POETRY THEFT
Thursday again--and poetry sweeps in with the morning mail--this week's assignment: to steal a line from another poet, take it home with you, and make it yours. Usually, rebel that I am, I deviate from the prompts--cut them up and make them suit me. But, the prospect of obedient poetic thievery was much too enticing this time...
I lifted a line from Jim Brock which immediately insinuated itself into a poem I'd written before Winter returned in the past three days and frosted up my morning windows. One I have been meaning to tinker with ever since it splashed across my notebook. His words? "the rain is a shadow inside our bodies"...shamelessly dropped into my poem-in-process.
On Main Street
Walking the too warm
January street a humid breeze
catches my breath and I
think of you.
Unexpected as these bare arms
--as the blue bleeding through
fast-rolling silver clouds--
as confused birds singing
through bare light-bulb laden branches--
You.
Drinking the rain
instead of sampling snow
I am disoriented
wanting to bloom through my
fair Winter skin--
reality be damned--
Today
I decide love can save us all.
Today
I believe the rain is a shadow inside our bodies.
Unbelievable
given this brutal world
given the calendar on the wall
the state of my saturated heart.
Spring blisters in January
and I breathe this tense uncertain
fever over your fingertips.
Touch me--
I am alive again.
by C. Delia Scarpitti, 2007
Thursday again--and poetry sweeps in with the morning mail--this week's assignment: to steal a line from another poet, take it home with you, and make it yours. Usually, rebel that I am, I deviate from the prompts--cut them up and make them suit me. But, the prospect of obedient poetic thievery was much too enticing this time...
I lifted a line from Jim Brock which immediately insinuated itself into a poem I'd written before Winter returned in the past three days and frosted up my morning windows. One I have been meaning to tinker with ever since it splashed across my notebook. His words? "the rain is a shadow inside our bodies"...shamelessly dropped into my poem-in-process.
On Main Street
Walking the too warm
January street a humid breeze
catches my breath and I
think of you.
Unexpected as these bare arms
--as the blue bleeding through
fast-rolling silver clouds--
as confused birds singing
through bare light-bulb laden branches--
You.
Drinking the rain
instead of sampling snow
I am disoriented
wanting to bloom through my
fair Winter skin--
reality be damned--
Today
I decide love can save us all.
Today
I believe the rain is a shadow inside our bodies.
Unbelievable
given this brutal world
given the calendar on the wall
the state of my saturated heart.
Spring blisters in January
and I breathe this tense uncertain
fever over your fingertips.
Touch me--
I am alive again.
by C. Delia Scarpitti, 2007
posted by Left-handed Trees... at 10:16 AM
19 Comments:
the photos and the words are haunting and lovely.
I really like the line, "you drink in the rain instead of sampling the snow"
fantastic image.
"Today
I decide love can save us all."
This line really touched me- thanks so much for a wonderful poem...
Delia - an enticing poem, throbbing with life - i esp love the lines:
'Unexpected as these bare arms
--as the blue bleeding through
fast-rolling silver clouds--'
Well, you have certainly touched me :-)
I think we'll both make Jim proud this week.
Lovely poem, Delia.
"Spring blisters in January
and I breathe this tense uncertain
fever over your fingertips."
These lines give me chills.
I have to say that I wasn't taken by that line standing alone. But you've written a very enchanting poem around it, with many memorable lines. Great work.
Delia:
First, everything bb said and more! I admire your riff on the warm interior rain against that frosty exterior, all that smart, sensuous play.
Second, January is right, too (although she would like that line about spring blistering in January . . . .). I'm delighted, delighted, delighted, and humbled.
Good poem. Nice use of Jim's borrowed line, too.
That line just slid into the poem as if the poem had been built around it in the first place. I love it all - but especially the lines that January mentions - they took my breath away.
you have captured these past few weeks so well with your words...I also liked the blue bleeding through....
These words are deep and lusty to me. Like true love.
:)
Oh, Delia, this is lovely. I sighed at the end.
Yum! Words I want to eat. Really, just...YUM!
climate change and love in one poem, my kind of poem and you do it beautifully.....
"the state of my saturated heart.
Spring blisters in January"
these lines.
wow.
these lines.
this poem could be written on my heart... stunning... as BB said.. Throbbing. yes, that's the word, like a heartbeat. (and oh, the *photos*) xxoo
!!!!!!!
unbelievable words:
"wanting to bloom through my
fair Winter skin.....
Spring blisters in January
and I breathe this tense uncertain
fever over your fingertips....
state of my saturated heart"
YOWZA! I love it.
gorgeous poem and i love the
photo -
i love the line drinking the rain
- i could taste it ....:)
Wow. Sigh.
Post a Comment
<< Home