Improv 5, Week 6

Rework of a Carol Ann Duffy Improv from before.

It must have been weeks, the scratching.

Her fur careening to somersault

in evening's hungriest hour, when sleep gnaws

the peaked head of sun and launches

her fleas to feeding.

In the tub, her nails seize porcelain.

She dreads the faucet, the honey-milk

shampoo. I work my fingers along

her spine's jewels, flick the flattened

thoraxes of fleas from her suds.

Critical Commentary 1, Week 6

Response to Taylor's Improv 3, Week 6:

So bypassing the obvious hyperuse of the word "pearl", which was clearly an intentional bit of play and thus saying it was somewhat overused would be unnecessary, I will jump in to say there are moments here worth keeping. I always find it interesting when poems utilize repetition in order to force a certain awareness into me as a reader on the way words function. Generally that repetition forces me to create new meaning or different understanding of the function of the word as a verb or noun. However here, because the word “pearls” never really changes how it works, this leads to the feeling of triteness. Lines that I feel like could be carried over to another draft: Told us something in Chinese  / that mentioned pearls; and shakes his head at pearls. / nods his head at pearls. I also like the ending question, like a method of purpose from the writer.

Improv 4, Week 6

Un

Unzip the word, pare it
to the root.
Have worlds.
Have branched off worlds
that live closed off,
open to meaning.
How funny, two letters undo
everything.
Every law, every linguistical
system--unfair.
Here where the dark undoes
our lips, we no longer
do late night things
but undulate
in the muddled swamp
of monosyllables
and the deep throat
of the guttural.
Without it, even unity
would still place I to you.

Improv 3, Week 6

Taking this moment to stress the reality of a speaker, not the poet.

Improv of Amy Pence’s 8^th Grade Locker Combination:

I stopped liking grape jelly years ago.

When I chose strawberry, my whole life spread

into the endless possibilities of choice and sandwich.

When I worked the knife along the jam rim

and rubbed its seeded goo into the grooves

of my whole wheat, I saw marmalade

and toasted bread, whose heat melted

the peanut butter like the promise

of something that could have been real--

like you, had I not waited several hours

in a plastic gown to lose you, in netted cap

and booties watching 13 Going on 30,

thinking you would never know those numbers

or the taste of a childhood staple

and not even losing a tear.  

Improv 2, Week 6

Rework of Mosquito

Outside, the dark gnaws our seats

though a citronella’s light outlines

your face. Over wine, you tell me

you don’t miss her and I’d hear you if

I didn’t recall other nights like this.

At cocktail parties, where your eyes

worked past me in dim bars of light,

to search for some sliver

of her smile against the crowd.

Or the nights she wasn’t there—

how you looked for her

in the soft down of your pillow, or

in the noisy toss of winter wind

and summer shade—hell, any place

that wasn’t my outstretched arms.

Seriously, you tell me, it’s done,

and yes, I’d hear you

but I can’t seem to shake

my urge to press this mosquito

into the candle, to feel the wax give in,

to hear it, buzzing, drown. 

Junkyard Quote 1-2, Week 6

1. My rage is multi-factored and many-layered. 
2. "I took these creatures as I found them on the shoreline, and then placed them in 'living' positions, bringing the back to 'life', as it were. Reanimated, alive again in death." --Nick Brandt

Improv 1, Week 6

Here.

The fountain of youth is a salt lake in Tanzania,

whose wide mouth plucks birds and petrifies

their bones below a gray and stillborn surface.

I’ve seen the photos—doves with wings tucked

like paper airplanes to their chests,

flamingoes whose feathers pare to the slim

scoop of their mummified necks.

Imagine it was our bodies bubbling down there,

deep in the ten foot steep of natron solution,

calling up threads and taut lines

of muscle we know…