Build Your Brand

You Used to Bring Me Flowers

The first boy I ever loved used to leave notes in my locker at school, signed "the Lone Ranger" or "the Hairy Tomato".  Scrawled at the bottom of these blue-lined pages,  would be "Silas Mariner" or "William Shakespeare" - notes enticing me out to the park at dusk to look for bats or mysterious hints of buried treasure in the college woods.

We'd meet behind the teacher's parking lot and, taking my hand, he'd lead me off into high adventure.

"It's just a matter of time,"  he'd whisper in my ear as we broke trails through the underbrush or scaled the sides of steep hills.  "...simply a question of being there at the right possible moment when it all comes together..."   Invariably,  his voice would hush into stillness as his fingers tightened on mine.  We would chase after wil-o-whisps  and wood sprites until the demands of our families returned us to a more mundane reality.

Sometimes,  he'd hand me flowers,  clots of moist earth still clinging to long, straggly roots;  a neighbor's garden his hasty flower shop and a slow grin the accompanying note.

Getting Even

 

After twelve years and two major love affairs,

several brief encounters,

three decisive career changes,

four moves to different parts of the same city,

three new library cards,

my first car (midnight blue), first accident (his fault),

first intrauterine device

inserted by a disapproving male doctor

after which I walked around for nine days

feeling like a human time bomb

whose insides could explode at any moment

before going back to that stiff-lipped man

whose sanctfifed hands removed it;

Yes,  his sanctified hands removed it,

but, only God can make a tree --

I remembered what my grandmother said

when I was fourteen and bitter

as opposed to my sixteen year old sister

who kept the world at her feet, especially Billy Anderson

who WANTED her, who wore long sweatshirts to hide

his hard-on when he came to sit on our porch on Saturdays

along with six other boys who practised control

on the driveway, shooting baskets off the rim,

driving hard beneath for that extra edge,

which I believe they believed they would die for

until my sister made what Daddy always called

her femme fatal entrance at the front door

where she would stand and select her man,

having already decided who she would have

as she soaked in Chanel Number Five

ordered from New York City and charged to our family account

which was already one of the banes of Daddy's existence

(he had many banes, but my sister wasn't one of them),

she was his Golden Angel Baby and she knew it

although my grandmother used to tell me that I was Silver,

and she would wink at me and say,  "Baby it's a game.

Don't forget to keep score."    

                                                                  Kathy Porter

 

"Getting Even" was first published in the May 1988 issue of Lake Effect magazine.

On Writing Poetry

 I met Judith Kitchen years ago.   She was the instructor for the first course I took towards my Master's degree:  a poetry writer's workshop.  What I remember is her quiet mastery of that elusive concept:  a compelling sentence.   Each sentence builds from the one that comes before it such that the finished piece is whole and of itself.  Instructive - if she was analyzing a poem - and a form of art.

One day,  she gave us a small packet.  Seven pages stapled together.   Her analysis of Hart Crane's poem,  "My Grandmother's Love Letters".  

She begins:     "In this country, at least, it is difficult to become an artist.  The culture is one that admires self-sufficiency - and what artist can be self-sufficient, especially in the early stages of his art?  The compromise is the norm:  artists work during the day at something that will support their art at night.  Art is furtive, often artists are apologetic.  They strain to permit themselves the luxury of their art."   - Judith Kitchen

I've been away from the practise, the discipline of writing poetry for years.   Re-reading Kitchen's essay now I gather her introductory words leading into her close analysis of Crane's poem  into something separate:  an invitation to myself to return to poetry as both craft and a means of self-expression. 

 

"How to begin?  Reading a poem is one thing: talking about it is another.  Sentences are sequential, meant to build until they add up to a whole.  But the experience of a poem is often not a logical one;  it is a layering of sound and sense that cannot be easily dissected.  The effect is one of wholeness, but the equation is arrived at in a different fashion.  Many elements are elusive, they depend on the reader's imaginative entrance into the territory of the poem itself,  orchestrated by the associative images of the poet.  How does one honor the poem,  its subtleties,  its long subterranean journey, while, at the same time, delving into those very subtleties,  turning them inside out to expose their intricate workings?  How does one honor the poet, the complex system of emotions that drives the poem?  ..."   - Judith Kitchen.

 

How to begin and, more importantly,  to what purpose?   To catch your attention.  To tell a story.  To leave my mark.   To play: with words and creativity.  To recapture something lost and to see if, after all this time,  I have something that's noteworthy to say.

 

Running The Marathon

 

It wasn't just us

who got drunk

in the clearing

above the cross country trails.

Gangley boys ran

before us,

bodies sweating off

desires they'd never

 learn to hide.

Taking our turn,

we stumbled

after them when

everybody was sixteen

and scared about who

might win the prize.

                              - Kathy Porter

Merry Christmas

 

I sit in my car

at the curb.

A man rides by your grave,

on a bike,

daughter strapped behind.

He wears a leather flight jacket

because it's cold.

She wears a safety helmet

in case they fall.

He points to six wreaths

with holly and ribbon,

for Christmas,

on a family plot.

He says, looking over his shoulder,

"Aren't they pretty?"

You would have smiled.

 

                               Kathy Porter

Cry

 

Whisper child of real hurts,

half-formed desires,

good intentions.

Angry child with vengeful cries,

loud-spoken fears,

strong persuasions.

Hard lines shaped her times.

Bitched her out.

Mocked her worth.

Cheapened her tongue.

Painted her black.

Brought her to a well from

which she may never get out.

                                      Kathy Porter

Courting the Muse

So.  I had a day yesterday that was "flat".   No burning inspiration to write anything new.   No cute dog stories to retell.  And, I had no place special to be - at least - that's what I told myself.

I started digging into files to see what I could come up with that might take me in a new direction with some old words.   Words that I'd written over a span of time that started in 1985. Let's see.  In mom vocabulary, that was one year before my son was born. 

Back in the day. 

I was taking writing courses taught by local poets.  Still journaling.  Stringing words together for my own creative satisfaction.  And, I was teaching.   Did I come up with anything interesting to say or was I simply courting the muse?

Waiting For Poetry

My back knotted from work today.

Early to bed; 

Not rested.

Awakened to cold snow,

Gentle dog snores,

Empty

pages.

You have done

it all

before me.

Can I?

 

That one's mine.  Drafted and then polished off.  Dated March 5, 1985.  

 

Your First Hello

Cradled warmth nests against gentle strength.

Rocking-chair comfort a safe harbor.

Spellbound,  you watch:  infant slumber

tucks up to wash-worn flannel,

head bent to catch her first waking smile.

 

Mine too.  Also dated 1985.  This one written on April 2nd.   I was playing around with word combinations:  cradled strength,   wash-worn flannel.  Infant slumber (not so new).  What I wanted to do (without coming out and saying it) was to set and describe the scene when a "new" dad sits with his brand new daughter, waiting for her to wake up and smile at him for the first time.

I re-wrote it a bunch of times, playing with line breaks and re-arranging words; adding details like: "whisper eyelashes"  and then  taking them out. 

Working

Cold wraps around the worn cab.

I reach out and feel your place,

leather warmed smooth from your heat.

Hunched low, I watch rain

chase down the back of your shoulders,

smear the windshields of parked cars

and late model trucks.

Frosted air sweeps off the northen lake,

shivers up my spine.

Red neon paints restaurant across dirt-crusted panes.

Inside, knarled fingers grip china and glass,

clink coffee cups against beer bottles,

twist caps off.  Conversation dies.

Eyes shift first up and then down.

Fists shoved deep into the pockets

of your jacket,  you sit and give Millie your order.

Shaking off the chill,  I slide in next to you.

 

There is always a point where the story takes over.  I can take a few slices of my own reality to get started, but, what I'm doing is teasing out a story that can stand on its own merits.

And then there was my attempt to write about sex:  not raw sex;  the titilating sex that is rooted in lust and the deep attraction of a husband and wife still doin' it.

 

Blue Notes

When my momma sang,

she planted her feet wide

and breathed me into this world,

each lingering note a diamond shimmer

that she crooned to my Daddy from blue-

black shadows.  Her notes

wrapped  around the porch --

sultry flickers loosed by fingers of breeze.

Together, they sang me home.

 

I still re-write this one trying to get it right.

Afterwards

She pulls the night around her

like one of the hand-stitched quilts

her grandmother made.

Sweeping across oak-pegged floors,

it's train hobbles her stride.

There was no time to say good-bye.

Now, in the awkward stillness,

she bumps into his empty spaces

wordlessly measuring the gaps.

 

                                 - Kathy Porter

 

Madeline stands

 

ironing linen handkerchiefs.

Arthritic fingers test the iron's heat,

carefully fold and crease corners.

She stacks each finished piece in a starched pile

balanced on calloused palms, then shuffles

to the foot of the stairs and labors upward.

She catches her breath; stands on the landing

flooded with sunlight, the warmth soothing

the pain in her crippled joints, that, finally,

lifts her, with a calm certainty, into grace.

 

                                              - Kathy Porter