NO LESS THAN ME
You should know. Close to sleep the dawn comes.
Through the window, the gray. The light
crawls on all fours. Stops at the carpet.
Squeels and babbles and goes silent. The light
no less alive than me. The sunrise moves
up the wall. Through me.
Makes me light enough
to hear their whispers
like gum on the sidewalk in the rain.
They talk ravens. God. The wind
on a branch. A mist
in a library. They talk, things shift.
Echoes of gunfire. A man hits a woman.
I catch his wrist. He looks back
and I’m small. His uniform is starched
but wet. He slaps me. Everything
rushes together. We move apart. A redness.
I open my left hand. Another hand
types words on my palm. Open my right,
a little brain scrutinizes the left. Open
the brain: a hand opening
a hand. And this hand is you. Welcome.
My hand reaches for yours. We touch. Hunger
is not hunger. I press on your wrist.
Your pulse is no longer my pulse. You take
my finger, I lift you into the world.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Liz // Apr 22, 2008 at 8:27 pm
MAC-
why is it that i have always liked your “love” poems or the poems that show intamacy between two people…. you get it so lovely and so right. I love the palms opening, i love the light squeeling, babbaling and going silent. Did you know the [blank] crawls on all fours is an echo of ts eliot i think? intentional, if so which poem is it its driving me crazy!!!? “hunger/ is not hunger” fucking fantastic! The one thing i don’t get is “makes me light enough to hear their whispers” Whose whispers? the lights whispers? The people in the sencond stanza. The poem is straightforward and while the images are strange they are easy to grasp so this part makes me a little confused. Also “The light
no less alive than me. The sunrise moves
up the wall. Through me.” is just a little bland, a little expected. I would like to get to the strangness of hearing these whispers in an equally fittle stange kinda way.
xoxo liz
2 mackenzie // Apr 24, 2008 at 3:32 pm
ye, i think I might drop the whispers all together. i kinda wanted this dialogue to be happening between that poem and other poems in the work, the whispers are the speaker kinda stepping in a dreariness where he hears the other speakers around. ye, too korny, constructed huh?
i was thinking today how it might be cool to do another collaborative group of poems, like touching at our ribs, that put out what i think is some fucking cool poems. wouldnt it be fun to do something like that but through the site with everyone? ah the good ol days… any way ill bring it up again later incase you don’t check this post. oh and thanks for the comments, it’s so fucking nice having you guys’ help, kinda like a long conversation we’ve beenhaving for years now, reading eachothers poems, talking aboutthem, it just makes me feel good, and makes my poems so much better. <3
3 Natalie // May 2, 2008 at 8:17 am
hey mac
i don’t know why but everytime i find myself reading one of your poems i’m either hungover or sick and my intellectual faculties are down, way down.
i don’t really get the first stanza. i think the poem begins for me in the second stanza with “everything rushes together. we move apart.” wow. what a powerful image. it’s deliciously vague and reminds me of so many things. my first thought was childbirth. then i saw a couple kissing, then hesitating before coming together again. then is saw people on acid or shrooms. then i saw a poet conceiving the first line of a poem. and at the end of the stanza, the poem becomes it’s own entity, has it’s own pulse. yes. “everything comes togethert” is the first line of the poem.
i love the hand opening a hand inside the brain. and then “welcome.” it’s funny and romantic in a kind of creepy way (you know, i never realized how creepy your poems can be until recently.)
i really think you should scrap the rest and stick w/ this part of the poem. the last stanza is more complicated, more interesting. i can’t tell if the speaker is talking about his realtionship w/ another person, or himself, and that’s a good thing…because everything is always so damn messy.
life is so much more interesting when i can ignore the students and sit here and comment on your poetry.
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