By request (slightly OT)
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Hackettstown, NJ
Posts: 692
By request (slightly OT)
Per Grateful2B & Hope123's request a few threads back, yes i would be happy to post a poem or two. I decided to start with one that is totally about my AD - This was written 2 years ago, at a poetry festival. She was missing on the streets of Newark at the time. Poem is a little long. Next time I'll post a shorter one, if there is a next time.
Looking for my Daughter
Student’s Day at the poetry festival—
The exponential force of so many of them, so suddenly
beautiful, slams me up against your absence.
Of course, I mostly notice the girls; those glowing young
women who learn the world as nectar and exude themselves—
a perfume trailing each flash of eyes, lips, brow.
I notice their forward motion; even at rest, no rest.
In this tangle of exquisite bones,
spark of knee joints folding, unfolding,
in a bright elbow hinged to push away a stray wisp of hair,
unhinged to mark a word of conversation,
I look for you.
I find pieces of you in the slight imperfection of a nose,
shiny flash of hair, delicate wrist revealed beneath a sleeve.
You have laughed as irrepressibly as any of these
good girls, these poetry girls whose thoughts lap
around their heads like a lake, then ripple out
into this newest of new worlds.
They accessorize themselves with words.
Flesh shivers from the satin-tongued lick of words.
But you were never a poetry girl; never a lover of words.
I forgave you that and you in turn adorned the back row
of each of my readings like a spark of diamond.
Rising from the skins of these girls, an energy crackles
above smooth arms, surfs the wave of taut-muscled thighs.
If I dip into the air above any face,
I know I’ll feel a velvet quivering thing,
and if I close my fist like a prison,
I’ll feel the darting pulse which seeks a space
between my fingers to slip into a day
made free by its entry into it.
When did your own coat of light begin to matt and fray?
I failed to notice, as I fail to notice summer slipping
into Autumn, a minute a day.
I can find you only in my mind’s eye anyway,
where your energy is a weak film,
thin as a layer of sweat after a fever breaks.
The heat inside that glass stem you suck consumes more
than the white rock that offers you in sacrifice.
Looking for my Daughter
Student’s Day at the poetry festival—
The exponential force of so many of them, so suddenly
beautiful, slams me up against your absence.
Of course, I mostly notice the girls; those glowing young
women who learn the world as nectar and exude themselves—
a perfume trailing each flash of eyes, lips, brow.
I notice their forward motion; even at rest, no rest.
In this tangle of exquisite bones,
spark of knee joints folding, unfolding,
in a bright elbow hinged to push away a stray wisp of hair,
unhinged to mark a word of conversation,
I look for you.
I find pieces of you in the slight imperfection of a nose,
shiny flash of hair, delicate wrist revealed beneath a sleeve.
You have laughed as irrepressibly as any of these
good girls, these poetry girls whose thoughts lap
around their heads like a lake, then ripple out
into this newest of new worlds.
They accessorize themselves with words.
Flesh shivers from the satin-tongued lick of words.
But you were never a poetry girl; never a lover of words.
I forgave you that and you in turn adorned the back row
of each of my readings like a spark of diamond.
Rising from the skins of these girls, an energy crackles
above smooth arms, surfs the wave of taut-muscled thighs.
If I dip into the air above any face,
I know I’ll feel a velvet quivering thing,
and if I close my fist like a prison,
I’ll feel the darting pulse which seeks a space
between my fingers to slip into a day
made free by its entry into it.
When did your own coat of light begin to matt and fray?
I failed to notice, as I fail to notice summer slipping
into Autumn, a minute a day.
I can find you only in my mind’s eye anyway,
where your energy is a weak film,
thin as a layer of sweat after a fever breaks.
The heat inside that glass stem you suck consumes more
than the white rock that offers you in sacrifice.
Leap of Faith Survivor
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 4,555
this was hard to read as my girl is still out there and beginning a another spiral further down. ..some tears..
you write wonderfully well, Sleepy, thank you for sharing this . I would *love* to read more of your work..
grateful
you write wonderfully well, Sleepy, thank you for sharing this . I would *love* to read more of your work..
grateful
Administrator
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: a better place
Posts: 4,047
(((Sleepy)))) You have incredible talent...I can't even find the words to express how your poem impacted me. Thanks you so much for sharing it here. I too would love to read more of your work.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Hackettstown, NJ
Posts: 692
Thanks everyone. I have made the last set of corrections/edits on proofs for chapbook (that's poetry lingo for 'a small book of poetry') and sent back to my editor. So I'll have me a new chapbook of poetry pretty soon. this poem is the first one in the book. I'll post another soon.
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