Ruth Here, March13.

Okay Anna, here's the deal.  I wrote a nonfiction piece about an incident with my son and then a poem about just the first part of the incident a while back.  Now we are making a booklet of writing for NAMI's April meeting.  I was asked to shape the latter part of the story to match or go with the poetry that details the beginning of the incident.  Well, it has turned out very long.  There is a Part 1 (the old one) and Part 2 and 3, the new ones.  I think this is too long and not engaging.  Also since Part 1 wasn't written with Parts 2 and 3 in mind, it doesn't quite fit together.

I guess I'm going to have to post the whole piece here.  What can I do to make it more engaging, make more sense if it doesn't, etc.?  My idea is to have each of the three parts have the same number of stanzas.  I'm hoping there can be some cuts from the newly written, raw, Parts 2 and 3 and just make the lines shorter, but still keep the stanza structure.

This is a lot at one time.  This has to be done soon and I'm not sure there's any other way to present it.  Here goes.

From Ruth on Mar. 19:  I removed this so you could look at something newer, Anna.

Positve Outlook

By Debbie

Positive Outlook I have depression It can make me sad Sometimes feel blue At times it makes me hurt But no matter what it does I have depression It doesn't have me Many claim to suffer from depression But I can fight It can try to hold me in its grip No matter how hard it struggles I am stronger and more determined I don't suffer from depression It suffers from me

Ruth, March 6

Another one recently changed as per some advice.  I'm not sure.  The advice was to use the shoe/foot/leg metaphor more throughout the poem--and to bring in a modern pair of shoes.  As usual italicized words with slashes represent choices I'm not sure about. Word choice in one place:  I like 'prepare' because it echoes 'unaware' but 'strengthen' is a stronger word (by definition!)  Too many 'ings' in the last stanza?  I could change that, e.g. "will bring," "that vanish", "that glint?"

1953

Summer’s over though the air still glows.

You can’t hear our shrill laughter, smell the Brylcreem

in the boys' hair, or see our shiny leather shoes.

In unswerving rows, a pack/array of nine-year-olds

gazes out of our class photo into the future.

We don't know that the straight

path on which we'll set off into adulthood

will be skewed by a sheer of wind,

that fifty years will pass between two breaths.

We'll look down and see we're wearing nylon Nikes.

But in 1953/as children in the schoolyard, we look at a sky

that is blue and cloudless, at a sun that will last

forever. We smile into a channel of endless

brilliance, unaware that half a century later

someone will look back at us with sadness

for the smudges that obscured the light,

with regret for who we became

and who we didn't.  We'll lament the loss

of choices replaced by outcomes

already curled up inside us

like muscles fibers ready to swell

and prepare/strengthen our legs for the journey.

The child I once was looks forward

with guileless eyes. His unfolding bones

don't yet ache from what lies ahead.

He doesn't know that his new shoes

will scuff in the schoolyard/on the sidewalk,

reek of Shinola, that his heel will blister

where the stiffness rubs,

that it will fester for months.

He doesn't yet suspect dusk will breach

his skin and enter him, bringing with it

an array of chaste faces, voices

vanishing in the wind, and wing-tips

glinting in the diminishing light.

I Wish For You by Debbie

I Wish For You

Happiness
I wish for you
A long and healthy life
But if it doesn't happen that
You live a happy and full life anyway
Making the best of whatever life brings to you
Life doesn't always give you what you want
But in spite of that happiness
Is there for the taking
I wish for you
Happiness

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Night Light by Debbie

Depression Absence of Light Perpetual  Night

Ruth Again

Who can say why I post what I do?  I was going to post a new one I am working on, but I have been discouraged and it needs more work; I don't even know if it's worth pursuing.  Here is one I'd like to resurrect.  I wrote it about a year and a half ago when my granddaughter had just turned 16.  Much has changed in her life and my life since, but I dragged this out and I feel safe working on it.  So, since I didn't write it for any classes or anything, I don't think I've put it on here before.  Here it is:

Granddaughter at Sixteen 

 

A peal of laughter seeps through the wall, whirls

dust into a golden galaxy in the window's light.

Inside, her room is a kaleidoscope of crumpled clothing

and incense, psychedelic sketches hanging askew,

a patchwork of red textbooks and pink paperbacks.

The black cat startles from a dream in his bed of fuzzy

blankets and stretches awake as she strokes his back,

until sparks leap like stars that blink on a field

of gauzy blue curtains. My granddaughter doesn't know

where she comes from or where she is going

any more than the cat understands the world he entered.

She pliés and plucks a bright rag from the floor,

slips it over her slender neck, and it falls,

polished silk, to sheath her lithe frame.

Her flexible backbone twists her upright,

she glissades to the kitchen, cell to her ear,

a rosy shell, all creamy-skinned ease.

She bows before the refrigerator and rises

with a bowl of chile and sharp cheddar,

spoons it into her soft insides

through the perfect coil of her mouth,

and still her skin is scented with honey,

her breath a confection.

Tendrils of my DNA spiral in her cells, filaments

of ancestors incandesce her flesh, and sometimes

she half-laughs, a gesture, her mother's and mine,

that climbs down the family tree into the future.

She moves to the den with grace, her arms sweep the air

as if pruning the past, praising what is yet to come.

She opens Pandora on the Dell,

turns the volume to a high, throbbing beat.

One raised eyebrow expresses her boredom

with our company, and leaving the music to pulse,

she spin-steps back to her room,

shutting the door firmly behind her.

Ruth beats a dead horse

I was going to post something new, but I decided for one last opinion about one of these I'm planning to submit.  Anna, I think you were the only one who said we should know the baby's overdue sooner, though I think some didn't quite get why I wanted to hold on longer.  I don't think this really answers it, but...

First, what was to be my final version:

Holding On

July, the leaves are dense with chlorophyll,

a green I want to grasp, and plums in hand

are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil.

We watch my swollen belly, firm and round

a melon ripening while the fetus grows,

my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.

My partner and I are forty and we know

the season soon will turn, descend to fall.

Now I want to feel the jutting elbows

and bony knees, vernix covered, caul

encased and safe--away from the knock

at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.

The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk.

I'm five days overdue and culpable.

I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...

A one way voyage through the birth canal--

our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.

...................................................

And then, just transposing second to last stanza to first, which messes up terza rima form, (but I could work on trying to restore it if anyone thinks it's really, really worth it):

Holding On

 

The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk.

I'm five days overdue and culpable.

I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...

July, the leaves are dense with chlorophyll,

a green I want to grasp, and plums in hand

are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil.

We watch my swollen belly, firm and round

a melon ripening while the fetus grows,

my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.

My partner and I are forty and we know

the season soon will turn, descend to fall.

Now I want to feel the jutting elbows

and bony knees, vernix covered, caul

encased and safe--away from the knock

at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.

A one way voyage through the birth canal--

our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.
 ........................................

Okay, this is added a little later. I'm sorry, I said only one post a week after last week, but these are going to be submitted this week and I have one last question.  I have two alternative third stanzas for this one, in italics.  Is one better, and why?

Adios, Salad Days

Corn tortillas spread with creamy green avocado,

the seductive Aztec fruit--and smooth leaf

shoots, succulent verdolaga, crowned

with rounds of red tomato flesh.

The first bite revels on our tongues like

the spent juice of youth. It floats down

our throats to our hearts, which split

open like ripe love apples.

Eat slowly. Before we know,

it's gone, like the few years

we have left.

Eat slowly. Before we know,

it's almost gone. The shreds (or since you didn't like shreds, smudges or crumbs)

are like the few years

we have left.

Wipe away the seeds

with a white rag,

a shroud.