The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/30/07

[BlueIris]

"Choosing an Author for Assurance in the Night"

     I hoped it would be someone
who, burning through her last mask,
debuting with the creases earned
     from its petrified pillow,
       would show me how
       to live persistently.
Reject (I asked) the hollow protection
       of your headdress,
       mystagogue, inspirator
              its copper
     wires and antelope skin,
its bronze or cam wood or coconut hair.

     But I had to turn
to this lean idol of this Day of the Dead
compulsive writer in her afterlife,
     whose own fine fittings have slipped.
         She's hung them up with her fencing mesh
         and catcher's grille.
She types:
         "I know now
         to be plain, with an occasional seed
               leafing out from my sutures.
     I am bony as a bridge,
a bare letter-by-letter pusher,
     assembled in angles
to span.
Death makes me direct,
     with a little ornamental nonsense
        of elbows and knees,
        if you can call this death:
my twaddle still counsels
        though I have no ears to hook a mask on.
        'Carver, coppersmith, make me a disguise,'
               you won’t hear me saying.
     My typing fingers fly
up to my face

     like a plunging pianist's.
Accurate, flexible, but not bravura.
So for the sacred ritual
     around the fire
       I will not be chosen;
       to chant
one needs the scored shell of an artist,
       the sacrifications
       of a decorator to look out through,
                 pod eyes, tube eyes,
     to breathe through, to
tug an audience through with

     innuendo, wooden winks.
Now, I like my skull
but it won't get me to the priestesshood.
     I like my skull;
       it got me here."
                                   And here—
     close beside me.
The blood is running down my hand
     to keep up with her messages
     from,
                  it feels like,
one of those colossal stones
that throw starlight.

—Sandra McPherson

[BlueIris]

1. McPherson wrote the following about this poem in the "Best American Poetry, 1992":

"Waking at 3 a.m. one night, I tried to fend off a barage of discouraging thoughts. But the writer I chose talked too much, with a flurry of virtuosic effects. On an earlier poem, 'Women and Vision,' I had displaced my own anxiety by 'taking dictation' from a Mexican Day of the Dead figure, a skeletal woman at her typewriter. I turned to her again—and found her perspective healthy and corrective. She was not showing off. And she liked herself—as is. I look forward to further advice from her; she is a writer I can learn from."

[BlueIris]

2. Kick.

[BlueIris]

3. Kick.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. some nice alliteration in this one

petrified pillow...

wooden winks...

and I LOVE the last line:

"...it feels like,one of those colossal stonesthat throw starlight."


thanks.

[BlueIris]

5. She's used some interesting vocabulary in there, too.

I like poets who know how to use the dictionary.

[RainDog]

6. a nice one

I also love her description of the sun or moon throwing starlight.

check your pm

[BlueIris]

7. I was hit on by a hot guy today.

Has nothing to do with this poem, I just wanted to share.

[ThomCat]

8. In my first reading of this

it's got me thinking about actors getting into roles, not authors. I'm medicated right now, so I know I'm not getting it right. I'll re-read this later to get a better, more accurate feeling for this.

But even with a flawed first reading this is very cool and gives a lot to think about. It's definitely a poem for another day.
:P

[BlueIris]

9. I really like Sandra McPherson.