Posted tagged ‘poem’

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For Labor Day Weekend – Busy

September 4, 2009

Years ago, I was lucky enough to do field work in India studying Indian trade unions.   (More about that some other time.)   This is a poem about a wonderful trade union leader, who very kindly took me under his wing, allowing me to travel with him to various union headquarters around the state of Gujerat.

Have I learned anything?

Ah this is better.
This is sitting down.
This is getting some tea.
This is biting into an orange peel, just slightly, before peeling.
This is biting into the orange.
I think about the labor leader I knew in Ahmadabad.
How they would bring him his coffee
in the morning, me my tea.
He had given up tea, he said,
when Gandhi said to, and ever since,
taking a hot slurp,
he had never drunk it.
Because of the British.

In the same way, in the car,
he took out all his toiletries, one by one, handing
them to me for examination:
a small soap still wrapped in its green labeled paper,
collected from an Indian hotel,
his razor, his comb—he combed
his close cropped hair before handing it to me as if
to show its use—a small towel–
he really didn’t have very much–a small
scissors.  His feet were up
on the seat.  Now
he brought one to his knee, shifting
his white cloth dhoti, and
clipped the toe nails quickly, first
one foot then the other.
He collected as he clipped
the small white crusts of nail, then
opened the window a bit wider
to toss them out.

“You see how I am always busy,” he said.  “Never
a moment idle, wasted.  I am busy all the time,
you see how I am doing it.”
He took the toiletries back from me.

I finish my breakfast slowly,
just sitting.

(For a different side of Labor Day weekend, i.e. the very sad end of vacation side, check out the Last Voyage of the Summer, below.   And, as always, check out 1 Mississippi (Karin Gustafson) at link above.)

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Have I learned anything?

Ah this is better.

This is sitting down.

This is getting some tea.

This is biting into an orange peel, just slightly, before peeling.

This is biting into the orange.

I think about the labor leader I knew in Ahmadabad.

How they would bring him his coffee

in the morning, me my tea.

He had given up tea, he said,

when Gandhi said to, and ever since,

taking a hot slurp,

he had never drunk it.

Because of the British.

In the same way, in the car,

he took out all his toiletries, one by one, handing

them to me for examination:

a small soap still wrapped in its green labeled paper,

collected from an Indian hotel,

his razor, his comb—he combed

his close cropped hair before handing it to me as if

to show its use—a small towel–

he really didn’t have very much–a small

scissors. His feet were up

on the seat. Now

he brought one to his knee, shifting

his white cloth dhoti, and

clipped the toe nails quickly, first

one foot then the other.

He collected as he clipped

the small white crusts of nail, then

opened the window a bit wider

to toss them out.

“You see how I am always busy,” he said. “Never

a moment idle, wasted. I am busy all the time,

you see

how I am doing it.”

He took the toiletries back from me.

I finish my breakfast slowly,

just sitting.

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Anniversary

August 22, 2009
Catskill Mountain Wedding With Elephants

Catskill Mountain Wedding With Elephants

Mist

Mist rises over lake like fish jumping
like heart wishing like eye
blinking like memory crying like fir boughs
sighing like awe inspiring, like hope
dying (not needed, not even considered), like
dawn breaking like
love making like
water curling in its fall,
like head on lap on
lips on lips on hips
on you on me, like
fingers fingering,
brushing against a nipple,
or being brushed
like something somewhere
sure of joy,
like the thing itself.

All rights reserved.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Going On Somewhere

August 21, 2009

Porch

The porch pulled them to its side,
invited nestling upon shaded planks,
recalled cool soft times, clover in fields,
the day she cut his hair, and then they picked
out smooth flat stones
and lined them along its surface, thick with
years of knobby deck paint.  Against it,
the stones shone like perfect moons to plant upon
winter table tops, reminders
that nights sown by fireflies
were going on somewhere, some time.

All rights reserved.

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Cowspotting

August 16, 2009

Stuck in city this hot weekend, thought of this country, contrary, poem.

Cowspotting

He said that cows always faced
In the same direction.
As in Mecca? I asked, sarcastic.
As in a field, he corrected.
You just look in any field, he said.
The cows will all be facing
the same way.

We curved around
shallow hills spotted
with the honey brown shanks of still cattle.
Look, I said, that one’s
completely sideways.
An anomaly, he said.  The exception
that proves the rule.  There’s always one.

If he was someone who always had to be right,
I was someone who had to be righter.

For years afterwards,
even though I got to the country only occasionally,
I carefully checked the collective stance
of cows, never accepting a near unanimity of
moist soft snout.
Not even once.

All rights reserved.

If you prefer elephants to cows, or if you just like elephants as well as cows, check out 1 Mississippi at link above.

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“Beneath It All”

August 11, 2009

For those of you (especially those who know me) who really don’t get all this Pattinson stuff (and forget that I write teen novels), I’m posting a poem.   This was not an exercise poem, sort of a teen poem, or early teen.

Beneath it all

Beneath the red over blue sky,
she walked a beam, its wood dark
as charcoal;  just below it, gravel.  Still,
she held arms out
to her sides
as if balancing on a narrow ledge, in
a harsh wind,
pretending.  Pretending too
that she was still a little girl, while
also pretending
to be older.  To be younger
and older both
felt cute,
like wearing,with conscious insouciance,
a too-short skirt over legs
that had learned allure.
Sure of the man watching, she also
pretended to slip, then
caught herself, smiling in mock
relief, the feel of control surging through her
like growth itself.
She had much to learn and
would have a hard time at it.

Don’t forget to check out 1 Mississippi!

Beneath it all

Beneath the red over blue sky,

she walked a beam, its wood dark

as charcoal; just below it, gravel. Still,

she held arms out

to her sides

as if balancing on a narrow ledge, in

a harsh wind,

pretending. Pretending too

that she was still a little girl, while

also pretending

to be older. Younger

and older both

felt cute,

like wearing,

with conscious insouciance,

a too-short skirt over legs

that had learned allure.

Sure of the man watching, she also

pretended to slip, then

caught herself, smiling in mock

relief, the feel of control surging through her

like growth itself.

She had much to learn and

would have a hard time at it.

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Poem for a Summer Night

August 10, 2009

This is a poem that I know wrote  as an exercise with my writing buddy, whom I’ll call Agnes.   I don’t remember the requirements of the exercise exactly as it’s an older poem.  I think we had to use verbs associated with butchers – “mince,” “debone,”” weigh,” “haggle,” (we had a list of these) in conjunction with a few random nouns– “leaf”,  “barefoot,” “moon.”

It’s a country poem, though I remembered it tonight, walking sticky city streets.

Summer Night

The frogs mince the night with
keening chants that haggle with the moon
for precedence: whether still, dead, light can outweigh
the cry of living tissue, deboning the memory
of barefoot afternoon in the black green
lurk, a leather  of
heavy leaf and humid longing.

(All rights reserved, as always.)

For something cool and blue, check out the link re 1 Mississippi, available on Amazon.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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A Poetic Interlude

July 31, 2009

For those of you that can’t relate to Twilight (or understand my obsession –I can’t either), I’m posting aVillanelle.  This was written as part of a writing exercise over the phone with my dear writing buddy.  (See Blocking Writer’s Block  – Part II), and when I was lucky enough to be in a quiet woodsy place where I could walk while jotting.

Swimming in Summer

Our palms grew pale as paws in northern climes
as water soaked right through our outer skin.
In summers past, how brightly water shines,

its surface sparked by countless solar mimes,
an aurora only fragmented by limb.
Our palms grew pale as paws in northern climes

as we played hide and seek with sunken dimes,
diving beneath the waves of echoed din;
in summers past, how brightly water shines.

My mother sat at poolside with the Times’
Sunday magazine; I swam by her shin,
my palms as pale as paws in northern climes,

sculpting her ivory leg, the only signs
of life the hair strands barely there, so prim
in summers past.  How brightly water shines

in that lost pool; and all that filled our minds
frozen now, the glimmer petrified within
palms grown pale as paws in northern climes.
In summers past, how brightly water shines.

Copyright 2008, Karin Gustafson, All rights reserved.

Check out 1 Mississippi on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/1-Mississippi-Karin-Gustafson/dp/0981992307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249040514&sr=8-1

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