Do you remember the July we slept
at Kalaloch? One morning,
at dawn, I saw a bald eagle but didn’t wake you.
I needed to be alone with a thing near extinction.
whose life was meaningful by design,
by my own dull recognition of it.
I write by this excuse: to tell you
last night I heard an artist speak about your country’s war.
In the stillness of the auditorium, beneath Raad’s video
of sunset looping over the Corniche,
I thought about how a falling engine would work apart
the body, starting with the crown of the head,
splintering down. Then making love in Beirut
might annex the body twice, and I thought about how
your parents made you
while their city began to look
like the moon.
Tonight I will bake a blackberry pie
because there is nothing else to do,
nothing else to speak of, because
I need to quietly sugar berries
to remember how easy, how revolting everything is.
9 responses so far ↓
1 mackenzie // Mar 18, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Liz,
Your poems have become like this secret beautiful conversation about some intimate shared memory. One thing though, is there a verb missing:
need to quietly ????? sugar berries
to remember how easy, how revolting everything is.
and I really like the last line.
2 mackenzie // Mar 19, 2008 at 1:15 pm
ummm DUH i think its like putting sugar on berries. i really like this poem, ah do ah do.
-S
3 Natalie // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:51 am
liz, this is my favorite liz poem ever.
okay. so the “by my own dull recognition of it” part of the first stanza hit me weird. i guess i just didn’t get it. but that might me my fault. i guess i would have been okay with the stanza ending with “whose life was meaningful by design” or even the preceding line about being w/something near extinction.
ahh. the second stanza. i don’t know who Raad is but for some reason this allusion doesn’t bother me… i also don’t know why making love in beirut would annex the body twice, but the mystery of that line is delicious. this is probably the dumbest thing i could say but it makes me feel like going to beirut and falling in love…god and how does a city look like a moon? you mean like with craters from explosions/bombs? i don’t know but i like that line too.
and thanks for yr comments on my ditty from the other week. writing poetry again is saving my life but it can be so mind numbingly difficult. sometimes it seems the harder you try, the worse the poem.
4 A.I.Titov // Apr 21, 2008 at 8:28 am
Liz,
Your poem is beautiful. I love the specificity and life of your images. They are striking and give you an identifiable voice.
That said, I wonder about your fourth line. You state, “I needed to be alone with a thing near extinction”. Is it just a thing? I’m surprised you reduced it to that.
Also, was it the eagle, the thing, that you needed to be near or was it proximity to near extinction that you wanted? I may be wrong, but it struck me that you might have simply “needed to be alone with near extinction”.
I hope you don’t find my suggestions too presumptuous. I look forward to reading more of your work.
5 Natalie // Apr 26, 2008 at 8:45 am
Liz-
I completely disagree with A.I. Titov
I for one love the word “thing.” I think it’s poetic value is underrated, just like “shut-up” and “stupid” are overlooked by most poets.
In a way, “reducing” (which i don’t really think is even happening here) the eagle to a thing is an accurate depiction of life. Yes, we’re all beautiful, and for a brief moment we’re given the chance to fly, but we all die in the end, we’re all, in a way, as disposable as things. Also, I think that cutting the line to “needed to be alone with near extinction” just doesn’t have the rhythm that the original does. when i read it out loud it just doesn’t make sense to me. i know poets like to leave out words, things don’t have to be grammatically correct, blah blah blah, but sometimes it’s nice just to have a normal sentence thrown into the mix.
don’t change it!
it feels like poetry class again. factions, debates.
A.I. Titov- I’ll meet you at the next Liz poem.
6 A.I.Titov // Apr 26, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Natalie,
You’re right, I completely overlooked the poetic value in “thing,” “shut-up,” and “stupid.” For whatever reason, though, I didn’t think she was
going for a Bukowski aesthetic.
I look forward to meeting you at the next poem as well.
My best,
A.I. Titov
7 Natalie // Apr 26, 2008 at 10:11 pm
A.I.
no one talks shit about my man bukowski w/out a fight.
natalie
8 A.I.Titov // Apr 27, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Natalie
Well, you’ll just have to bring it then.
a.i.
9 mackenzie // Apr 27, 2008 at 5:55 pm
fucking lovely
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