The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/24/08

"The Attic"

Praise to my older brother, the seventeen-year-old boy, who lived
in the attic with me an exiled prince grown hard in his confinement,

bitter, bent to his evening task building the imaginary building
on the drawing board they'd given him in school. His tools gleam

under the desk lamp. He is as hard as the pencil he holds,
drawing the line straight along the ruler.

Tower prince, young king, praise to the boy
who has willed his blood to cool and his heart to slow. He's building

a structure with so many doors it's finally quiet,
so that when our father climbs heavily up the attic stairs, he doesn't

at first hear him pass down the narrow hall. My brother is rebuilding
the foundation. He lifts the clear plastic of one page

to look more closely at the plumbing,
—he barely hears the springs of my bed when my father sits down—

he's imagining where the boiler might go, because
where it is now isn't working. Not until I've slammed the door behind

the man stumbling down the stairs again
does my brother look up from where he's working. I know it hurts him

to rise, to knock on my door and come in. And when he draws his skinny arm
around my shaking shoulders,

I don't know if he knows he's building a world where I can one day
love a man—he sits there without saying anything.

Praise him.
I know he can hardly bear to touch me.

—Marie Howe

god fucking damn

on edit: you did warn us about February.

And I know I'll come back and read it some more. :(

That is a very haunting poem. And that last line hurts like hell.

the tears are streaming down my cheeks right now. I was so already not in a good place emotionally. then this just smacked me like a muthafucker. Like a god damn motherfucker.

:(

I wish I was there to sit with you and talk. :hug:

I'm here if you want to PM.

She is good at the bad stuff, isn't she?

And they have that impact because they are about things that people don't or can't easily talk about.

Check your pm.

Well, that wasn't quite the reaction I was trying to give people. But it's understandable.

Feel better, Tuesday!

I stepped away and got my bearings. Raw nerves tonight on my part. Although, this is one powerful poem chicka!!

There's a lot more to this story. Most of it will unfold in February. Which I was going to PM you about, 'cause...yeah, February...

Buckle up, kids. It's gonna be poetic.

As raw and painful as they can be, they're also motivating.

They motivate us to stand up and face the horrors that so many people really deal with. And they motivate us to pull those horrors out of the dark corners and quiet closets. And they'll motivate us to be there to help.

I'm already crying for the knowledge of what too many of my friends have lived through. But they survived, and we can talk about this stuff.

:)

How do they do it? How do they put things like that into poetry? I have an artist soul, and I can sketch out any number of emotional things. But to write them down? As prose or poem, it's beyond me.

Maybe writing forces me to think on a deeper level. Drawing is more fantasy, I don't know.

I think I'll post Ogden Nash all February as an antidote for these...

That's powerful stuff.

Hey Blue, are you familiar with Frances Driscoll?

RL

And no, I don't think I know any Frances Driscoll.

You know, the first time I read this, I didn't get it...

Now I do...

This is a tough one indeed...

So eloquent in its metaphors...

Thank you...


Did you see my poem last night, about the rain?