An Imqerfect Place

Water Skiing With Billy Collins

fallingscrews — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:00:48 +0000

Every day I try to fall in love with a poem. I search and search ’till I find one that defines whatever moment I am in.

Perhaps its my way of excusing myself from writing. I find the perfect poem for my mood & can say: “Why bother? Look! It’s already been written.”

Today I fell in love with this:

Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want then to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

The Bottom of My Purse

fallingscrews — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:35:28 +0000

Hi, my name is Lorianne & I’m a chronic scribbler. I am rarely without pen & paper…just in case.

I cleaned out my purse & planner today & found the following bits on random scraps of paper. I honestly don’t remember what triggered any of them, or when. I just know they were important at the time, so I saved them… and eventually they will end up in something I write…maybe.

Ive forgotton what autumn smells like – here in this icy world where brittle shards fill my nostrils

Silent as tombstones

That in safety I might shatter… collapse

See, he never even thought about giving unless he was getting something, so everything was currency & every encounter an even exchange

The muscular heart of knowing

Seeds

fallingscrews — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:33:28 +0000

these things come to me…

sometimes they’re fully formed thoughts, pictures….so i sit down & write the poem or story or whatever.

other times, they’re just blossoms so tightly closed that i’m not even sure what they will be till i coax them open …writing, editing & shaping.

often, they’re just seeds.. a word or phrase, sound or color triggers that gleeful place in my head that knows… theres a poem in there somewhere. so i save these seeds, knowing they will germinate someday, into something.

Todays seed: Glossolalia of love

~~~

glos·so·la·li·a: (glos-uh-ley-lee-uh) noun
incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language, sometimes occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy, or schizophrenia.

~~~

theres a poem in there somewhere… about the secret language of love.

Poem Envy

fallingscrews — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:15:57 +0000

I read Michale’s work & I admire it to the point of envy. Its so smart & layered and always makes my brain have to reach in order to ‘get’ it.

Sometimes I wish I could write like that…but then I realized you cant compare…our styles are so different..our ‘audiences’ different. Its like comparing apples & oranges… his Picasso to my Grandma Moses…

Scribbling In The Night

fallingscrews — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:30:23 +0000

Trying To Write Alexis

I don’t want to lose this moment…so I climb from the bed I don’t sleep in to write it down. I cant cry, or the small infection that lies dormant in my left eye will wake, and the stigmata of my humanity will distract me from my task. So I write. Each word a tear drop each sentence a sob. Paragraphs wail and mourn as poems are torn from the fabric of my life. I trash them all…

the wounds are too fresh …

and I’m stitching as fast as I can.