The Poetry Patio

World Cyanotype Day

Detail, large cyanotype on fabric by author (2020)

Happy World Cyanotype Day, friends! I realize this might seem like a strange thing to talk about here on my poetry blog, but if you’ve spent more than a minute here you probably know that I think of everything as being interconnected. Also, I like to pair my cyanotype prints with my writing.

AND I have a new endeavor: I’ve opened a shop on Big Cartel. I’m trying out the free version to see what happens, which means I have only 5 things listed, but all 5 of them are not only cyanotype related, but two of them are poetry books! So, if you have a second, please take a look:

SHOP!

I’ve put a block link to the shop on my homepage as well. If / when things sell, I’ll replace them with new items, so please check back!

Patience

Every night the cat comes and roosts next to me. Even if she has been attending to another member of the family, there is always the moment of her padding lightly and with purpose across the comforter like so much thick snow and settling herself, back turned, tail flicking, nonchalant and without obvious expectation

unless

I reach out to pet the luxury of her fur, in which case she will turn and give me her full attention.

Throughout the night she will come and go, often without my knowing. By morning she has resumed her vigil downstairs for breakfast, a shadow on the dining room carpet in the pale light of dawn, having perfected the fine art of patiently waiting which I wish I knew how to learn.

Thank you, readers!

Pictured

Absorbed by light
capering daily to capture it
within the net of my lens
what eyes see and
other senses perceive
written down
photon by photon
through chemical layers
and into silver
whose monochromatic
radiance dances
across a scale
back into the eye
transformed
shimmering with
a glitter beyond
what gold can purchase
a gift of memory
into years that
have yet to come
an emulsion
standing in its
own brilliance
against the rush of time

Readers, I apologize for neglecting you! I haven’t been writing much lately, or blogging much; I’ve been focusing on a photography project and photography in general. Creativity comes not so much in waves, I find, but in flash floods – right now, I’m up to my neck treading water in cameras, film, and darkroom. So here’s a poem I wrote the other day that reflects where I am at the moment! Thanks for reading, and I hope you are all pleasantly swimming in your own river.

Publication news!

Well I write a poem about rejection letters and then a couple of days later I get one that’s acceptance! It’s like when you finally pull over to ask for directions and are told that the place you’re looking for is right around the next bend.

I went out on a limb and submitted a poem I wrote for a photo prompt on Beyond Words Magazine‘s Instagram, and to my very happy and pleasant surprised, it will be published in their October issue. Please check them out, and to my writer friends: why not submit?

Here’s to trying again, and then again and again. . . .

Self Singing

Shadow self portrait, Port Aransas, 35mm film photo by author

Whitman had a lot of songs,
long and rambling, so many notes
venturing all over the melodic range
from the highest octaves to the
lowest reaches of the bass clef

If he was written out on a staff,
codified into halves, wholes, and sixteenths,
he would be a tangle to rival Brahms,
with a reach beyond Rachmaninoff or Liszt

You wouldn’t want to hear my play it
and you wouldn’t want to hear me sing

but if I did compose my life
neatly onto a sheet that you could read
it would be in a major key
always searching for the next
positive note, striving to vibrate in
perfect harmonious thirds and fifths

Sometimes I would strike at larger chords
and trip lightly through arpeggios and
challengingly playful scales and runs
with a vocal accompaniment
like the wind breathing out of the mountains
in the summertime, with the strength
of the gales that blow in from the sea
determined to finish the entire symphony
on a high note, with a healthy satisfying
final movement that would keep stretching out
as along as I was able to keep up with the tune

It’s almost my birthday, and every year I publish a collection of self-portraits on my photo website. Thinking about those, I decided to also think about a self-celebratory poem ala Mr. Whitman, the Great Granddaddy of all epic self-celebrations. I apologize to sticklers if I messed up my metaphors or didn’t get my musical notation correct. Thanks for reading!

Rejection Letters

always there is the question
and how you will answer

will it be a yes
to the trying, the idea of it
the theory of possible success
shining like a diamond
in that dim uncertain future
you attempt to not consider

but like that last piece of
chocolate cake in the kitchen
even at midnight you know
the diamond is there
and someone will reach for it
if you don’t

will it be a yes, still
when someone else receives the prize
and all that’s left on the plate
is a pile of crumbs
spelling out, in so many words,
no

will you answer yes
to trying again
and again
in spite of all the unfortunatelys
we regret to inform you buts
there were so many entries
and difficult decisions
that judge and jury had to make

will you keep going downstairs
midnight after midnight
in search of the diamond slice
that keeps reappearing
with a cloying sweetness
asking you always and again
the same question

I feel like I could write a dissertation on receiving rejection letters, for any and every kind of creative thing I attempt. Ultimately I reckon there’s 1 yes for every 100 nos. In the end, that’s better than 0 yesses. I’m grateful for those little glimmers of affirmation! Anybody else find it challenging to keep sticking your neck out again and again?

Indefinite Leave to Remain

iPhone photo, Hipstamatic app (photo by author)

displaced and out of place
for years I was lost
in the rush hour crowd of
King’s Cross Station
tongue-tied with words
in the same language but
a dialect whose defences
I never could break through

the same but different
separated by an ocean my people
fought to cross

death by a thousand cuts
on the edge of a paper my people
fought to sign

the red coat didn’t fit me
but I tried to finess my way into normal
over cups of tea, pints, and long vodkas

I embraced everything willing
to accept a hug with two kisses,
mother tongue in cheek

in the end I was still the sore thumb,
betrayed by a colloquial I didn’t
want to leave behind
well-loved, kindly regarded
but forever and always
a homesick stranger

I wrote this poem recently for a magazine submission. . . . and was soundly rejected but hey that means now I can share it with you! Once upon a time, I moved to England. In my own way, I was an immigrant, albeit temporarily. It wasn’t easy. Thank you for reading!

(I would have shared a photo from my time in the UK but all those negative scans are still locked in my defunct hard drive. So instead I used a phone photo of travel in other times, other places.)

Absalom

Texas (I forget where) | Polaroid photo by author

Faulkner is a heavy weight of old grievances
unresolved, the fester of years
burning an indignant hole
in a pocket full of rusty nails
the bitter smell left upon the
fingers that reach inside
a taste like blood on the tongue

It’s my Mother’s words about the family
how her Daddy was the twin born last
separated by mere moments
from the seat of glory
always coming in second
army, not navy
bearing the first ancestral name
but not the badge of recognition
always falling short
and never quite good enough

It’s Grand-mere recounting
childhood memories at midnight
the thunderstorm raging but forgotten
under the smothering blanket of the past
her voice like slow honey
eyes lit and heart full of old thunder
from the days before the market crash
when Mother and Daddy were still
in the same sentence
long before Pass Christian was
swallowed by the raging sea,
not for the first time,
long before she was sent away
to trusted friends who could afford her
and even longer before
the infidelity and inevitable divorce

Faulkner is the silk of twilight
the seduction of the big house
beaconing with warm windows
cradled by the mythology
built within it, board by board
the old glory still visible
out of the corner of the eye
like a meteor that blazes
between moments so quickly
that although you can’t prove it,
you still know it was there

Hi friends! Sorry I have been away from here for a while. Back to school coupled with a whole bunch of pressing projects have had me busy with just about everything but writing. Oh yeah and also I’ve been devouring a book by Faulkner – my first of his. Thanks for reading!

Rush

my neighbor cut down his tree
after it fell into his fence during a storm
so now I can see the sky as I lie in bed
the clouds are moving fast
in a hurry to end this hot dry month

from the bald stump,
the tree is pushing back up
with a quickness, a thousand saplings
rising from the one old root

dragonflies are racing in crazy
second storey zigzags

the leaves are shaking with wild
startled darts in the morning wind

on the ceiling the fan zooms;
its cranky motor ticks like seconds passing

my daughter can hardly wait
for school to start again

the only one not in a hurry
is me

Thanks, readers!

Late July

Portrait with sparklers | photo by author

August is knocking at the door
a hot mess of back-to-school
with new shoes, pencils, and
a new backpack

It used to be that
kids got to run wild
during the dog days,
endless sprinkler parties
and popsicle sleepovers

Now they are lucky
for any vacation, any gasps
of time blissfully away
from the hard thumb of authority,
the arch and watchful eye
of educational agendas,
the crack of principles’ whip

I guess you can tell how I feel about how early school starts these days! Thanks for reading.