Tuesday, February 24, 2009

a poem for your Tuesday evening

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Here's a poem I wrote for class, still in its unedited form:

Breath Sounds

In biology I'd trace the respiratory system:
a set of bare birches stemming sideways
beneath twin pink lakes, the transfer of air
to existence easy as banter. When I press
my lips to anything, I think of two salted
mouths sutured at the shore, one body
in desperate rest sighing into another -
how physical we've made our salvation.
The heft of limbs and hands, latched in thrust,
strain to be lung for another, one alike
in rigging, a chemical composite drifting electric
then dull. Circling a nude torso begging at its brink
lets slip the secret: we want the body to fail
in its extremes. Even sex, in its aim and end,
craves the circuitry collapsed in recovery,
for once, nothing; for once, senses loosed
from requisite response.
In this stagnant gap, we praise
the baseline of blue tunneling through forearms,
the relief of systole and diastole sounding
the blood speak. How small my body is,
yet exists still in this torrent. Crowning death
the big event, think how our bodies do not
fall to dust sooner.

I would love your input.
-C.

p.s. there should be an indentation at "in this stagnant gap" but I can't make this thing work.

1 comment:

  1. Am I too after the fact to be relevant?

    In any case, I think this poem's kind of graceful fluidity, despite the layered, winding sentences (is it wrong to say sentences for a poem?) and at times unconventional language use is remarkable. The only place it seems to bunch up is after "Even sex...", emphasized by the singular clarity of "we want the body to fail in its extremes." I am troubled by the semicolon.

    Anyway, this is my procrastination-induced comment. Does anyone still read this thing?

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