Between-the-Lines Poem: Choose your favorite poem from the readings. Type out the poem, leaving triple-space between lines. Then, between the lines, fill in a new line of your own which is sparked by the original line. Eliminate all original poem lines at the end. The poem that remains is your own. Tinker with it and make it cohere.
10 responses to “Found Poem (Weds)”
I breathe, and it breaks my heart. I open the door
And the sound of the fume hoods breaks my heart. I walk over to my fume hood, Mixing chemicals, a reaction happening, a wrong reaction,
Pairs of eyes. The cheer from everyone else, the door opening
One after the other leaving the lab room, the harsh
Tones from those pairs of eyes, everyone else except my lab partner
Break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I feel like
I belong here. I mix and mix to produce the right reaction,
And those pairs of eyes would not stare at me. There are no limitations, only the sky. Like you, I was born.
Like you, I thought I was going to be smart,
and amazing, and Everyone sees me. Hand on my heart.
Hand on my stupid heart.
The poem I chose for my found poem is “How to Triumph Like a Girl” by Ada Limón
I’ve always been afraid of horses and women
so powerful, so beautiful, so free.
Comparing a woman to a horse is insulting,
Akin to calling her ugly or fat
But horses are not ugly and fat is not a bad word.
I like being a woman,
A part of this community
United in their struggles, oppression, and successes
Because a win for one is a win for all
Right?
But then, a loss for us,
When we are beaten down again and again
is a loss for all
Right?
I did two! A small miracle.
***
Can you see it?
Of course you can’t.
Shh, sweetheart. Or cry out. Maybe that’s best. You’ll learn
And you’ll forget. It’s funny, like a movie
Remember it for a second
Feel a tense, muscular strain as it passes
Like light on an unknown road.
Something strange is coming
Something always is
You feel like yourself and look like your mother dreamed
Angrier, maybe
But the game is good enough
For now.
Life is a long string of feeling
And all have passed.
It never seems like they will, does it?
Wonder if you’ll outgrow that
Wonder what’s beyond collapse
Thinking about the long string
Of people you’ll never be
All the places, the lives
You will never touch
You’d forget, anyway
So what reason is there to reach, to unwind
Don’t be afraid
Of the woven many
Small lives like yours
There’s something here, too:
Thinking of the future against better judgment, with the tide of your will
Learning to stop apologizing for the things you do to try to understand
Yourself, and strangers, and selfishness, growing twisted with the knowing
You picture it often:
Everyone you’ve ever cared for lingering
On a landfill of mistakes, speaking
And laughing together. You
Are the ghost, here
Say it is for the best
Open the window
And smell the cool earth
& perfume
It’s all here.
***
The formatting didn’t quite carry over here! I’ve done my best to adapt it but bear with me.
I am tired of men
And their art
Despite or because I sometimes feel like one
Despite or because I keep making things
I keep trying
For the same reason men keep going to war:
I don’t know how to touch people.
/ Strangers are the easiest people to project love and life upon: /
It’s a living, I guess.
Everyone needs something to look forward to.
Everyone needs something for the imagination.
Everyone just wants to be looked at, properly:
A look that makes you leave your body / Be proud of that home
Feels glowy, doesn’t it?
Bodies
Hands
/ We are always moving to music. /
That’s what I think, at least.
I dream that in the next life, I will know how to see people.
I think about small animals for sale in mirrored tanks
And the world looking through
People like these sorts of things:
Small, and strange
People like a puzzle until the pieces go missing.
I am getting better, maybe
At looking people in the eyes
Still off balance
It’s not polite to tell people
You could love them
And besides, there’s a crush
On the ribcage, a scraping
Of the walls, a hand
Feeling the cavity smooth
/ Hey, how are you? /
I am alone more than I should be.
I like breathing, what can I say.
I keep fragments of people around
In bowls and drawers folders
On the mind
It’s pretty to look at, isn’t it
Here: a bed
A space, unused
And overflowing
Sentimentality
& chemicals &
Where did they go?
(This is based on “My Tits Are Bruised As If I’ve Been With a Rough Lover” By Diane Seuss, which wasn’t technically one of the readings, but it was attached to “My First Night In New York”, and I liked it better.)
***
my rough lover likes his pears soft
(after Diane Seuss)
My pears have fingertip bruises on them
Even though when I bought them,
I wrapped them gently in cloth.
When I unwrap them I recoil:
Disgusted someone should dig
Their dirty fingers into my clean, soft, pears.
On the red windowsill I leave them
With my disgust
And am surprised that with every passing day
They grow harder to the touch.
My disgust morphs into anger
As I realize my pears,
Who had never been mine in the first place,
Had built a little ruse around wanting me less.
I am in a stage of my life
Where windowsill pears are critical
—have always been critical—
And as such,
Last night I fed my lover slices of
My impossibly hard pears;
Let him chip a tooth and
slid silently into the consequences
As, in his anger,
He leaves fingertip bruises on my clean, soft, hips.
The Opera Chorus
Monica Bliss
The days I feel mentally well
are extraordinary. Ocean waves. All the people
I see smile when the see me coming
they are happy, genuinely happy
to see me. I am a breathing salutation
to the sun. Or at least a comfortable
child pose. What do they call this?
The days you get out of bed and do not feel
like everyone hates you. Food in the fridge.
Enough for home cooked deliciousness Monday through Friday
and on the weekend. It’s like
singing soprano two.
Just sounds like support and bad breath.
The breath of community. I am not going to bring down
those I love today, It’s like the time my baby
was born but then you looked
into my eyes and I felt and saw
Like every poem ever written: your love.
So real. Like ice cream. No, not like that
It was not ice cream! It was
Your love, your fucking love! I felt
mentally well that day. Mother Nature,
To whom do we pray to express gratitude for this feeling?
Mother Nature, Mother Earth, the Goddesses
You don’t know? Enter the opera chorus stage left.
Let the while audience hear. Come on, Everybody.
It’s a sing along.
no doubt no imposter syndrome no feeling like everyone hates me
Bring in the tenors and the basses. no fear no hesitation not today,
Man.
Every day I wake up to you and your love
and I’m here for it but also do I deserve it, but I want it
I don’t know what this is.
Bring back the chorus. Enter stage left (or right) and sing
Hallelujah!
(Based on “The Wild Iris” by Gluck)
There is a light at the end of the tunnel
they say.
But I am in the abyss,
I am in the know.
The shadows creeping loudly in the walls.
Absolute silence. The light
dancing in the distance.
Half-alive
stuck in my own mind
out of reach in nothingness.
The dread of lonesome immortality
Psyche wandering
until the end of life, the stillness
Eros unseen
whispering to her in desperation.
The otherworldly forgotten
the glistening onyx beneath the boat
A voice from the depth of my mind
a reminder that living beings
talk:
between the heart and the mind
flows the viscous nectar
made of long-forgotten memories
Suddenly,
I am somebody.
I go out alone.
I go out to dinner.
The rain
Around the New York streets
Is cold as ice.
There’s a loud scream
Down the street
It rings through my body
Shaking me
Watching me
Knowing me
There’s many
Things I want
To forget. Losing
my phone
Or the book
I wished to buy
That I knew I would never understand.
Everything I love
Will never love me.
I still can’t find my phone
So the plans will not be made.
I’m sorry.
I want
To see you
Underdressed
In the streets
Running
Into your arms.
We need each other.
No one around
It’s only fair.
Now,
You’re not here.
Sadder than you
But happier than I’ve ever been
If you need me
In the New York streets
There’s a narrow alleyway
Filled with desire
Ready for us.
Think of our love.
To order the rain
And all the screams
As loud as they are,
I will be here
This is from My Secret by Alex Dimitrov.
Tearing apart what’s left behind:
ragged and hoarse. Breaths
barely taken. Holding on
just.
He’ll never bloom past three o’clock,
but rot away with dirt and suffocation,
in slow and sombre fashion.
Explanation feels so hollow.
Hollow words and hollow eyes.
I barely look around, walking down
stone cold and shivering, as
the garden burns. Deep ahead
amongst the rows of hell’s orchards
hearts burst
and silently scream
Till time sucks them
into a final quiet
I wonder how I got here
Death isn’t mine yet I
Walk through this abyss.
Each sunrise a new coin, each sunset a fading memory,
Withstanding the wear and tear of life’s harsh weather
A new warmth to your chest, a fire within,
pages whispering stories of faded past;
When the chill seeps in, a familiar ache, a familiar voice –
Shed the old, rewrite the past
The voices crawl in and leaves
their mark and their imprint on your soul remains;
Trudge through the mire, the memories, the roots
Words that once dripped sweet like honey
Now feels heavy, what a bitter irony