Poetry: Poking the Dead

As for yesterday's poem, I found inspiration for today's poem from an old photograph. The picture below, which I've shared on here before in an earlier post, is of me and my father. I think I'm holding up the fish by myself; my father just wants me in the picture to document how big the fish is. Looking at that picture again got me to thinking of summers in my grandparents' backyard where he and my grandfather would fillet dozens and dozens of fish they caught the same day out on my grandfather's boat. The memories are full of strong images and stir up a lot of warm fuzzy nostalgia despite the gruesome subject. I'm looking forward to expanding and revising this one in the future, but, for now, it's poem # 9 for the poetry pledge drive.


Poking the Dead

They would catch them by the barrelful and bring them home,
Cut them up in the backyard on big stained boards. I would
Nose around the reeking buckets, watch the lips
Moving breathlessly. I'd run

My fingers with and against the grain
Of the scales, then marvel at the discarded
Guts glimmering in the sun. I'd muster the courage
To poke at the dead

Eyes, trying to figure out how
The translucent lids worked, unblinking
When the flies landed.

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Poetry: Inheritance

Okay, here is another resuscitated poem from my past. It was something I wrote for an advanced poetry-writing class in college. And, as with "We Are Not Wallendas," I think this newer version, while far from a finished product, is still a vast improvement. Just the same, . . . I'm starting to feel a little guarded and naked now with almost a week's worth of poems up here, so I'm going to refrain from posting the terrible original for comparison. Go ahead, call me a chicken, but it's just what I'm feeling right now.


Inheritance

In the face of my father,
Blood boiling up, rising red
Rage, thermometer popping
Mercury - salt in pepper hair.

Just below the widow's peak,
In line with each ear, loom knit
Eyebrows punctuating
Each sparse, spit phrase, clearly

Communicating orders,
Like the genes that tell me to
Raise mine the same, perhaps
Unintentional, way.

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Poetry: Lemon Moon

Okay, the day is pretty much over, but it's not midnight yet (on the west coast anyway), so, technically, I am still meeting the deadline to post this as a Sunday entry for the poetry pledge drive. (Phew!)

I'm not sure that I'm completely happy with this new one, but I have to start letting go of the need to perfect each of these poetry posts. Banging one of these out every day isn't going to produce a chapbook's worth of masterpieces and I can't feasibly spend all day on them. At best, this month-long exercise should give me an awful lot of (or a lot of awful) first drafts. I need to keep that in mind and remember, too, that revising those drafts, as I did with Friday's poem, will be fun later.

Anyway, this next poem (#5) is based on a childhood memory I have of choking on a piece of candy at the age of 4 or 5 (just after I'd been told not to run with candy in my mouth - kids). My mother became hysterical (the first time I found out the poor woman was useless in a crisis), and my father quickly scooped me up and made me vomit. It wasn't exactly the Heimlich maneuver, but (luckily!) it worked. And, needless to say, it left a lasting impression and a vivid memory.


Lemon Moon

I almost swallowed the moon
Once. I was running, my mouth
Full of citrus slickness.

When the story is told
Now, They talk about how,
In a moment, everything turned

Like the tide. It slid back
Too far on my tongue. Mute
And fish-eyed, I gasped,

Helpless. My mother
Orbited me screaming
And screaming like a lunatic.

My father threw me
Over one arm - a blue rag
Doll dangling.

A couple solid jerks and I
Saw stars. Gleaming yellow,
The disc was launched free.

My mother plucked it up,
Holding it high - the proof,
Her relief. The sweetness was

Still in my mouth - my first taste
Of mortality, soon forgotten,
But only by me.

To read other poems or poetry-related posts on this blog, click here.