Dear friends 🍂 🍁 🪶
I hope you’re as safe & well as you can be. :)
I’ve fiddled with this poem for years, and I’m still not sure it’s right. But perhaps it’s closer. Pantoums are hard, especially secretly ekphrastic ones. But stricter forms are ever-interesting containers, enabling expansion in their own way…
Thank you so much, as always. Please take care of yourselves (as well as you’re able). ❤️🩹
With care & gratitude,
Mik
The only durable item - Edits
The only durable item - Revised
from The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch, Palo Alto, 2019: on my writing desk & filled with pens, beneath a Florentine watercolour, Barcelona’s copy of Cien Años de Soledad, en Español, and a laminated photograph of me squeezing my teammates, “It’s only crazy until you do it” written across my back, it’s strange how the sunset seems above the soil but beneath the clay cutout window, unpainted, with a red etching of the Golden Gate Bridge & Strait, and it’s not a glass pumpkin; it hasn’t been gutted—drunk from, on my writing desk & filled with pens, beneath a Florentine watercolour, Barcelona’s copy of Cien Años de Soledad, en Español, and a laminated photograph of me squeezing my teammates, “It’s only crazy until you do it” written across my back, handleless, painted chocolate brown beneath lipstick stains over & over again, the veins of leaves or lips if not all kisses fall on mouths because I haven’t sipped from it, a first waiting to happen and it’s not a glass pumpkin; it hasn’t been gutted—drunk from, matching the sweater-tank-top I wear weekly, low v-neck & lower v-back, handleless, painted chocolate brown beneath lipstick stains over & over again, the veins of leaves or lips if not all kisses fall on mouths because I haven’t sipped from it, a first waiting to happen every day, but I reach for its ink instead— matching the sweater-tank-top I wear weekly, low v-neck & lower v-back, a reminder of “The Glass Essay” or The Glass Castle or how this is the way I've experienced love: A transparent, breakable version of the real thing that buys the only durable item every day, but I reach for its ink instead— it’s strange how the sunrise seems above the soil but beneath the clay cutout window, unpainted, with a red etching of the Golden Gate Bridge & Strait, a reminder of “The Glass Essay” or The Glass Castle or how this is the way I’ve experienced love: A transparent, breakable version of the real thing that buys the only durable item from The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch Palo Alto, 2019:
Writings & Offerings 🧡
A new dispatch, from St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The next installment of my fairytales-in-verse series: “The Little Mermaid” - Part 6. NEW installment coming tomorrow!
For the one-and-only, wonderful Conscious Writers Collective, I write previews for our upcoming guest speakers! Take a peek here.
Full archive here ❤️🔥
Mik, I feel like most of my response is still swirling around, too deep for me to get out right now. I can see it, in the water of my imagination, under the ice (or, perhaps behind glass), but it's still swirling as of now. What I can say about this piece now is that first, I learned a lot, technically, through this poem--including a style I've never encountered before--so thank you for that. Also, there was, for me, and evocation of a deep grief, maybe tied to the aforementioned swirling something. This poem, even if not yet 'right' is a safe space for that grief to be explored, and in that sense, it is a gift. Your use of the details to conjure a space (something you do well consistently) has me enthralled and allows the reader to feel welcome. Ugh--I still feel I've left a lot unsaid here, but that's what I have for now.
I'm grateful.