Category Archives: Poetry and Prose

On Whose Love I Depend

I used to love you with a reckless, trusting love.

Until you said that thing that made the steel containment doors of my heart come crashing down.

Now I am on the INSIDE and you are on the OUTSIDE.

“Try to pry them open with a crowbar!”

I hear your muffled voice.

You think I have a crowbar in my heart?

In a similar but opposite way

The birds outside my skylight wake me every morning with their song.

They are OUTSIDE and I am INSIDE.

But they know nothing of metal fear and conditional love.

They are not waiting for me to lose ten pounds or start dressing stylishly.

They neither sow nor reap.

But the things they can pry open with their tiny beaks would astound you.

I get up and go outside almost every day.

Seymour Glass, lack of poetry and two offerings.

Last week I read Seymour: An Introduction, a short story by J.D. Salinger. It is the reminiscences of Buddy Glass about his older brother, Seymour, and he spends a large amount of the story talking about Seymour’s poetry. We never do get to read any of this poetry, except for one poem, sent to Buddy by their sister Booboo, from when Seymour was young:

 

John Keats

John Keats

John.

Please put your scarf on.

 

 

As intriguing as that scrap of poetry is, I began to feel deeply the loss of the missing poems. This shows Salinger’s brilliance since, as far as I know, he is describing poems that don’t exist.

 

 

Seymour writes Haikus, or rather “double Haikus” – his own invention. Inspired by the negative space in the story, I paused to compose my own Haiku (a single). Here it is:

 

 

Baby sleeps. I read.

Use bank receipts as bookmarks.

Ten degrees, March sixth.

 

 

Traditionally, the last line of a Haiku is supposed to touch on Nature. See how I did? The syllables are tricky, though, and to be perfectly honest it was twenty three degrees and March seventh when I wrote the poem. But there’re way too many syllables in twenty three and seventh. In my defense, the previous day, March sixth, had been ten degrees (-15 with the wind-chill, a fact which made me question my sanity at choosing to live in Boston).

 

 

Even with my Haiku, though, I still feel a lack of poetry. So I’m posting another one of mine, free form, that I wrote a couple of years ago. A little mythological background: Prometheus, if you remember, is the god who took pity on chilly men (who quite possibly were living in Boston, I don’t recall) and brought them fire from heaven to warm themselves. He was punished for this divine rebellion, though at the moment the nature of his punishment escapes me. Edith Hamilton would be glad to tell you all about it, if you really want to know.

 

Here you go. Enjoy.

 

 

Prometheus’s Gift

When I opened the door of my study

A piece of paper – an idea for a story

Fluttered into the candle and began to burn.

And I thought of all the centuries before electricity,

When people worked by candlelight,

And drafts caused similar accidents.

 

 

I didn’t think of other writers,

Though that never-published novel

Which I consequently never read

May be the reason for

That deep and lonely

Ache I sometimes

Feel.

 

 

No, I thought of physicists, philosophers,

Economists, politicians and theologians.

Countless numbers of them, huddled over documents

That would have ended world hunger,

Brought about peace on earth,

Or taught men and women how to understand each other;

In a careless moment, opening a window,

Prometheus’s gift licking the thin pages.

 

They caught it in time, like I did –

Grabbing the paper and dropping it into the sink.

Their house did not burn down, their wives (or husbands)

And children were safe. No smoke

Choked the family pets, or ruined the drapes.

No one even knew.

 

 

And I’ll write that story anyway:

I have a pretty good idea what it was going to be about.

But the exact wording, that particular plot twist

That could have made it Nobel prize-worthy

Is lost. So, maybe, the secret meaning of life,

Discovered, maybe, again and again throughout history,

Was blown into a single flame,

And given back to the gods.

On turning the age of my Savior at his Passion.

These are the hands of a thirty-three year old

A tan that never quite fades.

These are the eyes, more dimensioned, more bordered by lines.

This is the hair, a bit of silver gleaming through, but only on the right side.

It always sounded so young to me, so young to die.

But now I know, I am old.

The way my memory stretches back amazes me.

That I can say, “ten years ago” or “fifteen.”

The things I have seen, the things I know;

Are more than I ever wanted to.

A kind of peace with age, a kind of wisdom

In the loss of possibilities.

 

Are these his hands, his eyes, his hair,

His memories, his sorrow, his strength?

Divinity in flesh, the apex of its aging?

Is this the age of the body of my Lord,

When he gave it for me?

Old County Road: A True Story

An woman died on this road last month. She skidded on the ice in a snowstorm and unluckily went off of the road into an old quarry. Her car plunged thirty feet, crashed through the ice and sank twenty feet more to the bottom of the quarry. It was a week before the town could bring in divers to pull her out, and that whole week I drove past the quarry on the way to work and on the way home, every day, trying not to think about what I was driving by.

My cat died on this road, too, coincidentally. She’d been run over and was dying, so we brought her to the vet on Old County Road to have her put to sleep. She sank her teeth slowly into my hand and died while the vet was preparing the injection. I drive past the vet’s every day, too.

I try not to think about these things, much less write about them. But as if the black and blue sign for the vet’s and the flowers left on the twisted guardrail weren’t enough, this morning a tow truck was perched on the side of the road like a vulture; haunting the road like an ice cream truck haunts playgrounds, confident that it would soon find customers.

Suddenly as I drove by I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I pulled over to the side of the road. Leaping out of the car I began to run at the tow truck, waving my arms wildly in the air and shouting an exorcism:

“Avaunt, thou vulture,

Thou raven!

Thou albatross!

Begone!”

The driver of the tow truck sipped his coffee and looked at me impassively. I dropped my arms resignedly to my sides and began to turn back to my car. But just then I saw a hazy black shape flap up from the truck and ascend into the sky.

To my friends on the internet.

Love poem for my friends far away, in iambic pentameter.

To all my friends from whom I’m seperate

In flesh, in never having heard your voice,

Or by great distances, or by birthdate.

Brought together gladly, though not by choice

Or purpose, or intention, on our part.

But that there Purpose is, is clearly true.

For you have furrowed soil in my heart

That long lay barren, though I never knew.

To think this very medium’s despised!

And I, embarrased, often hold my tongue

Or speak not loudly of you, dearest friends

For fear of sounding frivolous, or young.

Oh, many by their touch can me console,

But you with words alone have touched my soul.

The Greenhaus Community~Last year’s advent calendar.

“Please take one” ~ Brochures for the Advent calendar
Current mood: Waiting

Welcome to 71/73/77 Green Street: The Greenhaus Community, and to our third annual Advent Calendar. We will be adding a lantern every night, from December 1st to December 24th. Our theme for the calendar this year is The Darkest Night of the Year.

The Darkest Night of the Year

The Winter Solstice and Advent

On December 22nd, in Boston, the sun will rise at 7:11 a.m. and set at 4:15 p.m. It is said that the ancient people watched the nights lengthening, and feared that the sun was dying. Even in our modern times, when we think we understand the movement of the earth and sun, we cannot help but feel oppressed by the encroaching darkness. We have even given this oppression a name: Seasonal Affective Disorder. The ancients offered sacrifices to the sun, we take anti-depressants and buy full spectrum light bulbs. But every year, the sun returns. It rises earlier and sets later each day, even as the winter weather worsens. Somehow, we are saved from the darkness.

The early Christians understood the deep truth behind this salvation. Jesus was probably not born in December – most scholars suggest April as a more likely month. But the Christians understood that there was more to the ancient myths than superstition. The darkening earth reminds us of the darkness of our souls without God. And that is why the shortest days of the year are the perfect time for the season of Advent. Advent means “coming,” – the coming of Christ – and the twenty four days before Christmas are a time of preparation for this coming. As the days shorten, our spirits tell us that without some intervention, we will be lost in the darkness. But that intervention has been given. Christ has come! “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light/ The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” ~from O Little Town of Bethlehem

That is why, in the midst of the darkness of Apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim,

Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death,
victory is ours through him who loved us.

Yours through the darkness,

Greenhaus