Monday, April 20, 2009

Moody Monday Poems: Sharon Olds and More Dorianne Laux

I went into the living room yesterday to peruse my poetry books and look what I found: FAIRIES!!! I guess they're poetry fairies since they were playing in the poems.......



I can't get enough of the poetry of the down-to-earth Madam of Poetry, Sharon Olds.

The Promise
by Sharon Olds


With the second drink, at the restaurant,
holding hands on the bare table,
we are at it again, renewing our promise
to kill each other. You are drinking gin,
night-blue juniper berry
dissolving in your body, I am drinking Fumé,
chewing its fragrant dirt and smoke, we are
taking on earth, we are part soil already,
and wherever we are, we are also in our
bed, fitted, naked, closely
along each other, half passed out,
after love, drifting back
and forth across the border of consciousness,
our bodies buoyant, clasped. Your hand
tightens on the table. You’re a little afraid
I’ll chicken out. What you do not want
is to lie in a hospital bed for a year
after a stroke, without being able
to think or die, you do not want
to be tied to a chair like your prim grandmother,
cursing. The room is dim around us,
ivory globes, pink curtains
bound at the waist—and outside,
a weightless, luminous, lifted-up
summer twilight. I tell you you do not
know me if you think I will not
kill you. Think how we have floated together
eye to eye, nipple to nipple,
sex to sex, the halves of a creature
drifting up to the lip of matter
and over it—you know me from the bright, blood-
flecked delivery room, if a lion
had you in its jaws I would attack it, if the ropes
binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them.

*******************************************************
Blessings for a Happy Week!

~*~Marion~*~



Oops, I found another one! Kelly, you'll appreciate the puzzle in this poem by Dorianne Laux:

Break

By Dorianne Laux

We put the puzzle together piece
by piece, loving how one curved
notch fits so sweetly with another.
A yellow smudge becomes
the brush of a broom, and two blue arms
fill in the last of the sky.
We patch together porch swings and autumn
trees, matching gold to gold. We hold
the eyes of deer in our palms, a pair
of brown shoes. We do this as the child
circles her room, impatient
with her blossoming, tired
of the neat house, the made bed,
the good food. We let her brood
as we shuffle through the pieces,
setting each one into place with a satisfied
tap, our backs turned for a few hours
to a world that is crumbling, a sky
that is falling, the pieces
we are required to return to.

from Awake, 2001 University of Arkansas Press

4 comments:

Kelly said...

Ooooo... I DO love that poem, Marion!! I can relate to it on a number of levels. Definitely one to print out and read over and over.

Marion said...

I knew you'd love that one, Kelly! I think you should write your own puzzle poem, using this one as inspiration! You DO have tons of experience with puzzles. Even a short poem would be nice. Just GO FOR IT. Get your RHYME on! LOL!!!

Pam said...

I have every book Sharon Olds has ever written! She is my muse, totally!!

quid said...

OOOOOHHHHH! Both fabulous. However, Olds was superlative. My turn for my most beloved Sharon Olds poem!

quid