
faithful companion of midnight,
Oh pillow hog,
with your breath of raw liver,
where are you now?

Beside the frozen hamburger
and chicken wings; a paradise
for carnivores. Lying in red silk
and state, like Pharaoh
in a white metallic temple, or
a thin-boned Antarctic
explorer in a gelid parka,
one who didn't make it; or
(let's face it) a package
of fish. I hope nobody
en route to dinner
unwraps you by mistake.

What an affront, to be equated
with meat! Cat-like, you hated
being ridiculous. You hungered
for justice, at set hours and in the form
of sliced beef stew
with gravy.
You wanted what
was coming to you.
(Death is, though. Ridiculous. And coming to you.
For us, too.
Justice is what we'll turn into.
Then there's mercy.)

I admit she's a little morbid, but I find her work both hilarious and insightful-- although that may be because I first picked up one of Atwood's books for a break after studying Sociology for four straight hours.

Some Poems

The F-Word(s)
When I stand before F, it is the letter of of longing.

Sometimes, F burns like fire or faith.
F is the beginning of forever,
     but not so beautiful if it fails, or falls short.
When offensive, F will spit in your face.
Sometimes, F is flat, a foolish boy, a fickle love affair.

Like his sophisticated cousin, Phobia,
     F tries to frighten us with fate,
But F is just the sound that fear makes
     when your feet are frozen to the floor.
F must be comforted by other, softer letters.


The Pearl
The knife-- sturdy, strong, old yet gleaming
Plunges into each oyster.
Pried open, no ears can hear no screaming.
Frustration rising with the sun,
He cast them one by one
Into the waves of the faceless bay.

Does it matter what he finds?
The filled and empty lay side by side
In the deep, broken and dead.

Warm Welcome
The walls are warm and white in this house
Where you have never been invited.
The towels and dishes are white and mine
And you have never used them.
In a twin bed where I am wrapped up, warm,
Without you and alone,
I dream new dreams, and because of you
You are not in them.

Without this new house,
Women wander with arms wrapped around themselves
To keep the wind out,
To keep from falling out.
We watch with our mouths and with our hands--
Our words would not be weapons,
But we know you only respond to temptations or threats.

Where I am is where you have never been
And never again will I wander where we walked.
I was within you and now I am without you
(As in by your leaving I am outside you.)
So I went through the open door of real estate.
This house is mine, white, warm,
The one I want after once wanting you,
And you have never, will never
Be welcomed.

Over-Analysis
"How do you feel?"

"I'm a little cold.
     I feel stiff..
          I am a stiff--
     I'm dead.
I've been murdered."

Girl's Night In

When you feel like you're alone in the world, you're probably wrong, and even if you're right there is actually a lot you can do about it. But there are those Friday nights when you don't feel like trying to be social, when picking up the phone is a chore, and all you feel like doing is staring into space and avoiding the sight of your backpack sitting in the corner because your backpack means school, and school means homework, and homework means pressure, and you dislike pressure very much and would much rather procrastinate, letting the pressure build like a bag of potato chips on a drive up a steep mountain on a camping trip with your family, and as the semester plows ever onward and you know you have to cram in the studying sometime, but that time is tomorrow. In short, there is only way to keep your sanity and avoid thinking about your ex or the fact that your are unemployed: Girl's Night In.

This is not to be confused with the ever-popular "Girls' Night Out." Watch where you put the apostrophe. The only thing the two have in common is the time of day (or in this case, night, I guess). The idea is quite simple, but in order for the evening to be counted a success, I suggest a few general guidelines.

1. Being Alone
It's what the evening is all about: you. You don't have to go through the trouble to set up a date with your girlfriends to have a good time. There is a time and place for socialization, but odds are if you're feeling like crap (it's that time of the month, isn't it?) you probably don't even want to show your face outside. So take advantage of the fact that your roommate has a Biology study group tonight. Ignore the phone. The only form of socialization allowed (and probably all you can muster at the moment) is Facebook-stalking. Remember, tonight is the night of things you would do if no one cared.

2. Food. Lots and Lots of Food.
So pizza makes you break out. Eat it anyway. My usual diet for a night is quite large, a variety of the following comfort foods: Any and all forms of chocolate, Rice-A-Roni, peanut butter and pickle sandwich (It sounds disgusting, but after being forced to try it, the PB&Pickle is now one of my favorites), any and all forms of ice cream,  Dr. Pepper and grilled cheese sandwiches. Eat to feel good. Tonight is the night you will never admit happened.

3. Physical Comfort
Nothing can quite match the feeling of taking off your tights and heels after four hours of church. On the bus ride home you were probably sitting on the very edge of the seat trying not to smell the person next to you and still not block the aisle, while simultaneously subduing your claustrophobia. So put on pajamas, pull up your hair, remove your makeup and take off your bra-- because who is going to tell you not to? Cover yourself in blankets, tuck your favorite stuffed animal under your arm, and climb on the sofa in front of the TV.

4. Media
Nothing cures temporary depression like living vicariously through the heroine of a really good chick flick or action film. As long as there are a lot of explosions, at least one motorcycle, and plenty of eloquently-delivered witty lines, I am happy-- it only has to be engaging  enough to distract me from the unpleasant realities of real life. Blast the music you love but would be too embarrassed to play with anyone around. Read the teen romance novel you've had no time for. Gaze into (insert hot male actor's name)'s perfect face and forget about how you got a C on your Sociology exam.

5. Wee Hours of the Morning
It's not a evening in until the evening somehow flies by and suddenly it's 3 AM and you've been watching Charlie the Unicorn for two hours. It is imperative that one remain awake long enough for temporary insanity to set in. It makes you appreciate the moments later in the week when you have a firmer grasp on reality. After feeling like you're on the verge of a mental breakdown because you're so tired but you can't stop laughing through the pivotal scene in The Messengers for no good reason, you feel positively competent for the rest of the week. Trust me, it's healthy.

6. Blogging
When else do I have the time and motivation to blog? Enough said.

By the time you've woken up after sleeping in the next day and erased all traces of the sugar-hangover with a shower and a large salad, life looks a lot better and you can start returning all the phone calls you ignored. After all, the sun is shining, you're still alive, there are still people who love you, and that mountain of homework seems to have shrunk-- or at least not as big of a deal as it seemed earlier.

The Experiment

Few things in school make me feel as fulfilled as literary analysis: Understanding what an author means, expounding upon it and applying it. This is the first critical essay I wrote for my English 2600 class this morning. Normally, I'm never this touchy-feely in my academic writing, but since it's a written on a poem I thought I'd try something new. I haven't turned it in yet, so we'll see how it goes.

But read the poem first...


Spliced Wire by Jimmy Santiago Báca
I filled your house with light.
There was warmth in all corners
of the house. My words I gave you
like soft warm toast in early morning.
I brewed your tongue
to a rich dark coffee, and drank
my fill. I turned on the music for you,
playing notes along the crest
of your heart, like birds,
eagles, ravens, owls on rim of red canyon.

I brought reception clear to you,
and made the phone ring at your request,
from Paris or South America,
you could talk to any of the people,
as my words gave them life,
from a child in a boat with his father,
to a prisoner in a concentration camp,
all at your bedside.

And then you turned away, wanted
a larger mansion. I said no. I left you.
The plug pulled out, the house blinked out,
Into a quiet darkness, swallowing wind,
collecting autumn leaves like stamps
between its old boards where they stick.

You say, or carry the thought with you
to comfort you, that faraway somewhere,
lightning knocked down all the power lines.
But no my love, it was I,

pulling the plug. Others will come, plug in,
but often the lights will dim weakly
in storms, the music stop to a drawl,
the warmth shredded by cold drafts.

Compliance with the Truth in Jimmy Santiago Báca’s “Spliced Wire”

            The word “splice” means to join together or to unite. In Jimmy Santiago Báca’s poem, “Spliced Wire,” however, the subject of the poem is a painful separation or breaking of a union. Through the intricate and multifaceted figures of speech and overall implied metaphor(s), Báca expresses the pain and hopelessness of a relationship broken by personal choice. Báca uses the voice of the speaker to argue that loving someone is not reason enough to remain bound to that person if he or she does not return that love. This indicates a larger theme of commitment to the truth, evident in both the meaningful, vibrant images and the dynamic tone quality of the poem, suggesting the bitterness of irony. Báca claims that accepting facts and moving on from an unproductive or single-sided relationship is less damaging than remaining in it by denying reality and lying to oneself, even if that one side loves the other deeply. This claim makes sense, and yet the tone of the speaker seems to question even his own resolve; the pain, regret, and seemingly wasted time is not silenced either by placing blame or by moving forward. This is evident in the glimpses caught of the past lover hidden implicitly within the text, and from which an entire second character is created. “Spliced Wire,” in the most straightforward analysis, is the portrait of two people experiencing the pain of separation.

            The two stanzas are a clear exposition to the speaker’s present state of mind. There is no indication of gender, but for simplicity’s sake we will assume that the speaker is a man and the object his past lover. The extended metaphor begins in the first stanza by indirectly comparing her to a house. It is rich in figures of speech enhanced by imagery, such as the “words I gave you / like soft warm toast in early morning” (3-4), indicating a wholesome offering early on in the relationship, and even though the speaker “brewed [her] tongue / to a rich dark coffee, and drank / [his] fill” (5-7) the exchange appears woefully one-sided. There are elements of foreshadowing, such as the use of past tense, as well as the imagery of the birds and the red canyon. The speaker states that his love (or the happiness they shared) was “like birds, / eagles, ravens, owls, on rim of red canyon” (9-10). The birds, at first thought to be innocent and beautiful, ironically turn out to be birds of prey, perhaps looking for a reason to swoop down at any moment. The red canyon, although the color would traditionally suggest passion, instead conjures the image of a sandstone canyon in the desert, devoid of life and full of empty space.

            The second stanza begins to create a clearer image of who this lost love is, or who the speaker considers her to be. With the words “I brought reception clear to you,” (11) there is a subtle play on words. This could likely mean that the speaker taught this person how to receive or how to take in the world; something he feels was turned on him in the end. The emphasis on his giving, on his opening up in this intimate relationship (intimacy is inferred in the later use of the image of plugging in and pulling the plug) shows that the speaker views his beloved as something to be filled. Perhaps he longs to save her in a sense because she is inexperienced or incapable of making her own decisions, implied in the image of him ministering to her “all at [her] bedside.” (18)

            Ironically, the decision that she makes is to turn away in the third stanza, which is the crux of the poem. The line “And then you turned away, / wanted a larger mansion” (19-20) is the highest climactic moment in the piece. It is here that the reader finally begins to understand why this relationship has failed. Within the metaphor of the lover as the house, wanting a “larger mansion” suggests at first that she demanded too much of the speaker, or that she turned her affections elsewhere through infidelity. However t is a more likely possibility that she simply is not happy with herself. This feeling has a tendency translate into an effort to change the other person, since in the most intimate unions one’s partner can be the deepest reflection of self-esteem. Therefore, feeling the lack of genuine companionship, the speaker leaves. There is a host of images from this point on in the poem which directly contrast those in the previous two stanzas. This “turn[ing] away” (19) turns music and light that was once there “Into a quiet darkness” and replaces the speaker’s appreciative drinking his fill with a “swallowing wind” (22). The metaphor briefly nears the literal in the short “I said no. I left you.” (20), bringing in a cold, abrupt wave of perspective. Here, Báca chooses to be very literal about the events, as if suggesting that the metaphor is as correct as literal speech.

Conversely, abrupt tone reveals an internal conflict as if admitting that as expressive as a metaphor is, nothing can substitute for the truth of the matter. This idea is explored further as the poem’s central images are turned in on themselves in the final two stanzas. In “You say, or carry the thought with you / to comfort you,” (25-26) the speaker seems to feel the need to be specific and literal. He refuses to concede that the thought of her powerlessness is anything more than a thought. Where his “love” (28) would prefer to believe that the end of their union was the result of some supernatural or cosmic forces failing to align, the speaker claims that it was his conscious choice, “pulling the plug” (29).

He goes on in the next stanza to predict her fate, stating that because either she is so incapable of loving dynamically or of expressing love, “Others will come, plug in, / but often the lights will dim weakly / in storms, the music stop to a drawl, / the warmth shredded by cold drafts” (29-32). These images demand comparison to those in the first stanza. There is a tone of spite when he tells her that “others” will not fill her like he could; he seems to feel a desire to be bitter and angry and yet simultaneously battles pity for her— and pity for himself. Under close reading of the last stanza there is the question of a blurred speaker/object; is the speaker referring to his “love” or to himself? Perhaps both. The idea of the speaker filling the object with his love as light fills a house or a plug fills a socket is emphasized, but it is not the only option for metaphor. In lines 6 and 7, the speaker “drank [his] fill”, indicating that he too can be both filled and emptied. This irony is presented to the reader, but the speaker appears either unaware of or unwilling to admit it. After all, if the speaker is the plug and the object is the socket, from which direction does the power flow? Inferring from the poem, the speaker would argue that the source of power does not matter if the connection (the splice) is faulty, which supports Báca’s central theme.

The emptiness that both characters must feel is subtly emphasized in the form of the poem. The first two stanzas, which describe the relationship when it was whole, are ten and eight lines in length, respectively. The final two stanzas are each only four lines long, the first ending in the middle of the sentence and the second picking it back up again as if the two were intended or were originally a single stanza. This could be described as a structural metaphor which shows how forlorn the tone of each of the final two stanzas is comparable to how alone and forlorn the two characters are in the end.

Splicing refers to the joining of two ropes by the weaving of strands or two wires by twisting the ends together. Together, the strands accomplish more than when they are apart unless the splice is faulty and the rope begins to fray or the electrical current cannot travel through the wire. This essential image or metaphor illustrates Báca’s opinion that love unreturned is a fruitless endeavor. The frustration that the speaker feels is intensely human and relatable to anyone who has experienced disappointment in another through personal choice. The worth of the truth can be questioned when individuals are forced to choose between it and choosing a more pleasing reality. In this way it is less like acceptance and more like compliance. Báca’s poem shows that even in giving (and even in love), humans are selfish, perhaps incurably— and justifiably— so. The point, however, is that a relationship or a union is not about being perfect. It is about giving and receiving. Neither the speaker nor his “love” which he seems to condemn so much are perfect, though the speaker may try to claim moral superiority. “Give” and “take” are useless without each other. Perhaps the ability to appreciate love dynamically is as important as loving someone in return; or perhaps they are the same thing.