The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 12/27/05)

Flying Inside Your Own Body

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.

Margaret Atwood

**********************************

RL

scared me. thought you weren't coming back.

:D :hi: :hug: :loveya:

RL

Alright, maybe not- I just really want a cigarette this morning. sigh.

everything is about smoking...

:hug:

RL

It was wierd; the cigarette tasted completely different, and I got a buzz from it! It reminded me of how it felt when I first started smoking as a teenager. I had three of them and then I threw the pack away and haven't touched them. Oh would I love to, though....

Is this a typo?
"down on the think pink rind of your skull." Or do you want us to think pink?

Good morning, handsome. :hi:
:hug:

Should be "thin" I believe.

"think pink rind of your skull" sounds vaguely Seussian...

:hi:

RL

I was thinking "thick," for some reason. :7

But I found it in several places on the web and they all have the same word "think."

I'll need to find the original book and see.

RL

Now I'm gonna have to go back...

in the archive so far.

I've been trying to do this every day, and have so far succeeded.

Hope you enjoy them...

RL

Days when it doesn't seem worthwhile to gnaw through the straps. :banghead:

Time to change my view and leave the straps behind...

RL

Freeing, but frightening. Overall it's better to have options than not, and now I have options. So, that's a good thing.

yup, that's where I am these days...

RL

Now I am hooked on her. She is quite amazing...

RL

so who are you reading most of currently?

Atwood, Heaney, Simic, Merwin, Auden, Baudelaire, Rich, Neruda...

RL

auden i adore -- but lots of people are not so fond of him.

i have to be into deep thinking with baudelaire

and neruda -- well, not so much
though that is no reflection on his abilities as a word smith.

Who else have you been reading?

RL

a few months ago i piled through a bunch of harold bloom.

sooooooo -- i've been rereading some of hemingway, henry james, etc
then i'm going to read their biographies to see if i can figure out their {author} predessesors --
i.e. george elliot is a major influence on james -- but who before that?

i've been out of school for a long time -- but i really live for stuff like this.

and read him over again...

RL

When I see how my friends struggle to quit.....

This is an excellent view of the inside.

Quite beautiful!

Thank you, RL....


:loveya: :pals:

:hi:

RL

Another good one. Atwood is amazing, isn't she? :hug:

:hug:

RL