The goddess’ fingers caress the mountains,
melting glaciers with a touch.

Drops trickle down her bare body
and mix brackish on her sea-soaked toes.

Her bosom swells to feed her children
rice and spices and unfettered hope.

She chases away tears and thirst
with her outstretched arms and an embrace.

She cleanses bodies and souls, cures disease,
forgives sins, paves the way to Heaven.

Just another mother doing her job.

It’s like this:
We’re at a party with a dress code of tuxes and fancy skirts
and we’re the only ones wearing jeans and T-shirts.
Two Americans blundering through life in France,
brought here by our weakness for romance,
can’t help but gravitate towards each other.
We keep sane only by complaining to one another.

We each try to raise two Franco-American kids,
making sure they know about peanut butter and Cheez Wiz,
Although we’ve adapted well to the French art of aperitif,
commiserating about the elections brings little relief.
Despite her great talent for playing the trombone,
I have an evil desire to steal her garden gnome.

She’s my rabbit sitter. I’m her goldfish guardian.
At Thanksgiving, we find time to share all things American.
We’ll never be truly from here.
We feel like outsiders there.
She helps me take life less seriously
and makes me laugh so hard I have to pee!

Inside me, a place is reserved for emptiness,
that place where you were, outlined raw and jagged,

notched like a saw or the edge of a leaf,
biting me with its row of sharp teeth at every turn:

the chair where you sat, the half-eaten box of cereal,
each still there to remind me where you aren’t.

A serrated knife cuts clean through day-old bread
precisely because of the spaces in between,

and just maybe I can still slice through life
if I keep empty that place where you were

to remind me of what I don’t want.

I could fight this current, battle relentlessly until exhaustion sets in.
I could try to deviate from its set path, methodically sidestep destiny
in hopes of escaping its grasp and being carried back to shore.
I could dive deep to see what cold-blooded thing lives underneath.
I could pray for a miracle and redemption at heaven’s gate.
Or I could just float out to sea and enjoy the ride while waving good-bye.

I couldn’t resist posting this very funny near-villanelle written by one of my friends in college. I have no idea where he is today, so, Steve, I hope you don’t mind me usurping your copyright here:

Why do you torture me, Treasured Villanelle
I can’t do this poem Justice (or Thomas anyhow)
Your deceptive form must surely have come from hell.

It’s twenty-three sheets of paper o’clock…Well.
Where is my imagery, my form, my rhyme scheme?
You really piss me off, Oh Prized Villanelle!

Even grammar (my Friend) doesn’t sound too good–
I can not guess what sadistic mind
Your deceptive form must surely have come from. Hell–

–O? Domino’s? Or tonight maybe Taco Bell–
Only seven hours pass and already I’m writing on Empty;
I feel myself getting weaker, Killer Villanelle…

John Hollander is taunting me, choking me, compelling
me to–Wake up! to a poem still a stanza too short.
I just can’t understand your form, Oh poem born in Hell.

My desk is now lit by sun power alone—
I really tried to avoid another poem clone. But,
Look at what I’ve done to you, Battered Villanelle,
Congratulations Beaten Poem, you’ve just experienced Hell.

-Steven Belkin, 2 February 1990

*****

And here is my own best effort to conform to the Poetry Thursday exercise this week (I remain thoroughly unsatisfied and you can just forget about iambic pentameter…)

Back and Forth

Walk away from the place you stood?
Of course not. A promise is forever.
Or then again, maybe I should.

Shaken to the core, petrified wood.
An affair! You know what I’d like to sever?
I walk away from the place you stood.

Seven years of sacrifices withstood
end in betrayal–no applauding the endeavour.
Or then again, maybe I should.

Living your adventure like Robin Hood,
you must have thought yourself so clever,
walking away from the place you stood.

I remember a time when we were so good.
You want forgiveness? Pfft, whatever.
Or then again, maybe I should.

Please, you must have misunderstood.
Hurt put aside, you know I could never
walk away from the place you stood.
(Or then again, maybe I should.)

Inspired by the words of Annie Dillard:
“If survival is an art, then mangroves are artists of the beautiful.”

tip-toe above seawater, mangrove
build new land with the silt you catch
diamond rain and wind play cover you crystalline
impermeable to adversity
against all odds

oysters hide treasure
in the tangle of your roots
your pungent leaves know to turn away
from midday sun for survival
against all odds

you set your baby afloat
only once it can fend for itself
like a fledgling leaving the nest
the seedling bobs along endlessly
against all odds

when the time comes–days, months, years–
the sapling reaches down to anchor in mud below
if it catches nothing, the journey continues
in search of a better place
against all odds

I’m the responsible one who
is always on time
covers for her boss
bakes chocolate chip cookies
does the laundry
tucks the kids into bed
pulls weeds from the garden
recycles
votes conscientiously
invests her savings
visits elderly relatives
donates to charity

Stifling the selfish one who wants to
sleep ’til noon
drink herself silly
dance until 4AM
cheat on her husband
smoke weed and take drugs
devise elaborate lies
tell people off
not give a fuck
steal a fortune and spend it all
get on a plane for anywhere
run away.

With my mid-life crisis
thundering towards me,
I’m hoping the muzzle
will be strong enough
to keep me from running.

If you and I were inanimate things
trapped in the frame of an old photograph,
trapped in a shadowed box of iniquity,
then I wouldn’t have to say good-bye.

Some monstrous creature of habit,
I could continue with my delusion that you, Dad,
were a man of steel and fundamental strength,
a man who would live forever.

But quivering with age, as a sopping cat,
Father, this man I didn’t know,
ghostly as if light could pass through you,
you fell like a toppled Buddha
from the hard work of making people happy.

I was not prepared to become the
guardian of the ever-falling,
to shine on after you were gone.

No matter.

The evening held its breath, and then
a faceless fear crept around our circle.
Morning light dispelled the mist of delusions.

The hourglass is broken but the sand
keeps sifting through nonetheless to
bury me under passing days as we bury you.
My vision wavers with milky wavelets.

The house, empty. The chill comes up quickly.
Clanging door stirs dust as I exit,
fingering what remains of you:
rumpled keepsakes in my pocket,
photos and boxes, inanimate things.

***

This poem was born from an exercise proposed on the Poetry Thursday site where we were asked to develop a poem from a line provided by another participant. Except, I tried writing a poem incorporating as many of these lines as possible by regrouping them and modifying them slightly. I only actually wrote about seven lines of the above poem. As a fairly successful collective work, my thanks go to:

The Brave, Michelle, Harry, bgfay, January, fragmentsinsight, � Seasn�in, Chickadee Chatter, Deb, Rethabile, Tiel Aisha Ansari, Dave, Pauline, Beaman, Amy, Sara, Jeannine, Marcia, split ends, Brent Goodman, Madd, Shelley, Sarala and G.

A black hole seems, from the outside,
like absence, like nothingness.
But, it’s the opposite.
It’s everything imploding at once,
compressing with so crushing a force
that not even the faintest glimmer
of light or hope can escape.
Time is distorted and light dims.
Objects passing through are stretched
thin and stringy like silly-putty.
Atoms are torn apart and stick
to the ever-growing darkness.

I know this well because,
reeling and disoriented,
I fell into one
the day they told me
you had died.

Before beginning, take a deep breath.
Start with a large portion of observation,
combined with equal measures of
contemplation and creativity.
Add a spark of enthusiasm
and a pinch of will-power.
Kneed it all together and let rise.

In a separate bowl, mix together
brainstorming, insight and illumination
with some approach and technique.
Incorporate the mixture slowly into the first,
being careful not to overdo.
If it becomes too rigid, set it aside
and come back to it later.

In a flash, strands should begin to crystallize.
The rest will agglutinate around them.
Keep simmering until the truth
comes out clean when inserted.
Season to taste.
Bon appétit!