Kristin convinced me to participate in Yellow Wood's poetry evenings. I can think of two reasons why I wouldn't be totally aversive to participating in spite of the "performance" factor of a poetry reading. One, it's Yellow Wood. Two, I've always wanted to believe I have the guts to do readings in public. It's scary. Anyway, the idea to start with was just that Kristin would read my work and I'd just sit there. I didn't end up editing any of my work like I had initially anticipated doing and I didn't write anything new for the reading but I did select some of my favorites from the batch of poems that poured out of me last June.
***the chocolate chicken was a coffee doodle from Trevor a few weeks ago***
When poetry reading finally started I ended up reading three of mine and Kristin read one. There were seven of us total. Robin, a psychic medium/intuitive sort that had an entire stack of poems at her disposal. Beautiful work. We had a nice conversation before and after. Then there was a guy (let's call him Chris?) and a girl (Sheily) who didn't read, two high school kiddos too (Bikram and his friend who I don't know the name of) and Kristin.
Robin made me start. She had told me the day before that if she could read out loud then I could too. Since she had said that the thought had sunk in my mind... I've had a handful of friends push me in that direction--some more than others. I'd always been intrigued by the idea but mortified. It's SCARY--thoughts of any sort of public speaking jump into my mind... scary, I say, really scary.
So, I had a good two weeks to get tense about this (since I flaked the first week I was supposed to participate) and then I ended up reading. I only stumbled over a couple of lines (makes sense, since I've read these to myself about a million times) so, that was much better than I had originally anticipated. I was shaking though--straight out couldn't hold up my paper without it being noticed. Kristin noticed, I could hear her kind of breath out a little giggle which was reassuring almost since I had told her how nervous I was leading up to all of this-- the generous glass of Merlot she handed me before helped out too.
After we went around the circle once I read a second piece. Then, Bikram asked me what the first poem was about. We went around the circle again and I had Kristin read the next. I had printed about ten possibilities and X'd out several by the time the reading had started. She picked one of my better pieces. Then "Chris" asked me if I had any influences. I told him I wasn't sure that I just kind of spew out whatever comes out...but that if I had to think about that it would be Robert Frost, Dr. Seuss and some poets of the spanish language realm. He commented on the alliteration and we talked briefly about the "bounce" (I guess that's technically called meter... but, that, I believe is a dull way of putting something much more movement-filled).
So, we went around once more and I read the one that I wrote on the same day that I wrote the poem Kristin read. Robin asked Kristin and I to read the last two poems twice (when they came up) and liked both.
One of her poems...called Birthday (I believe) had the most beautiful line about the world being carved from tears. And, after the reading was over we spoke about that. How that defines the world and brings out the beautiful good moments as being something unique and truly special.
After the reading when other people had gone Robin asked me if she could read one more piece. It was called Postal Revolution (or something close to that). It was about a post office. I thought of Berkeley. It was about the Berkeley post office specifically actually. The one on San Pablo. I liked it and told her so. At that point I connected I think on some emotional level with her thought process because she started giggling and smiling and laughing very happy about the fact that I liked her poem so much. I know that feeling. Being so excited about something but so nervous about if someone else might like or not like it as much...
So, now I'm thinking... I should write more. I should read more (even though after all had transpired I definitely fell apart in every sense of the thought). It was thrilling in a terrifying way. And, Robin says that it's never not scary but that she loves it. Maybe I could love it... Maybe it would help me get closer to being published. Maybe it would keep me writing.
[For the record, after I was done with the reading I went for a long drive on Fish Ranch Rd... came home, went to coffee with a friend (and was utterly mopey and consumed in my own little pitty party) and then came home to cry my eyes out for two hours. This is what I mean by scary. Scary.....scary..... scary....]
My POEMS that we read:
[Untitled] -- read this first
Your smile is my tears
damned up behind my
tight tongue that doesn't
dare to look at you frowning.
Squinting back nausea,
holding my stomach in place,
and I don't want to look at you,
"I can't take my eyes off of you"
X3
Melody, Melody, Melody
Looking at me.
Gray burgundy rows
of chairs,
endless spiral stairs
down...downwards...down.
Perpetually holding exhalation,
blinking back worry,
biting lip... biting pain,
pain in the palm
of my hand, nails in hand.
Clench
and tighten and cut into physical.
Don't worry...
...don't worry.
Rock-a-bye baby, and goodnight...
& Winken and Blinken & Nod.
[breath]
and your eyes are my smile,
(when they're clear) and can't lie,
flowing free from soft slumber...
Transfiguration -- read second
It's not raining
but your familiarity is
drizzling down
the cold smooth surfaces
of my skin like
November without an umbrella.
Sensation sparks on sullen statues,
while the copious cadenced chords
lie heavily in the fluidity
of my broken breath and unspoken word.
The sun is shining
but your shadow frets relentlessly
upon the ceaseless rotations
of my ragged wretched mind
wrought with the reckless
worship of child-like adoration.
Those lonely eyes,
like stray cats that wander
in empty dust-covered cupboards
looking up from places within their withered
and weathered solitary spirits--
desperate in their desolate demeanor,--
console me.
It's like they're speaking the sighings
of a shattered serendipitous serenade;
it's like they're feeling the fettered
and fallible fodder of a fabled faith in goodness.
Responsibilities that are articulated with no drop of eloquence
in the dripping, drenching severity of sarcasm--
all of this nonsense--
it's a paltry pretense for this pale prickling pain
peeking through the cracked plaster veneer which
veils my vitrified veins,
vested with the resonance of
my patterns for peace.
[Untitled] - read third
I won't pretend not to be frightened
or lend some sort of superficiality to the splendor of
the presence of impatience in my pathetic persona.
As my jaw and indecision grind to a halt
and snap from comforted coves,
where they belong, my sunken eyes inflame and
I'm sleeping in sullen separation from the self.
It's been days since silence sounded simple.
Static sears my open ears--
slipping somewhere under my veins, slowing my blood,
and my thoughts to sludge.
Discordance -- read fourth
Each day I'm waking up
to some sort of sleep
and there's this noise
and it's so silent that it's loud
and it's so deafening that it's drenching.
I'm desperately derailed--
my thinking askew--
the ponderances of my pensive and paltry pain
a pittance for this parade of petty flourishes
that are my attempts to reconcile the
ocean of risiduality with my present
I'm waking up
divinely deranged.
Each moment further from faith
and I'm falling into this farce
with it's characters that flail and
fake ferocious facades of fortitude.
