Jason Bredle, Young Poet Extraordinaire

I discovered the incredible poetry of Jason Bredle several years ago online and fell in love with several lines of this particular poem. You can guess, knowing me, that the word 'dragonfly' is in most of my favorite lines. But I love the raw intensity of his writing and how he seems to reinvent language, yet not so in a way that's undecipherable as some poetry is nowadays.


I say this often, but we must buy poetry and support other poets. I read an article last week that said that most poets, even the award winning ones, must have other jobs to survive. It's a shame. We need poetry. It's food for the spirit. It's the lifeblood of language.


Poetry is my own personal lifeline and my very heartbeat. Poetry is what keeps me tied to this earth, but at the same time, gives me wings to escape it.


Enjoy.


Blessings and Love,


~*~Marion~*~





The Idiot's Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico
By Jason Bredle


Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes
he's condemning me to eternal damnation,
but usually nothing. Tonight I am alone,
wearing my sex shorts, adrift amongst
the black suburban pools of eternal damnation.
No, I have not been in love. Yes,
I have been in love. I am speaking the language
in which no and yes mean the same, in which
apricot and goodbye mean the same.
I am remembering the kudzu of the awful season,
sitting with you beside the swamp for the last
time and neither of us knowing it was the last
time but yes the glass was hello and dragonfly.
Was it a blessing? They say so in this language.
Others say this language is dying, or already
dead. I speak it, nonetheless, while eating
apricots in the evening of eternal damnation
where you yell at the map and cut your wrist
and there is a darkness here that I have only shared
with my cat, like that guy in the movie who writes
graphic erotica and goes crazy. One says
pain near the black pool of everything,
my back is covered with wax. Every few
seconds I check the Bible to see what Jesus
is saying about me. The answer is always nothing,
aside from the time he lambasted the outfit I wore
to the People's Choice Awards. A green tuxedo.
Tonight, I am adrift in the suburb of the black sky,
I am speaking the language in which love
and apricot mean the same, in which pool
and death mean the same. I said goodbye
in a suburb like this, years ago. I said
goodbye in a suburb like this, years ago.
According to Hercules, if we make an angel
out of ourselves, that is what we are; if we make
a devil out of ourselves, that too is what
we are. See, this is what I am getting at.
It is the awful season and I am speaking
the language in which violence and God mean
the same, in which blood and dragonfly mean
the same. I am in the orchard of eternity
picking the goodbyes of damnation, I am licking
your dragonfly blood and speaking the language
in which pain means hello. A black pool,
a green sky. That is to say, each moment
without you is a vacant airport, each moment
without you is a glass apricot. Every few seconds
I check the Bible to see what Jesus is saying
about me. The answer is always nothing. Except
today, it's a bunch of weird stuff about how
I'm falling into a black pool in some suburb,
maybe Palatine or something, and just like that,
I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,
harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you. Even
if you do not listen to it, just know, this
is how I have always felt about you. And I
am possessed. And I am a fatalist. Do you see
these bruises? Do you see these bruises?
They are a sad bouquet. They are a beautiful
scrapbook. I am floating. I am in love.
I am dead. On a perfect night, my back is covered
with wax. O Violence, but I did not want this hello.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you.
Even if You do not listen to it, just know, I made it
only for you.

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