New poem.

MOVIE POEM III (sapphics) 


for alanna 





Waiting for you like the women in airports. 
Shut down. Gate slow. Even the press of sand a- 
gainst my eyelids. Snap dragon. Full screen. I'm not 
done with you yet. 


Wrap me, girl, around your long fingers. Beginning to open 
at your seams. Scarf fluttering across your face, 
band ridge my division. You can't remem- 
ber your own flick fuck cover. 


Pictures streak these walls, as though we had asked them. 
Flicker you, steam. Shut that door. It's easier, 
your face, your mouth, twinning mine, to gate your breath. 
Mantilla folds me: goodbye; love. 

These are, obviously, sapphic stanzas.

It's been a really long time since I've thought very deliberately about stresses, and it's been great-- although head-banging-against-the-wall hard-- to be conscious of meter again.

& occasionally I broke the pattern-- "for" is not a stressed syllable, for example, in "waiting for you". I considered replacing it with various other words, but eventually decided to go with the unstressed one-- I wanted it to move slightly more quickly there than the stressed would have made it.

Later, I went through one more time and smoothed out the things that were correctly in meter but still bothering me: "open at your seams" became "beginning to open at your seams". "Mantilla folds love" burgeoned until it became the current last line.

Alanna, by the way, is not a real person, but a new project of mine. I'm collaborating with someone who's writing a novel-- Alanna is a character in it, and Alanna writes avant-garde poetry; I was asked to come up with that poetry.

Nice to meet you all, and I like the poem. I'm not qualifed to comment on the meter, I struggle with it myself, but you've got some very nice images in there. A favourite is:

... Scarf fluttering across your face,

band ridge my division...

I'm thinking I might transpose the first and second stanzas. I don't know what I was thinking.

That would be different- in fact, I think it might be an improvement. It shifts the focus of the poem a little, but I'm sure you're aware of that. I'd go for it.

Hi Am-Chau, can I ask where your name comes from? It's lovely.

Hi! Am-Chau is Vietnamese and it means 'daughter of the moon'. Yarkona is Hebrew for green. I thought it was quite attractive.

Am-Chau is Vietnamese and it means 'daughter of the moon'

I thought so. Vietnam kind of being my specialist subject at the moment.

OK, here goes. I'm posting my ending to my story called "Perfect" It's the second, less symbolic ending. But I still hate it. Now I think it's anvilly.The main character is a single woman with a disability who both has affection for and resentment of her roommate's pre-teen daughter for her charmed life. But daughter's life is not so easy because her divorced parents fight over her.Autobiographical? Nah;)
"Excuse me," she tells you. "I'd like a few minutes to talk with Dave. If Katie comes out here, tell her to go in her room.This is between us. She steps out the door. You let it click closed, but you stay in the living room, transfixed by the dark side of Perfect. It can't be easy being fought over like a favorite figurine. As predicted, Katie does come to the living room, but you don't send her away.TBC

"I hate it when they get like this," Katie says.
"They just do it cause they love you so much," you say. It is both true and the Thing to Say.
"That doesn't make it easier.When I was little, I used to wish they would die." Katie says, in a tiny little voice. "I think everyone wishes that about parents. No more nagging, no more rules..."
"No, not like that. So I wouldn't have to choose." "Choose?"
"Between my mom and my dad. See, I like being at my dad's cause all my friends still live there. I like being at my mom's because I miss her when I'm not and she has more time for me."TBC

"There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"
"No, but they both want to be the one I love the best. I can't pick."
"No, you can't. Do you want a peanut butter sandwich?"
"Ok. And I'm still glad they didn't. Die, I mean."
You get out the peanut butter and the bread. Your movements in the kitchen are both slow and deliberate.Katie takes this as a struggle;most able-bodied people do, in your experience. Or is it that Americans expect everyone to be fast? TBC